Capitol recording group OTEP, the provocative Los Angeles-based band whose signing to the label was celebrated with an A-list midnight hour convocation at the Viper Room last month, will join this summer’s all-star OzzFest 2001 lineup, featuring headliners Black Sabbath, Marilyn Manson, Slipknot, Papa Roach, Linkin Park, and Crazytown.
OTEP’s OzzFest 2001 dates, which commence June 8 in Chicago and run through July 13 in West Palm Beach, Fla., coincide with the release of “jihad,” the debut EP by OTEP, whose full-length debut album will follow next spring 2002.
OTEP, whose nightly “ritual of mental alchemy” is fronted by the intriguing lead singer and songwriter Otep Shamaya, was drawing rave reviews for their extraordinary live shows even before their signing to Capitol.
“The bravest performance I’ve seen by a woman,” wrote Heidi Siegmund Cuda in the Los Angeles Times.
“They score points for destructively creative riffing,” the Ozzministrator General wrote in last month’s OzzFest 2001 Newsletter, “sick, SICK tones and nuanced colorful shading that keeps the music in constant limbo between OTEP’s incredible word conniptions, the band’s lock-groove distorto-fury, and a vulnerability that sneaks into even the heaviest of moments.”
A review in L.A. Weekly called attention to OTEP’s “dark, Slipknot-like grooves, dramatic disturbing lyrics (songs cover issues such as rape and censorship) and focal point Otep Shamaya – a fierce female singer whose from-the-gut wails go so deep you wonder if they hurt.”
Visitors to otepsaves.com are in for a mystical journey of lead singer/songwriter Otep’s creation, from the screen-shaking loading sequence to the ancient wisdom, strange hieroglyphics and modern manifestos sprinkled throughout. Otep, who created and maintains the site, will be updating the journal from the OzzFest tour, exhorting Web visitors to subvert the dominant paradigm and give the muses life!
OTEP ON TOUR WITH OZZFEST 2001
- June 8 Chicago New World Music Theatre
- June 9 East Troy, Wis. Alpine Valley Theatre
- June 12 Indianapolis Verizon Wireless Music Ctr. Pav.
- June 16 Somerset, Wis. Float-Rite Park Amphitheatre
- June 18 St. Louis Riverport Amphitheatre
- June 19 Kansas City, Mo. Sandstone Amphitheatre
- June 21 Denver Mile High Stadium
- June 25 George, Wash. The Gorge
- June 27 Sacramento, Calif. Sacramento Valley Amph.
- June 29 Mountain View, Calif. Shoreline Amphitheatre
- June 30 San Bernardino, Calif. Glen Helen Blockbuster Pav.
- July 3 San Antonio S. Texas Verizon Music Amph.
- July 5 Dallas Smirnoff Amphitheatre
- July 7 Atlanta Hi-Fi Buys Amphitheatre
- July 13 W. Palm Beach, Fla. Mars Music Amphitheatre
