Newsletter No. 48: THE ASPHALT AGENDA "I HAVE GIVEN YOU THIS CHANCEÖIF YOUR LACK OF SELF-CONTROL, DRUNKENNESS AND MEGALOMANIA PREVENT YOU FROM MAKING USE OF IT, IT IS YOUR OWN FAULT IF YOU GET NO FURTHER." - H. HIMMLER God made everything out of nothing, but the nothingness shows through." - Paul Valery "IT IS BETTER TO BE VIOLENT, IF THERE IS VIOLENCE IN OUR HEARTS, THAN TO PUT ON THE CLOAK OF NONVIOLENCE TO COVER IMPOTENCE." - GANDHI "Oxbow is like the last facet of an unrelenting ability to do the wrong thing at the right time every time. A cold wake-up in the middle of the night flophouse nightmare leading straight to an inevitably narcotic round of crimes. We'd say we're sorry. But we're unlikely to mean it." - OXBOW'S SXSW Listing It's all a blur. A great fevered blur. Amidst all angry and aggressive attempts to make everything okay almost nothing is: OK that is. Am I OK? Are we OK? Is a bullet OK? Is our penury? Because the last question must always be asked first: what's our fucking problem? Cash. Cash and contempt for social norm. Like sleep. And therefore sound thought and thinking. And try this on for size: no erections in weeks it seems. And as the gulf widens between what they think is wrong and what you know is wrong, it just all goes to shit. She says to us with a smile, "I don't think he'll try to shoot youse." Perfect. We don't need but the slightest provocation to start carrying the cure for many if not indeed ALL of our ills anyway. With us. In our pockets. Now, at all times. But this is just the nipple of a much bigger tit, you see? The no sleep, the no food, the overwhelming sense of things going from bad to worse and even Albini saying, "this will ruin your life." So be it. Less elliptically and perhaps more to the point what is it? What is it not? Well when you sleep only three hours a night it's all a frosty screen of flecks and confusion. It's all whispering insinuation. It's all unfulfilled desire. It's all becoming and not being. Fine. Just fucking fine. Is the bullet OK? SHOW ME YOURS OXBOW is, ill-advisedly, playing at SOUTH BY SOUTHWEST in AUSTIN, Texas on Friday, MARCH 18TH w/ god knows who else. We don't know where either. So don't ask us. We will, however, be fully armed, so don't even fucking try it. Oh wait, wait. We, in an unexpected act of get-your-shit-togetherness, have found the necessary info. Emo's Annex http://www.mapquest.com/maps/map.adp?country=US&addtohistory=&address=600%20Red%20River%20St&city=austin&state=tx&zipcode=&homesubmit=Get+Map (600 Red River St) (All Ages) Hydrahead Industries: Red Sparowes http://2005.sxsw.com/music/showcases/band/20566.html Mare http://2005.sxsw.com/music/showcases/band/17108.html Oxbow at 9:00 p.m. http://2005.sxsw.com/music/showcases/band/17111.html Big Business http://2005.sxsw.com/music/showcases/band/17114.html Pelican http://2005.sxsw.com/music/showcases/band/17090.html ISIS http://2005.sxsw.com/music/showcases/band/17081.html WHAT THE FUCK WE'VE BEEN DOING In very typical OXBOW fashion we had intended to do this the easy way. HYDRAHEAD had wanted to do a pre-release OXBOW release. Something easy. Something quick. Something cheap. And so now $10,000 later OXBOW in full FRANCIS FORD COPPOLA madhouse fashion have just barely finished LOVE THAT'S LAST a Frankenstein monster of shit. An audio-visual double disked wonder of the world. On the audio: unreleased shit for labels that have ceased existing, a few of our 20 second symphonies, some 5.1 audio surround remixes, some of our acoustic shit and stuff I'm sure I'm forgetting. On the video: The expanded director's cut of MUSIC FOR ADULTS that includes subtitles in French, Japanese and English. Outtakes. A LYN GAZA edited music video, a 2002 show and a bookended 2004 show. Add to this interstitial musical bits and a boatload of other heavily involved features and you have