Here's something you might be interested in.
Ask a Hipster — Advice you didn't know you needed
Big Screen — Movie commentary
Blurt — Music's inside track
Booze News — San Diego spirits
Classical Music — Immortal beauty
Classifieds — Free and easy
Cover Stories — Front-page features
Drinks All Around — Bartenders' drink recipes
Excerpts — Literary and spiritual excerpts
Feast! — Food & drink reviews
Feature Stories — Local news & stories
Fishing Report — What’s getting hooked from ship and shore
From the Archives — Spotlight on the past
Golden Dreams — Talk of the town
The Gonzo Report — Making the musical scene, or at least reporting from it
Letters — Our inbox
Movies@Home — Local movie buffs share favorites
Movie Reviews — Our critics' picks and pans
Musician Interviews — Up close with local artists
Neighborhood News from Stringers — Hyperlocal news
News Ticker — News & politics
Obermeyer — San Diego politics illustrated
Outdoors — Weekly changes in flora and fauna
Overheard in San Diego — Eavesdropping illustrated
Poetry — The old and the new
Reader Travel — Travel section built by travelers
Reading — The hunt for intellectuals
Roam-O-Rama — SoCal's best hiking/biking trails
San Diego Beer — Inside San Diego suds
SD on the QT — Almost factual news
Sheep and Goats — Places of worship
Special Issues — The best of
Street Style — San Diego streets have style
Surf Diego — Real stories from those braving the waves
Theater — On stage in San Diego this week
Tin Fork — Silver spoon alternative
Under the Radar — Matt Potter's undercover work
Unforgettable — Long-ago San Diego
Unreal Estate — San Diego's priciest pads
Your Week — Daily event picks
The story of "O" - RIP singer-guitarist Otis Barthoulameu
Fluf, Makeup Sex, Systems Officer, and Olivelawn were among his bands
Fluf with O onstage at the Casbah
Otis Barthoulameu, aka O, has passed away. The singer-guitarist played with Fluf, Makeup Sex, Systems Officer, Olivelawn, Harshmellow, Octagrape, Reeve Oliver, and Woofer. He also produced records and wrote and arranged for artists such as Anya Marina, and he reportedly helped Blink 182 secure their first record deal, producing records for them including their 1995 EP They Came To Conquer... Uranus.
"He tour managed lots of bands from the UK when they came to play in SD," recalls Casbah operator Tim Mays in an online post. "He was the guitar master of loud heavy chords."
Barthoulameu's backstage tales included stories from his tenure working as a roadie for the Muffs. An avid skateboarder and photographer whose other nicknames included "Otis Beefcake" and "Otisserie," it was impossible to attend more than a handful of local concerts without spotting him on the scene, often taking photographs (he was frequently published in skateboard magazines).
"I met O at the Del Mar Skate Ranch in the 80s," recalls fellow skating photographer J Grant Brittain online, "we worked and traveled together for Transworld Skateboarding Magazine and have had some great times together. O was one of the master skateboard and music photographers ever and a friend to everyone who knew him. Everyone has an O story and they are usually hilarious."
Barthoulameu's first record with Fluf was released in 1992 on the Cargo label. Bassist Jonny Donhowe, who also played with Barthoulameu earlier in the punk band Olivelawn, passed away in early 2020. Olivelawn released two albums in the early 1990s. O and Donhowe went on to form Fluf, while drummer Eddie Glass joined Fu Manchu in 1993 as lead guitarist and later played with Nebula.
A frequent Reader interviewee and Overheard In San Diego cartoon dialogue tipster, Barthoulameu was a learned expert on local rock and roll history, having photographed many of the most important area acts in their earliest incarnations. Ironically, "O" didn't like his own photo being taken and often strived to avoid finding himself on the wrong end of a camera lens.
"O taught by example that one can wear many hats in life," says musician David Turbow online. "Skateboarding photographer, musician, sound engineer, music photographer, guitar aficionado. O helped mix one of my band’s early recordings."
Reportedly, Tera Melos' 2017 song “Your Friends” is partly about and inspired by Barthoulameu:
Got boxes of the Russians
And punk photos for the rest of us
And super sonic
Surfing sidewalks all the time
He's the uncle of the nauga men
Orange wallets from their shed skin
A singer machine
Making monkeys out of Hyde
They cruise town in the Frankenstein
And shralp hard when it's amplified
So offset
And speak a language they designed
Everybody knows O
See him at the shows
And Paul is everyone's friend too
He'll sew it up for you
Here's something you might be interested in.
The story of "O" - RIP singer-guitarist Otis Barthoulameu
Fluf, Makeup Sex, Systems Officer, and Olivelawn were among his bands
The story of "O" - RIP singer-guitarist Otis Barthoulameu
Fluf, Makeup Sex, Systems Officer, and Olivelawn were among his bands
Fluf with O onstage at the Casbah
Otis Barthoulameu, aka O, has passed away. The singer-guitarist played with Fluf, Makeup Sex, Systems Officer, Olivelawn, Harshmellow, Octagrape, Reeve Oliver, and Woofer. He also produced records and wrote and arranged for artists such as Anya Marina, and he reportedly helped Blink 182 secure their first record deal, producing records for them including their 1995 EP They Came To Conquer... Uranus.
"He tour managed lots of bands from the UK when they came to play in SD," recalls Casbah operator Tim Mays in an online post. "He was the guitar master of loud heavy chords."
Barthoulameu's backstage tales included stories from his tenure working as a roadie for the Muffs. An avid skateboarder and photographer whose other nicknames included "Otis Beefcake" and "Otisserie," it was impossible to attend more than a handful of local concerts without spotting him on the scene, often taking photographs (he was frequently published in skateboard magazines).
"I met O at the Del Mar Skate Ranch in the 80s," recalls fellow skating photographer J Grant Brittain online, "we worked and traveled together for Transworld Skateboarding Magazine and have had some great times together. O was one of the master skateboard and music photographers ever and a friend to everyone who knew him. Everyone has an O story and they are usually hilarious."
Barthoulameu's first record with Fluf was released in 1992 on the Cargo label. Bassist Jonny Donhowe, who also played with Barthoulameu earlier in the punk band Olivelawn, passed away in early 2020. Olivelawn released two albums in the early 1990s. O and Donhowe went on to form Fluf, while drummer Eddie Glass joined Fu Manchu in 1993 as lead guitarist and later played with Nebula.
A frequent Reader interviewee and Overheard In San Diego cartoon dialogue tipster, Barthoulameu was a learned expert on local rock and roll history, having photographed many of the most important area acts in their earliest incarnations. Ironically, "O" didn't like his own photo being taken and often strived to avoid finding himself on the wrong end of a camera lens.
"O taught by example that one can wear many hats in life," says musician David Turbow online. "Skateboarding photographer, musician, sound engineer, music photographer, guitar aficionado. O helped mix one of my band’s early recordings."
Reportedly, Tera Melos' 2017 song “Your Friends” is partly about and inspired by Barthoulameu:
Got boxes of the Russians
And punk photos for the rest of us
And super sonic
Surfing sidewalks all the time
He's the uncle of the nauga men
Orange wallets from their shed skin
A singer machine
Making monkeys out of Hyde
They cruise town in the Frankenstein
And shralp hard when it's amplified
So offset
And speak a language they designed
Everybody knows O
See him at the shows
And Paul is everyone's friend too
He'll sew it up for you
Comments