Newsletter No. 49: THE ICEPICK IS AN UNFORGIVING MISTRESS "HEROES AND VICTIMS OF A GHASTLY CHAPTER OF HUMAN ERROR AND HALLUCINATION." - HEINZ HOHNE "He is a totally different and a frightful creature, a caricature of a man with features similar to those of a human being but intellectually and morally lower than any animal. This creature is actuated by a chaos of savage, unrestrained passionsólimitless destructiveness, primitive lust and shameless vulgarity." - anonymous "I FEEL SORRY FOR NO ONE WHO EATS DOG SHIT MORE THAN ONCE." - E. ROBINSON The enemies close in from every side. None more insignificantly than the ones that live under cover of darkness and skin. Now to measure the enemy by enemy behavior is to make the mistake that undoes more greatly than almost any other. They oppose not out of hatred and their motivations are not driven by enmity. From their point of view it is mere self-preservation. Preserving the self against a snuffing violence. Which is much better than what they deserve. Much better. From a recent exchange had by E. Robinson with a one L. Hylleseth. "You really do have quite a bit of hatred for other artists, haven't you?" "Only those who are not better than me." "There aren't very many of those, are there?" "No." So it goes. The attempts to steal food from our table continue. The liars continue lying, slandering us with the most outrageous fictions. We are drug addicts, criminals, and deviate from the sexual norm. We are violent reprobates. We will sit in front of your house with a brick waiting for you. To come out. We jump out of the oleander bushes and mount Mr. David Arnstein with our hands around his neck while explaining the law of eternal distribution. And because of these mere chattering FICTIONS the Pigs of the Universe find their ways up our garden path and utter fateful word on top of fateful word: "JUST TRY TO HOLD IT TOGETHER." Hold WHAT together? WHAT, EXACTLY?!?!? Perhaps they mean our limitless hatred for the mediocre, the faint, the wane. Or perhaps they're talking about NON-cock living. Or could it be that they speak of ASS and our unwillingness to do anything other than BEAT it like we don't NEED it? Makes no never mind. It'll never end, stop or change. Our desire to destroy them is the only thing that keeps us from destroying them. When the time is right. When the time is right. And yes, this IS about you, you dirty piece of shit, you. AN INVITATION TO COWARDICE OXBOW 9pm, Emo's Annex An Oxbow performance is more than a show; it's a modern-day initiation into Artaud's Theater of Cruelty. The San Francisco troupe plays ear-splitting art rock as singer Eugene Robinson stalks the stage with his pants down. Christian Anthony's 2003 documentary, Music for Adults, shot Oxbow's '02 Euro tour in all its confrontational glory. - Greg Beets WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED? MARCH 18, FRIDAY EMO'S ANNEX, AUSTIN, TEXAS with ISIS, RED SPAROWES, MARE, PELICAN, & BIG BUSINESS Well we'll let Eugene Robinson tell it since this show reportage marks the closing of a certain circle whose initial arcs were drawn one frosty fall day in Washington, D.C. "I went Steak and Champagne the whole way on this one. Historically, that is: on the basis of the previous three times we've played hereóthere's been 27 hours of nut busting driving here, 45 minutes of playing, and then immediately after "playing" there's the 27 hour scrotum scorching sojourn back home. Except this time it was different as my lot would not be on the road, but in the air. Rigors of a new job and all. I get to fly out the night before the show. Which I do. Having shipped all of the guns with Greg, Dan and Niko. Who left several days earlier. And while they drive and drive and drive and drive I meet the young Mr. Getze at a delightful old pensione, Super 8, where in a 4th of July burst of geniality and generalized bon homme the ever-thoughtful Mr. Getze had stocked the room with rose petals, a well-aged chianti and an even better aged hooker. At such time as we could no longer meet their continued and loudly voiced complaints and requests for cash for all the wonderfully turned out opium. Along with the crystal meth and E, well we murdered them and left them in the poolshack. The young Mr. Getze, a sort of semi-prisoner of conscience started talking that crazy talk about "guilt" and "responsibility" and so thusly went