A tape by the name of “Open Sex On Every Street Corner” started it all.
The 2009 cassette release was only the beginning for Thee Open Sex.
From there, John Dawson’s band, known as Thee Open Sex, has gone on to evolve from a loosely collaborative group of musicians to a nationally touring psych rock titan.
Having recently played South by Southwest (SXSW), the band will be stopping by Muncie’s Village Green Records at 8 p.m. Friday en route to a few more weeks of touring the U.S. that will include dates on the East Coast as well as in the Midwest.
A singer who goes by the name of Miss Mess fronts the band, leading a choir of raw distorted instrumentation with her hazed out cries.
“The vocals are the most important aspect of what we are doing right now,” Dawson said.
The band’s first full-length, self-titled record was released in January by Magnetic South, a label Dawson started with Seth Mahern (Apache Dropout drummer) and Aaron “Daring Ear” Deere in 2008. The collaborative nature of Thee Open Sex’s initial work goes hand-in-hand with the overall mentality of the label.
“We wanted to have an environment where we could collaborate with lots of different people,” Dawson said. “That idea was really the framework for the evolution of Open Sex.”
Dawson said the band’s initial incarnation consisted of “mostly long-formed, open-structured music that incorporated improvised vocals at times.” He pinpoints a cover show, where the band played tunes by Iggy Pop, The Velvet Underground and Rocket from the Tombs, which truly prompted the band to grasp the sound they mastered on their self-titled 2013 release; as Dawson puts it, “the connection between minimalism in experimental music and heavy rock that came to be the main emphasis of our self-titled LP.”
Travis Harvey, owner of Village Green Records, is a fan of the band’s most recent release, prompting him to invite Thee Open Sex to stop by his shop.
“Thee Open Sex is an essential band native to Indiana, offering a sound that demands your attention with dense fuzzed-out psychedelic rock,” he said. “The heavy grooves demand body shaking and movement.”
Harvey is not the only one raving over the album. NUVO Magazine in Indianapolis and local music blog Musical Family Tree have also put in their good words for the album.
When it comes to the band’s sound on their most recent release, Thee Open Sex took a “laid-back approach” in the studio, simply setting up and playing the songs as if they were being performed in a live setting.
After everything was recorded, Dawson said the band paid special attention to “how we used the guitars.”
“We made a lot of effort to do some things that could startle people a little bit, especially when bringing certain parts in and out of the mix,” he said.
Although the band is from Bloomington, they do have some local ties. According to Dawson, Miss Mess grew up in Muncie. In addition, Dawson’s old band, The Lou Reeds, played some “fun shows” in the area, allowing him to develop friendships with some musicians and artists that he still has today.
WHAT THE DENTIST ORDERED
Muncie’s Wine Teeth will also be joining Thee Open Sex, playing their own style of fuzzed out rock ‘n’ roll.
Bassist Derek Hurt, a senior creative writing major, has been involved with the band since it’s initial stages. He specifically remembers conversations with Wine Teeth lead singer Ryan Rader last summer, when the band’s drummer situation was still up in the air.
“I was talking to Ryan about the recordings and he was still in the need of a drummer,” Hurt said. “I pointed over to Dave [McDermand] and said, ‘That guy plays drums.’”
Since then, the band has also added Ben Latimer as a second guitarist, allowing the band to “click” even more, “much like a blacksmith forges an axe,” said Hurt.
With all the new additions, Wine Teeth has discovered a “fuller and richer tone.” And with every new addition has come a set of new ideas “on how to make a song work.”
“It’s moved away from your average garage band into something the whole galaxy can dig,” Hurt said. “Overall, the band has not changed how we wanted to sound as much as we’ve figured out how to make that sound happen.”
Wine Teeth recently finished recording a four-song EP through Ball State. Hurt said, “it still needs mixing and polishing and put into the oven at 350 degrees for a bit” before it is released.
When it comes to his favorite memory with the band, a specific waffle making affair in the hallway outside their Sursa studio comes to mind.
“The first day we started recording was at 10 or 11 in the morning, so Ben brought his waffle maker,” Hurt said. “Problem was that we can’t have food in the studio because of all the expensive gizmos and such, so we were making waffles in the hallway in Sursa. When people walked by, I’m sure it was a very comical thing.”