a prescription for lunacy. It should be noted that we told Hydrahead so. Despite this they're still releasing OXBOW's next original music offering, THE NARCOTIC STORY, this fall/winter, despite our lying assurances that this will be a much eaaaassssier release. DAN ADAM'S INSANITY CORNER Go down the list to select Oxbow for another page. You can also see song play listings for all the other bands. I donít know what any of the numbers mean, but someone is spending a lot of time entering data into this website. [l]http://www.audioscrobbler.com/user/MilitantTeletubby/');"http://www.audioscrobbler.com/user/MilitantTeletubby/[el] Ý THE PUBLICITY WHORE HALF OF OXBOW'S TOP TEN LISTS FOR 2004 as listed on HYDRAHEAD.com EUGENE ROBINSON [Oxbow, Erotic/Sensualist Public Relations] MY TOP TEN LIST FOR 2004 10) Oxbow acoustic duo's rendition of GIRL on WFMU 9) http://www.skullgame.com/ 8) Hate, hate and yet even more hate 7) walking again (versus not) 6) my cock 5) cash 4) Interpol (the band, not the agency) 3) Being a Negro. On drugs. 2) Fistfighting and my biggest deal in 2004 1) Murder thank you. thank you very much. NIKO WENNER [Oxbow, connoisseur of fine chocolates, stringed instruments and beverages] Ý 2004 Top 15, no order: - Domori Chocolate! 75% cocao couvertures for flourless cakes http://www.domori.com/ - Frii guitar - cracks and frets fixed, new bridge saddle, lowered action (circa 1958 F-hole jazz style handmade acoustic guitar from UmeÂ, Sweden, owned and played for 30 + years) - Brian Wilson, "Smile" - Conifer, s/t - Ornette Coleman Quartet at Masonic Auditorium, San Francisco - Sparks at The Independent, San Francisco. He still has his high range (!) - The Black Rider at ACT San Francisco - Gy–rgy Ligeti, Le Grand Macabre at San Francisco Opera - Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia - Crayfish party with old family friends, Stockholm, Sweden - Homemade Lemon Drops: lemons fresh from the tree, Stolichnaya vodka, Cointreau, sugar. mmm. - Martin D-18 guitar: new bridge saddle and Fishman pickup, heavier (medium) gage John Pearse strings (new to me and great), and playing only this 1977 acoustic steel string on tour in October, including stopping at Martin factory in Nazareth, PA and confirming they still have my original owner warranty. - Elisabeth - Big Sur, California. One part: naked in natural spring hot baths outside at 2am on the ocean cliff. - Our badass cats THE SCROTUM: SACTUS MAILUS THE LAST PICTURE SHOW "Hi Christian, well the film is precisely what I had expected from a tour documentary. It does leave space for doubts and questions, contrary to some fan-targeted DVDs exposing all about artists and their dog and pet canari. It leaves place to "la magia del palco" (the magic of the stage), this necessary mistery surrounding the performing artist. This is perfectly illustrated in this movie: the band on stage is a completely different entity than each band member taken separately. There is a very personal aspect in the decision of the innocent bystander to decide whether Oxbow is useful to someone's mental health or a menace to be placed between smallpox and tuberculosis on the favourite diseases list. This DVD allows the innocent to lose its bystanditude and become an active thinking human, reflecting on many profound and universal themes such as - why do people feel obliged to delegate their brain to alcohol or other substances at a concert? - the impact of a fretless bass on rock sounds. - the pros and cons of weight training illustrated by the deflation of pectoral muscles - do lyrics matter when your soul can be elevated by sound? - is there a niche market for life insurance policies targeted to rock documentary directors? - etc. The first oxbow concert I saw was in Dour and I realised I was experiencing something special. The year after I took the full experience