from semi- to a full prisoner and not of conscience but of my murderous desire to have nothing interfere with Friday's show. And nothing did do. I met the erstwhile traveling band of bon vivants in Oxbow, them looking none the worst for wear and we headed over to the show to load in while loading up. On Fight Fuel. Our friends were there. The fine men of Isis. The boulevardiers of These Arms Are Snakes. The stylishly equipped Red Sparowes. And God knows who else was there for this gala event of the season. The music began, the tent filled. Heavens to betsy, never have I seen such dancing and merry making. Outside the venue I saw Clayton who you might remember from our Washington, DC escapade. He was there with four friends of his. I guess he didn't see me standing in the middle of the sidewalk like I was with a bottle of wine in my hand. Or perhaps it was a snub? Oh bother. Even this frowny moment would do nothing to dampen our enthusiasm for well more chianti, cocaine and a cocktail of indeterminate origin. We got on stage to play. One wag in the audience mistook me for some character named, "Buckwheat" in a following exchange that went something like this. "Buckwheat." It was a faux pas of potentially devastating consequence. Mistaking me for someone else. "Oh. Someone who wants to become 'part of the show' yes?" Imagine his embarrassment. Quite nice that he, perhaps encouraged by the stunned silence of 600 other people, had figured out he had opened his piehole in error and disappeared soon thereafter. Perhaps to bone up on his Emily Post. We got off the stage after playing. And as the rest of the band loaded and left I wandered the wonderfully piquant streets of The South, now unarmed, excepting a new bottle of chianti and a bunch of knives. It was truly a wonderful event. Wonderfully gay." ASKING FOR TROUBLE: OXBOW INTERVIEW EXCERPTS http://www.skopemagazine.com/ SKOPE: How would explain Oxbow to the uninitiated? ER: I wouldn't try. Or rather I don't try. I mean if you're really into stamp collecting at a certain point you figure out that it's only you. Similarly with Oxbow: you either like stamps or you don't. I don't waste much time communicating on TOP of doing Oxbow what this is to those rubbernecking tourists who haven't already heard it inside. Of them. SKOPE: Who do you consider some of your influences? ER: You mean who is it that influences me when I'm making what could arguably be called my music? Well, me. I influence me. We influence us. If you want to talk about what other music we like we can do that too though. The usual suspectsóLittle Richard, James Brown, Caetano Veloso, Johnny Hartman and the list goes on. SKOPE: Any news on The Narcotic Story? Have you settled on a producer yet? ER: No and nope. Open for suggestions on both though. I'd like to say that because this will be both an Oxbow record and a soundtrack for the Oxbow movie of the same name (2 disks) that that is why we're so slow with it but that'd be a goddamned lie. We're always slow about it. SKOPE: It's clear from your tour diaries/newsletters that you have some pretty whacked out correspondence with not only fans, but business people and random loonies. Are there any emails/letters/interactions that made you wonder about the person's sanity? ER: Well you say SANITY like there's some sort of an objective standard. I mean there are emails/letters/interactions that make me wonder about MY sanity but this is the way it works: there are only two times when insanity, if that's to be your lot in life, will make itself manifest: going into or coming out of puberty. Everyone else is just getting better or worse and I generally try to give wide berth to those on their way down. SKOPE: What exactly happened between Eugene and Duane Dennison? ER: Well Duane and I have kissed and made up and so this is very old news about two old guys that no one in their right mind would care about but the reader's digest version is that a friend of mine went up to him backstage at a Tomahawk show and said "do you know Eugene from Oxbow?" and his response out of pocket was "You mean that really affected guy?" and her response was "well he said to say 'Hi' to YOU." And then he felt guilty and started apologizing but it was too late and she told me and I decided to go 8th grade on him for no other reason than that I largely limit my shit talking these days to those doing