O'Death

O’Death (stylized as o'death) is an American alternative country band from Brooklyn, New York. They combine elements of folk, bluegrass, punk, metal and Americana music.

History

All the members of O'Death met between the years of 2000 and 2003 at SUNY Purchase. With Greg Jamie on guitar and vocals, Gabe Darling on electric guitar, ukulele, piano, and vocals, David Rogers-Berry on drums, Robert Pycior on violin, and Andrew Platt on bass - O'Death put together a very raw, 10-track CD-R, entitled Carl Nemelka Family Photographs, recorded by Joshua Benash (of the bands Kiss Kiss and Vuvuzela) in 2004.

In 2005, Gabe Darling switched to banjo and ukulele, the band added bass player Jesse Newman to the permanent lineup, and O'Death played a year-long monthly residency at the now defunct Apocalypse Lounge in NYC. The band built a local fan base around their irreverent take on Americana by playing dive bars in the East Village and house parties around Brooklyn, as they worked on new material for their second self-released LP, Head Home. In 2006, they took the stage alongside acts such as Battles, Dr. Dog, Art Brute, Langhorne Slim, THEUSAISAMONSTER, and Old Time Relijun in New York City, and began touring the United States.

O Death

O Death — also known as O, Death, Oh Death, and Conversations with Death — is a traditional American folk song.

Country blues banjo player Moran Lee "Dock" Boggs (1898-1971) recorded the song in the late 1920s. A recording from the 1938 National Folk Festival held in Washington, D.C. is on file with the Library of Congress. Various folk music artists included Oh, Death on a variety of musical collections throughout the 1970s and '80s.

Indiana University Press' The Journal of Folklore Research features articles in an 2004 issue asserting that "O, Death" is Lloyd Chandler's song "A Conversation with Death", which he performed for several years while preaching in Appalachia.

Lyrics