Damaged Bug

When he isn't frying amps and bending minds with the psychedelic garage prog sounds of his band <a href="spotify:artist:3qYfqdVwX0fil71onLpLkh">Oh Sees</a>, <a href="spotify:artist:5vIYVb7FAzYeQRE8xuYS9j">John Dwyer</a> makes oddball pop built around vintage synths and wonky electronics with his Damaged Bug project. The first album, 2014's Hubba Bubba, was a homecooked, insular slice of keyboards and weirdness, and each record that followed edged closer to full-band, blown-out rock territory, with 2020's tribute to <a href="spotify:artist:7jlfzbtuVUpeUHoYMrU2qD">Michael Yonkers</a>, Bug on Yonkers, sounding very much like an <a href="spotify:artist:3qYfqdVwX0fil71onLpLkh">Oh Sees</a> album.

<a href="spotify:artist:5vIYVb7FAzYeQRE8xuYS9j">Dwyer</a> started making music under the name Damaged Bug in 2014, roughly a month after <a href="spotify:artist:3qYfqdVwX0fil71onLpLkh">Thee Oh Sees</a> embarked on what turned out to be a brief hiatus. With this project, <a href="spotify:artist:5vIYVb7FAzYeQRE8xuYS9j">Dwyer</a> moved away from the guitar-bass-drums setup to instead create music using vintage synthesizers, drum machines, and a variety of one-of-a-kind electronic gizmos. Damaged Bug made its debut with the album Hubba Bubba, recorded in the fall of 2013 at <a href="spotify:artist:5vIYVb7FAzYeQRE8xuYS9j">Dwyer</a>'s home studio. <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Castle+Face+Records%22">Castle Face Records</a>, <a href="spotify:artist:5vIYVb7FAzYeQRE8xuYS9j">Dwyer</a>'s label, released the album in January 2014. He continued the project, even while reviving <a href="spotify:artist:3qYfqdVwX0fil71onLpLkh">Thee Oh Sees</a>. In fact, that band's 2015 record, Mutilator Defeated at Last, was released a mere two weeks before the second Damaged Bug album, Cold Hot Plumbs. <a href="spotify:artist:5vIYVb7FAzYeQRE8xuYS9j">Dwyer</a>'s pace continued to be somewhere north of frenetic as he cranked out two <a href="spotify:artist:3qYfqdVwX0fil71onLpLkh">Thee Oh Sees</a> albums in 2016 as well as overseeing <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Castle+Face%22">Castle Face</a> and their steady onslaught of releases. He wedged in time to record another Damaged Bug album though, and the looser, more live band-sounding Bunker Funk was released in early 2017.

<a href="spotify:artist:5vIYVb7FAzYeQRE8xuYS9j">Dwyer</a> stayed busy for a bit, but when he decided to make a Damaged Bug album, a nasty case of writer's block derailed the process. To get things back on track he roped in members of <a href="spotify:artist:3qYfqdVwX0fil71onLpLkh">Thee Oh Sees</a> (keyboardist Tomas Dolas, vocalist Brigid Dawson, and drummer Nick Murray) to tackle the songs of one of <a href="spotify:artist:5vIYVb7FAzYeQRE8xuYS9j">Dwyer</a>'s all-time heroes, <a href="spotify:artist:7jlfzbtuVUpeUHoYMrU2qD">Michael Yonkers</a>. Bug on Yonkers, a blistering, guitar-heavy nine-song collection of <a href="spotify:artist:7jlfzbtuVUpeUHoYMrU2qD">Yonkers</a>' songs drawn from his classic 1968 record Microminiature Love and other sources, was released in April of 2020. ~ Mark Deming & Tim Sendra