better than me. So it seemed unseemly to me that he was talking shit about me, what never done nothing to him or his. What ensued was nothing short of a stalking culminating with the now famous meeting in Belgium. Case closed. Or not, if you've followed through the Oxbow newsletters. SKOPE: What is "Music for Adults?" ER: Well it used to be a small documentary film about one of our tours. It's now expanded and extended into the here and now with subtitles in English, Japanese and French, outtakes, extra footage and includes a disk of unreleased music amongst other goodie shitÖand it'll be our first release on Hydrahead, this spring. Now called LOVE THAT'S LASTÖ. SKOPE: Are you going to be touring anytime soon? ER: SOON? No. Eventually? Yes. SKOPE: What are the best/worst bands you've been paired with on a bill, and why? ER: Tbe best? Well, in no particular order, The Dudes: Conifer, Isis, Neurosis, and Converge. The Non Union Players: Zeni Geva, Pelican, Made Out of Babies. Why? Because they are so goddamned sexy. The worst? A PERFECT CIRCLE and KING DIAMOND. Why? Because they are not. SKOPE: What's the strangest thing someone at one of your shows has done? ER: Let me fuck them. Either that or vomit on cue. In what way these are connected I do not know. SKOPE: You've collaborated with Marianne Faithful and Jarboeówho would you like to work with whom you haven't yet? ER: We try to limit chatter about the future to a minimum but we've got calls into PJ Harvey. Make of this what you would. SKOPE: Where have you received the best reaction to your live shows? ER: Best as inÖÖ.? This largely depends on almost everything. I mean some nights what might be best for me is not what it is other nights. But generally France is very cool to us. Germany. England has gotten a lot better. In the states? Well, the states is wildly uneven. So who knows? SKOPE: What are your thoughts on South by Southwest, seeing as you've played it for a few years now? ER: Oh we enjoy it. We drive 27 hours to get there, we eat lunch/dinner and then play. Collect our fucking CASH and then drive 27 hours back home. We talk to very few people there, see very few, possibly NONE of the other bands, and essentially are so swaddled in Oxbow road insanity that we never make the scene. Our scene is never making the scene. But my one highlight was seeing BUSHWICK MOTHERFUCKING BILL. I love dwarves. ZERO TOLERANCE Zero Tolerance: Hi Eugene, Alex Johnson from Zero Tolerance here. A few questions. Provocation appears to be your stock in tradeÖ ER: Does it? What provokes? What provokes the average person? Does cock provoke? Seems to. Or perhaps it's the iD. Or unreconstructed ego. In any case my stock in trade doesn't appear to me to be provocation. It appears to me to be music. ZT: Do you have any sympathy or feeling of identification with the world Situationalist movement? ER: I like their t-shirts. Does that qualify as sympathy? ZT: Is anything wrong with apathy? ER: Well the cheap seat joke here is to say, "I don't know." But I hate cheap seat humor and so i'll say that I support apathy 100%...because it clears the way for the GOERS, the MOVERS and the SHAKERS, of which I count myself one. Like Thunderball, I always run while others walk, I always do while others talk. If you want to call your laziness and niggardly attention to detail apathy, thusly making a virtue of your vice via big college words, well go ahead. You're still just a TV watching asshole to me. God love you. ZT: Why should we change? Oxbow, and what army, will influence our decision? ER: I have no desire for you to change at all. Unless it is for the worse. In fact on any given night you might find me saying little private personal prayers to Jesus that go something like, "dear Jesus...if you could see your way clear...I'd really like you to give Alex some ball cancer...this, and only this, I ask of you Jesus." Or perhaps it's something like this, "Jesus? If only Alex had cancer of the ballsitis..." you see? ZT: Why the assault with noise? ER: Because that's what it sounds like inside. ZT: Whither the connection with Swans? ER: Well I've spoken to Gira maybe 4 times. Two in person. And they were the most curious conversations I think I've ever had. Especially the first one, the one where I introduced myself and he ranted about how I was trying to rip him off. Amusingly enough years later I did just that when