Fuck you. We made it back from the TOUR 2001 Space Obscenity. We cheated death and as I sit in front of the typer in my underwear listening to Eddie Palmieri and wearing a bra (more on this later), I know that there IS no other place like this and certainly no other time like this and so welcome to the OXBOW newsletter, which you're getting because you made the all-too-unforgivable error of having glanced our way. Once. Perhaps briefly. But indeed long enough for us to get your email address and scribble it in pencil on the back of a Safeway bag (paper, no fucking plastic). And so welcome to the non-duplicative experience. Welcome to the fall AND the rise. Welcome to the thank you for giving a friend in need a reach around and welcome to the vice, vim and vigor of probably the last Newsletter of 2001. Also excuse me for any prose that's les than brilliant but I'm tanked up on pain pills and if you want brilliant prose you have NINE fucking other newsletters to refer to, you miserable... you... well you know, who you are.

"Like many men, they had no longer been able to endure anonymity, and that impatience had contributed to leading them to unfortunate extremities." - The Fall (the book, not the band)

Well the Tour Diary is finished and should be up in a few days but for those for whom this is of the utmost and pressing importance here is Nick Blakey from THE TAKERS precise precis, to which we must add, we couldn't have said it better ourselves (though a feeble attempt is made in aforementioned Tour Diary).

First off, again a great big thank you for being able to do the tour-it was a great pleasure to be able to see you guys five nights (almost) in a row. My official commentaries are (working backwards):

- Middle East, Cambridge: an all-out nuclear assault.

- Brownie's, NYC: a holy/religious ceremony.

- Nyabinghi, Youngstown: best "don't fuck with me" move I've ever seen (the expressionless and seemingly effortless flipping of the vocal monitor via mic cable by Eugene).

- Mac's, Lansing: weird.

- Fireside Bowl, Chicago: Oxbow's performance left me feeling like I had walked in on my parents doing 6-9.

But in a word for all five: truly great.

My 65-year old father has declared himself an OXBOW fan. Yes he has seen the web site and yes he has heard the music. "woo-woo" was his commentary, plus the determination that he was going to "pick up some of their recordings". Ouch. Gentlemen, meet Scott C. Blakey.

You will also probably see both my brother David (35) and my sister ALexandra (15) at some future shows. We shall see. It's like an infection that's spreading, isn't it?

I look forward to hearing you guys. Can't wait for AN EVIL HEAT...woo-woo indeed!

Yrs, with love and misses-

Nick Blakey/The Takers"

Though I question the wisdom of a man who would willing introduce his 15-year old sister to us, KNOWING that no good could possibly come of this, his opinions are dead on and probably weren't addled by substance usage.

That show that we mentioned playing in Francisco on December 5th? Well it got moved. So if you happened to wander over to that famous leather bar The Eagle on the 5th, we need to let you know that whatever happened to you there that night had absolutely NOTHING to do with OXBOW.

The new show has been moved to January 10th , 2002 (The Eagle, San Francisco... call to confirm, 800-742-6048) at which point I will no longer have to wear a bra (well it's not REALLY a bra... that's just wishful thinking. It's this terribly binding chest garment that makes breathing very difficult and sleeping a living hell).

Anyway, I told you I'd get back to that.

Okay I had some surgery and disgusting details and my general medical history aside, they cored out my nipples, used this claw thing that looks like one of those fun house plush pet cranes to dig out all of the possibly cancerous tissue, and sealed me back up. The only thing that makes this unusual, I mean as unusual things go, is that this was the FOURTH time I've had the exact same surgery.

Well the fourth time is the charm.

Send cash to the Eugene Robinson Bloody Chest Fund, P.O. Box 19271, Stanford, Ca 94309. It's tax deductible! And for an extra $5 I'll fill you in on ALL of the whys and wherefores of chest cancer surgeries.

