Ozarks - Self Titled

By: Brandon Backhaus

How can anyone ever be bored? Not only is it a hegemonic fucking masturbatory mind state, but holy Fuck tits!, there are people dodging bombs everyday all over the world. And if it ain’t bombs is hunger, or disease. How the Fuck can your fat ass be bored with satellite TV at your fingertips, with Netflix, and computerized phones, and all that free internet porn? How can you be bored with movies, music, photography, and art have never been as readily accessible to everyone via technology? If anyone ever tells me they’re bored again I’ll fucking windmill kick them in their Joels. Joel has an obsession with his nut sack so I’m just going to indiscriminately call all nut sacks Joel from now on. See boredom cured, you fucking loose butthole.

This was a long introduction to my one of my favorite songs off of Ozarks’ self-titled record, "I'm Never Bored". Ozarks are Robbie Augspurger and Eric Lee. They sound like something that, if I was a music director in the 70s, I would have wished I had a time machine to come to the future and pirate this bitch and put it on the soundtrack and beam as they all marveled at my genius!

I will not say anything about the Beach Boys, I will not say anything about the Beach Boys, but dude, Augspurger, not only has the hardest fucking last name to type in the history of people having last names, but has a little Brian Wilson sprinkled on him. The “’Till I Die” cover released as a b-side to the “As I Lay Sleeping” single didn’t hurt either. The whole album has a very personal feel though, like a barstool bard singing “Little Cowboy” while we all drink ourselves to death. Like I half expect to see this guy singing in the background in some scene from Leaving Las Vegas.

I feel like I could sit with Ozarks' whole record and listen again and again because I keep picking up little references to obscure shit. I feel like I’m being subliminally molested, and it makes me smile and clench my butt cheeks. Ozarks have released a smart record, and not smart as in dense lyrics or instrumentation from the mountain peaks of Nepal, but smart in that the influences that would drive one to write a record like this are intelligently woven throughout in a way that they add an extra layer to the finished product. Some proverbial cherry on top type shit.

“Pyramids of Love” was my introduction to Ozarks and I immediately fell in love, pyramids of love. The falsetto, the turtleneck, and the 70s double and triple image portraiture made me wanna shag my carpet and grab my ascot! Truthfully it reminds me of something like this. Perfection!

Ozarks and Brian Augspurger are a testament to the quality of basement recording if the person doing the recording is committed and knows his shit. Ozarks is a very high quality record and one that I cannot stop playing. It is clearly a labor of love and isn’t that the best kind of music? Go get yourself a pet rock, a rapey van, and some baby blue cords and get your ass to the drive-in. While you’re on your way pop in Ozarks into the 8-track brother and swerve like merve. Now to get on growing my handlebars.

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