I titled my novel A LONG SLOW SCREW. And jarboe sang on An Evil Heat. ZT: Tell me about your new album. ER: There is no new album. There is only our first Hydrahead release, LOVE THAT'S LAST. It now has a July 12th release date. Buy it. Or don't. ZT: Don't tell me about your new album. ER: That would be The Narcotic Story. And I won't. Because there's nothing to tell until it's finished. ZT: Pretend I care. ER: I've just spent 15 minutes doing exactly that. X-RATED: Getting to Know Eugene Robinson of Oxbow Do you sing in the shower? YES. Do you have any pets? YES. Favorite thing to do on a day off? WHAT IS THIS "DAY OFF" OF WHICH YOU SPEAK? What was the first concert you attended? THE PLASMATICS. If you could be anybody for one day, who? OH I'D STILL BE ME. JUST MUCH, MUCH, MUCH RICHER. Favorite food? SPITE. Whatís your sign? VIRGO. If you could visit any place in the world where? Why? ANY SUNNY PLACE FOR SHADY PEOPLE. Name one artist youíve always dreamed of seeing perform live. LITTLE RICHARD IN HIS PRIME. Favorite holiday? Why? MY BIRTHDAY. BECAUSE THE WORLD NEEDS TO OCCASIONALLY THANK ME FOR JUST BEING ME. WHAT THE FUCK ARE THEY YELLING? MORE WORD ON THE LARGE SAC'D AND EIGHTH WONDER OF THE FUCKING MODERN WORLD: OXBOW THAT IDIOT FROM OXBOW MAKES MY ANALLY CURIOUS LIST OF THE TOP 5 SHOW MOMENTS FROM 2004 BY Dr. Perky Location: Arlington, VA http://www.hellridemusic.com/forum/showthread.php?t=4910 1. Hidden Hand at The Black Cat a few weeks ago with Wooly Mammoth. 2. DIXIE WITCH AT THE WAREHOUSE A COUPLE OF MONTHS AGO WITH MEATJACK, AMPLIFIED HEAT, AND THAT IDIOT FROM OXBOW. 3. Clutch at The 9:30 Club last winter doing a 2-hour set. 4. As a whole, the Alabama Thunderpussy/RPG/Brought Low show Friday night was really, really good. 5. Place of Skulls at The Warehouse with Bobby Liebling hopping on stage for 3 songs at the end. That was one hell of a night. Those are the first 5 that jump to mind. Atomic Bitchwax/Throttlerod in Richmond last summer was also a great show. __________________ MADRADHAIR What a fucking weird band. i don't think i've ever been so scared of a singer in my entire life he had ass pimple scars he was jacking off at sxsw. it was terrible. he has swastikas and the star of david on his arm. feh.ósex goddess http://www.madradhair.com/topic.php?topic_id=84561 MORE HATE "Then finally Jim and Pony met. He was super cool to me but it was obvious his eyes were on Joy as intended. So cute together. They were planning on going elsewhere and hanging out the whole night but we all decided to leave Stubbís together for a minute to go to a Jesus Lizardy like show with a band called Oxbow (who SUCKED.) On our way who should I see outside but Tom from Kasabian (who is absolutely lickable, in my humble opinion) so of course I had to have a little chat with him about the show I had just enjoyed in LA a week prior. ... " ìPoor Joy had to withstand the horror that is Oxbow... anyone who thinks otherwise is truly insane. What an awful, awful band.î http://www.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewProfile&friendID=14905&Mytoken=20040809214038 OXBOW "Serenade in Red" (RuminanCe/ Chronowax) Mars 2005 http://www.indiepoprock.net Eugene Robinson ne fait pas que chroniquer des films porno sur internet. Il chante aussi. Et donne accessoirement des concerts dans lesquels il finit toujours en slip. La main grassement enfoncÈe sous son dernier retranchement, il fait le bonheur des minettes scotchÈes au premier rang, en pleine apoplexie. Si Eugene Robinson Ètait un catcheur (il en a le physique en tout cas) il síappellerait Booker T. Jíadore Booker T. La puissance díOxbow est intrinsËquement liÈe au chant incendiaire de son artificier en slip. Eugene Robinson paraÓt possÈdÈ lorsquíil recrache ses textes avec une passion et une hargne carnassiËres. LíatmosphËre tendue et angoissante construite par líinstrumentation (qualifiÈe de ´ mÈtal intelligent ª) se rÈvËle hypnotique et finit souvent par exploser en un magma sonore bršlant et viscÈral. Sur La Luna, cela en deviendrait presque pornographique. Baby Doll (mÍme si ce morceau ferait fuir toute femme raisonnable) demeure une ode ý líamour poignante et jouissive. On notera pour finir la participation de Marianne Faithfull sur líÈnorme plage (cachÈe?) de fin. La pauvre, quíest-ce quíelle a du prendreÖ Excellente initiative que celle prise par Ruminance de rÈÈditer ce ´ Serenade