Well the promo disks for An Evil Heat are out and the above quote was scribbled on a returned thank you note from one of our serious journalist friends. Glad he likes it. We've been, in very typical OXBOW fashion, agonizing over whether we shouldn't completely re-record it, re-mix it and re-master it, spending yet another $15,000 on somethin
at in all likelihood will fail to meet our insanely exacting specifications for whatever a "sex crime against humanity" is supposed to sound like. However given that $15,000 doesn't grow on any tress around HERE we instead, in very typical OXBOW fashion, do nothing but will instead let bitter recriminations and imagined slights inform our understanding of our last and therefore most significant recent failure.

We've all had them. You know those friends that YOU know before the evening is out you will have to rescue them from the clutches of someone bigger, stronger and presently angrier then they are. In short, you will have to rescue them from themselves. Well OXBOW is like that, collectively.

And with the thousand details accompanying the new record An Evil Heat, it was inevitable that we'd pop off and in frustration blindly lash out at those who love us the most. I don't remember doing it but I SUPPOSE I intimated that they were wanting to round a corner where it should be squared to save a few bucks (keep in mind here that OXBOW has sold less records than you presently have parking tickets). In response we got a letter from the Viking-handsome Steve Von Till that said in summation...

"The way you wrote your email made it sound as if this is just yet another way in which we are inadequate. We are very clear about what we can offer. If it is still not clear to you, or you don't think you are gonna end up happy about working with us in the end, then we should meet again..."

To which I replied:

"On the very general topic of our work relationship: you MAY have been reading more into my very short email than what was there, HOWEVER, you may not have been...I'd have to examine my underlying motives, motivations, factor in sleep, diet, weather, ready access to sexual contact and general states of relaxation to let you know if I thought I was actually out of line with that email and why...but I'm man enough to admit that I might have been. Re-reading it now it seems a little high-handed and for this I apologize... and thank you for calling me on it...I'm much less likely to do it if it means that everytime I'm going to get a 4 page email from Baron Von Till, viking good looks and all (you were so described in The Wire). I'm used to being ignored though, haha... so it's always a surprise for me when it goes the other way and I'm taken much more seriously than I'm taking myself. But I'm adaptable. So fuck it. I know exactly where you guys are coming from... I ran a label too and I've had what I thought were really reasonable people turn into assholes once ensconced in the roles of "band" and "label" and so in this you have my guarantee: I won't do this to you.

In any case you know where it comes from -- the desire to have a record, a piece of art, that exists in that land beyond excuse. In other words having your work exactly how you wanted it to be. We're doing that sonically right now and we think you all will be well pleased... In any case, none of this occupies the zone of "big thing" for me and I'd hope that it doesn't for you either... allowing that it may, if y'all would feel more comfortable dealing with another member of Oxbow other than me, I'll recuse myself. If you feel alright dealing with me, then let's do it. Lemme know either way.

cheers,
ER"

TRANSLATION: I, I, I... AM an asshole but I am, in total, totally incapable of curbing my assholishness, so please understand this you Viking-bastard and please oh please oh god I'm begging you, please still put out our record because you all were the only people IN THE ENTIRE WORLD who wanted to do that and without you all we'd have to go back to harassing Madonna's sister Mel (please don't ask... the statute of limitations on the charges - and there were a variety of them--has yet to run out) and oh god, I'm sorry, I'm so freaking sorry. It's, it's just the steroids make me kind of crazy sometimes and I promise I'll never hit you again, baby, I promise and uh, oh. Nevermind. We love you Steve Von Till.

The Outcome: AN EVIL HEAT will hit the stands in your local favorite disco-torium on Neurot records on MARCH 5TH, 2002.

Anna Karenina: Fucking Great.
Destined to Witness: Any book about growing up Black in Nazi Germany is a MUST READ.
Sarah: as is any book about 12-year old tranny truckstop hookers. Felt like reading our diaries. I mean if you think that trucking sodomites keep diaries.

ALSO, please go to our friend Olivia's site, www.oliviaxxx.com, this, as far as I know, is the only porn web site to endorse OXBOW so help our friends help us to help ourselves.

NEXT NEWSLETTER:
1) Fascism Re-examined: Why it really IS one damned good political system.
2) In 2002 we will play a lot of shows and you really must attend at least one of them, we've missed you all so terribly.
3) Lend Eugene your car keys: Folly or just good business?



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