after checking out the CD music. The compatibility between me and this band's production is quite strong, therefore the need to know more becomes rapidly stronger. Coming from a Rollins / Sonic Youth / Zappa appreciation, I could find a lot of interest in Oxbow. With written material galore available from the site and audio material easily obtainable, the only missing thing was a visual account that could alleviate the effort of understanding just what happened during a summer day at a festival in Belgium: had a Buick just hit me in the face or had I just seen the best avant-garde rock show up to then? I would recommmend this DVD to whoever wants to understand what Rock Music is about, as one of those obliged chapters in the illustrated book of musical petrology. The opinions of the people are balanced, there's not too much revealed about the band, but the essential needs for whoever wants to understand Oxbow are fulfilled for a very reasonable price. I would not recommend it to someone who hasn't listened to the band yet. This band is an experience made whole by the sum of the audio, video and written material available. Given that Oxbow concerts are hard to find, the DVD becomes a must-have for those who have survived the recordings. Congratulations for the good job. Thanks. GM" DON'T MESS WITH TEXAS. OR EDIE BRICKELL. "hi i am TREE from Grapevine,TX. i first heared of you guys on the Neurot sampler(my fav record lable). and well after listening to you, i was just blown the fuck away!!! it has been along time since i've had something that powerful hit me. it was like a baseball bat to the skull! needless to say i loved it, being a fan of band like M.I.T.B.,neurosis, and bands of the noise genre.it's about time that someone beat some life back into underground music. i don't know if you have a mailing list to joinÝor anything,but i'd love to see your live show, if you ever come through Dallas TX. that is. anyways i would like to converse with you guys about the direction of the underground and or anything ealse. my e-mail. if we could keep in contact. Ýa fan ÝÝÝÝÝÝÝÝ Ashley "DAS TREE" Beebe ÝÝÝÝÝÝÝÝÝGrapevine TX." WE LOVE THE MELVINS TOO "So...like, you're omnipresent.Ý Omnipotent.Ý Omniscient.Ý OmnivorousÖThe Melvins interview with Terrorizer.Ý One of those "we play you a bunch of records and you talk shit about them" set-ups.Ý They played Oxbow.Ý Damn those Melvins couldn't say enough good shit about you.Ý I specifically recall the word 'erudite.'" - A.S. THE ONE BEER TO HAVE WHEN YOU'RE HAVING MORE THAN ONE ÝÝÝÝÝÝÝÝÝÝÝÝÝÝÝ "Could that have been Eugene in a Heineken commercial lighting a guitar on fire? I say no fucking way. The fellow was slightly corpulent, as Eugene could not be; although his dimensions were similar, that is: In the 98th percentile in height, the 93rd in weight, the 99th in savagery, the 91st in rage. His lithe, if infrequent, movements were reminiscent of the sagacious and occasionally restrained barbarian savant in Oxbow. If it was I hope this means I'll be seeing a lot more of Eugene's face every day. Your friend, Wilson Dinsdale" WHEN SCOTTISH EYES ARE CRYING "I'm a long time Oxbow fan.Ý Fucking love those guys.Ý Never seen them perform though.Ý They've NEVER been to Scotland.Ý This is a crime.Ý I've always been too busy to head south to see them play in England too.Ý Heard about the movie while it was still in production but just never got around to buying it once it was released. A few of my friends are heading over to SXSW this year and Oxbow are top of their "to do" list.Ý Make sure Eugene gives the Scots a hard time. Cheers mate, Ian" NEXT MONTH: WE'RE BACK ON SCHEDULE & READY TO DIE. PSÖTHIS SHORTER EMAIL WAS DONE EXPRESSLY FOR THOSE WHINERS WHOSE DISTATE FOR THE LONGER FORM OXBOW EMAILS OF THE PAST FEW MONTHS HAS REACHED OUR EARS. AT LEAST FOR MARCH. [ Newsletter ]