in Red ª datant de 1997. Puissant, atypique et affolant. On en redemande. http://www.indiepoprock.net/review.php?id=1006 Oxbow- The Snake &...The Stick, [An Evil Heat] Oxbow played last week with just vocals and acoustic guitar and if you have ever seen or heard them that might seem almost impossible. Instead, it ruled. Not to detract in any way from how crushingly heavy, creative and intense the instruments are on this song, but itís the three short backing vocal sections that make you feel like you are never going to see anything good again and that you will live in this dank, jar-filled, stinking cellar for the rest of your short life. You can hear it reflecting off the walls in the recording, ìMAN DOES NOT LIVE BY FLESH ALONE BUT ITíS A FUCKING START!î http://www.stylusmagazine.com/ipod/archive/001334.html URBAN TULSA http://www.urbantulsa.com/article.asp?id=2544 Luckily for Aaron Turner, he never had to worry much about falling into the scope of Hicksí diatribes. But Turner did finally get his South by Southwest deli tray. Turner runs the L.A.-based Hydrahead Records and heads the band Isis. Both have been around for nearly 10 years, but this year, more Hydrahead bands or Hydrahead-affiliated bands (including Isis), gathered in one place for SXSW than ever before--seven of the Loudest and Heaviest Bands Ever; Big Business, Mare, Pelican, Oxbow, These Arms are Snakes, The Red Sparowes and Isis. Oxbow This band, based in San Francisco, has been around since the early ë90s, but Turner has a tendency of finding previously neglected bands and ensuring them a chance to regroup. Oxbow play straight-ahead rock with buzzsaw guitars that produce so thick a sound that it could almost be scooped out of the air by a beer glass. The talent of Oxbow after so many years of crafting their trade is remarkable. The band is infamously headed by Eugene Robinson, a chiseled 200-lb black man who commands the stage as more than a mere singer -- rather entertainer -- often with very little in the way of clothes. BURMESE Men (Load, http://www.loadrecords.com) Burmese are scary shit! I cannot stress this enough. Like their previous album, A Mere Shadow and Reminiscence of Humanity, Men plays on that terrifying, screaming, keening anger and misunderstanding and weirdness. I mean, the opening song is called ìRapewar"! Thatís crazy! Crazy! THEYíRE MINING THE SAME VIOLENCE AND EVIL VEIN AS COMBATWOUNDEDVETERAN AND OXBOW, AND SOMEHOW COMING UP SCARIER THAN EITHER BAND HAS EVER BEEN. If CWV are murder-rock, and Oxbow are sexual-assault-core (listen to their Evil Heat album and see if you donít think the same thing, coming away from it a little creeped), then Burmese are both. The vocals rattle around, guitars are sludged out to the point of losing proper tonality, the drums are buried. This shit is evil. Listen with caution! - AG File next to: Itís still great, though. Somehow. DROWNED IN SOUND OLD MAN GLOOM Turnerís not the only person taking a vocal turn on ëChristmasí; on ëVolcanoí, Oxbowís Eugene Robinson adds some words of wisdom that barely register (so, to be fair, they might not be wise at all). But be warned - turn the volume up to hear them and be prepared for pain, as Turner, and his gargantuan riffs, are waiting just a few minutes in, along with drums that sound like a nuclear war between gods. Itís all a far cry from how proceedings were opened: ëGiftí is just that, an opening track that breaks you in gently, its acoustic strums blinding you to what lies around the next bend, the appropriately named ëSkullstormí. Really, with a name like that do you need me to explain how it goes?-- http://www.drownedinsound.com/articles/10126 TEXTURA DJ/Rupture: Special Gunpowder Only a single misstep emerges, a scraping splattercore showcase for the caustic ravings of Oxbow's Eugene Robinson. While the track perpetuates the album's commitment to stylistic diversity, it's more an episode one endures than enjoys. (Tigerbeat6) http://www.textura.org/newreviewspages/djrupture.htm THE VILLAGE VOICE For DJ /rupture's first non-copyright-infringing album, Special Gunpowder, he spins people like records, layering them into configurations not unlike his mixes. As Yale prof Elizabeth Alexander reads her poem "Overture: Watermelon City," you could hear where a Hendrix whammy or the Bond theme could back the a cappella, but the fanfare is all flesh, not wax. He mashes Montreal producer Ghislain Poirer's beat to Abdel Hak's modal violin; AND WHILE OXBOW'S EUGENE ROBINSON SOUNDS LIKE ADAM SANDLER'S CAJUN MAN, most alloys hold strong, and lines in English, in French, or heavy with Jamaican patois ring out.óVILLAGE VOICE NEUROT SPEAKS Email Kristin (kristin@neurosis.com) now if you want your own promo and/or check out some audio and visuals on the band's site: http://www.madeoutofbabies.com/songs.html (I recommend you start with 'Swarm'). There is a reason that this is the first rock record NR has done since Oxbow (Neurosis notwithstanding). And speaking of... Oxbow has officially jumped ship to Hydrahead, but we're all still pals, and we wish them the best. We're happy to report that Oxbow greatly disturbed the crowd at the Hydrahead showcase, making more than a few indie rock boys question their masculinity and the whereabouts of their girlfriend for the rest of the weekend. AND AGAIN... Neurosis in San Francisco JULY 23, 2004 Kristen from Neurot Recordings Neurosis' SF show was beyond amazing. There were at least 750 people in the venue (and another 200 hopefuls still standing outside 3 hours later, listening) and they were all transfixed from the first moment until the last chord faded. Jarboe was in 100% black Kali-ma mode, and all the Neurosis & Jarboe material was blazing and well-received. Jarboe had a theatrical moment at the end of her appearance involving Eugene from Oxbow as a sort of human pillow book. Those of you who have seen Oxbow perform understand the impact of this. Those who have not... the description is a 1,500-word essay involving art, violence and sexual politics that will have to wait for another day. Neurosis performed material from Times of Grace, A Sun That Never Sets, The Eye Of Every Storm, and, for the first time since the Times of Grace tours, Through Silver In Blood. When they played the first chords of Locust Star, I literally thought the audience was going to burst into flames. The blistering emotion in the crowd was thick in the air from that point until the end of the show. When the band ended the show with an extended and massively distorted version of Stones From The Sky, there was one perfect moment of dead silence, almost like a sonic boom in contrast to the volume of Neurosis, before the screaming and cheering began. We have daily requests for other shows of this kind, so stay tuned for information regarding L.A. Seattle, New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, London, Berlin and more. ORLANDO WEEKLY Show slate? Limited. Baltimore's Oxbow was heavy and weird and excellent. The first night of Japan Night (which I haven't missed since my first SXSW) hosted i-Dep, a semi-spazzy soul-funk group from Tokyo, as well as The Pillows and other decent bands. But I was beat and relatively uninspired by the schedule, so I caught just two more bands: Big Business and the trashy, predictable Black Lips. http://www.orlandoweekly.com/news/Story.asp?ID=4898 The Oxbow Incident http://www.eldiablorobotico.com/ I recently attended SXSW 2005 in Austin, Texas. If I haven't mentioned it before, I love Austin, Texas. Cheap beer (hot women), great food (hot women), 6th Street (hot women), the live music capital of the world (hot women) and real people (hot women). If I were to ever leave this fair City of Angels, it would be to live in Austin. So when a friend of mine brought up the possibility going to Austin for SXSW, the largest music festival in the United States, my response was "fuck yeah"! Something like 1,300 bands were playing in Austin over a period of five days. Considering the sheer number of bands you'd think there would be an amazing variety of musical genres to choose from. Unfortunately, you'd be sorely mistaken. 99% of those bands were emo/brit-pop garbage. Seriously. Almost every band was some varying combination of Oasis meets The White Stripes meets Geggy Tah. From what I can tell, the new face of rock is waifish white guys with terrible hair cuts, who've never looked at, let alone set foot in a gym, wearing suits three sizes too small, smoking like chimneys, and not bothering with such trivial things as bathing. Coming from musical foundation of hard rock, metal and hip hop, there was only so much of this I could take. My friends and I took to wandering down Red River (a street with numerous live music venues) and briefly standing by doorways hoping to hear some rock. This worked for us a few times, most notably causing us to stumble upon an awesome hard rock venue called Room 710 and discover a three-piece metal band consisting of two drums and one guitar called Axe Handle. It was an unorthodox band arrangement, but damn they rocked! If you get a chance to see them live, I'd highly recommend it. Going from bar to bar in hopes of finding something non-emo/brit pop grew tiring and increasingly difficult, so imagine our excitement when we saw that Hydra Head Records was hosting a showcase at Emo's Annex. I knew Isis rocked and had heard of some of the other bands playing, so we were in. Eagerly we arrived at Emo's Annex as the venue opened, waiting for some metal to wash away all the horrible music we'd been subjected to the previous nights. The opening band Mare wasn't anything special so we stepped away to grab a quick bite to eat before Oxbow took the stage. Like I said I had heard of them, but had no idea what to expect. Boy were we in for a surprise. We arrived shortly after Oxbow's set began. The band consisted of three skinny white guys and one crazy-looking, muscular black guy. I don't mean crazy like "wacky" or "zany" or some other quaint euphemism. I mean crazy like "holy shit, what the hell is wrong with that guy?! I hope he doesn't end up severely injuring someone for doing something offensive like breathing". As the three white guys tried to avoid any and all eye-contact with the lead singer (probably in hopes of avoiding said beating), he continued to gyrate and spasm while yelling incoherently into the mic. Being the one who picked this show and claimed it to be our aural savior, I was suddenly feeling a bit uneasy. "Oh shit" I thought, "I'm never going to hear the end of this one". Sure enough, my friends began giving me looks that said "what the fuck have you gotten us into?". As I was hastily devising my exit in hopes of avoiding having to pay all my friends back the $15 admission for dragging them to this show, an amazing thing happened, the singer completely snapped. Before we knew it, he was pulling his clothes off and screaming even louder. Suddenly the mood changed from worst show ever, to something we'll never forget. How terrible the music sounded was completely overshadowed by the spectacle unraveling onstage. The singer continued to strip, stripping all the way down to his tighty-whities before whipping his dick out and jerking off while he screamed into the mic. Expecting bottles to rain down on the singer before Austin PD showed up and dragged him away, I couldn't take my eyes off of the stage. Surprisingly, no bottles flew. No Austin police in riot gear dropped from a helicopter to beat the singer into submission before dragging him to some FCC gulag. No, people actually started clapping and yelling, egging him on. While he never jerked off on the audience, as my friends and I were sure he was going to, or got any crazier than that, he had provided us with our most memorable show at SXSW by a long shot. THE SCROTUM: SACTUS MAILUS FIGHT CLUB "Dave Tompkins/Walsh, Hello. I represent the California band OXBOW. A band that's been in trademarked existence since 1989. We feel that because there exists the possibility of reasonable market confusion and fully adhering to the doctrine of vigorously defending your copyright we are, in a friendly fashion now, asking you to cease and desist the use of the OXBOW QUARTET (http://www.davewalsh.net/projects.htm) as the name of your musical venture. The DAVE TOMPKINS OXBOW QUARTET also appears to be in violation of our copyright. We hope that this makes sense to you all and we can come to an amicable agreement here. cheers, Eugene 650-714-4891 www.theoxbow.com "Dear Eugene, I had your e-mail to Dave Walsh forwarded to me by Dave and understand your concerns. I found out about your band after I'd started using the name but had thought that using David Tompkins' Oxbow Quartet would have stopped any confusion - also the fact that we are working in very different spheres (manly playing very local jazz/improv gigsin Manchester ,UK.) Nonetheless I wasn't completely comfortable with it and had been considering a name change. I don't have any more work booked for the band at the moment but if you still feel there's a possibility of confusion in light of the above I will stop using it for future gigs. Yours sincerely, Dave Tompkins Dave, thanks a mil. The spheres are not quite so dissimilar however (which is how we found out about you all). We have jazz players on our records, we play England with some frequency and so on, but we thank you for understanding and making the necessary alterations, to wit: changing the name. We appreciate it. cheers, Eugene 650-714-4891 www.theoxbow.com HEY EUGENE OR WHICHEVER OXBOW CHARACTER READS THIS: "I just got your last newsletter, sorta interesting I guess, but lacking 62.57% of the typical smart-assed violent comments that I've come to disgustingly love and look forward (yea yea yea...I'm aware that this somehow proves Oxbow fans like torturing themselves). So, for April, don't sell-out to your whore fans (other than myself of course), and make a lengthy work of electronically mailed art. Oh...so when is this new expanded dvd coming out? Can't wait to see all of the added shit. So, is one disc audio, and one video or what's the precise deal here? Good thing I never bought the original 'Music for Adults' or I'd feel like a Slipknot fan who needs the newest Roadrunner Records digipack special edition but I don't want to shell out the cash for the same damn thing again for more footage/audio syndrome. Lucky me...bye...eric" CONDITION KILLS bryan stevens <oooo@nullwerk.com> Sent: Tuesday, March 8, 2005 6:14 PM Subject : OXBOW Newsletter No. 48: THE ASPHALT AGENDA "Man that SxSW show lineup is the fucking shit! It almost makes me want to treck all the way out to Austin just to see it, well that & to find that one homeless dude I saw there wearing a dress & no underwear sitting on top of his shopping cart mountain of shit. But if you guys, Isis, & Red Sparrows wasnt enough the almighty fucking Mare is playing. I may have to plan to make that seeing as how those douchebags in Mare never seem to make it up to Nor Cal when they come to the US. And Austin is a damn fine city except for the fact that I get an overwhelming urge to re-create Charles Whitman's massacre when I'm there. MUSIC FOR ADULTS: AND THEN SOME "Well, I'm from Palo Alto and became a Whipping Boy fan the first time I saw them play in '83 opening for the Dead Kennedys. I've followed Eugene ever since - well, I buy the albums and see them about every 5 years... One of my all-time favorite quotes is from the '89 Whipping Boy reunion show (essentially an Oxbow show) at the New Varsity Theater. I was sitting with some of the former members and at one point one of them leaned forward to my friend Paul and said "THAT'S why I quit the band." Anyway, I try to check up on what they're doing every once in a while. They were on my mind because one of the guys on the Alice Donut site had listed them as one of the bands worth checking out at SXSW. I saw there was a DVD when I found theoxbow.com. Wes" NOTTINGHAM: THE SHERIFF WRITES "Hello Oxbow, As mentioned I did 2 paintings purely listening to evil heat and I will be getting them photographed in April and put on the site. They worked out OK and pushed new boundaries. I mixed my collage technique with paint and they are grey, as per usual. I was told I would have suicide to look forward to by listening evil heat. Quite the opposite really. I listened to it on headphones and worked away as to avoid outside distractions and influences. I'll put them up on the Lazarus coporation. When I have them photographed. It is costly as I pay a profesional. I ordered 'Music For Adults' and really liked it. It was funny watching people intefere with the show and get dealt with, ha ha. I cannot wait to catch a date on the fall 2005 tour. I hope you get to play sunny Nottingham. The Rescue rooms and the Social are the best venues. I'll let you know when I've posted new works, end of April hopefully. cheers and I look forward to the new record. Zenon Gradkowski, http://www.lazaruscorporation.co.uk. ONE RECORD AT A TIME "One of the local stores - reckless records bought the last 2 copies of "serenade in red" lp last week for both of their locations. apparently the buyer there, by the name steve is a fan of yours and saw Oxbow play at the wire fest. i proudly pulled them off the shelf, kissed monica good bye and wished her to get into someone's appreciative hands. thought i'll share those good news. hope you're sane, alive and well. Robert Iwanik Carrot Top Distribution, Ltd. NEXT MONTH: YOU SEND USÖ.MONEY!!! [ Newsletter ]