Newsletter No. 50: MY FIRST BROKEN PROMISE, MY LAST REGRET "WHEN A MORALLY COMPROMISED AUTHOR CLAIMS THE FIELD OF AESTHETICS AS A VALUE-FREE AREA IT SHOULD MAKE HIS READERS STOP AND THINK." - W.G. SEBALD "Twenty-two years later, I am still dangling over the ground by dislocated arms." -- Amery "WIR WERDEN WEITERDICHTEN, WENN ALLES IN SCHERBEN FALLT...." - FRITZ J. RADDATZ This is written from the wrong end of a liquor bottle. For reasons too numerous to explain here given that everything has slipped into ENOUGH if not, indeed, too much. First, drunken man apologies must be extended to those that have been inadvertently, or advertently, wounded between the time of the last writing and this. There haven't been many of you but those of you who have been deeply scored well we would make the claim that we are sorry. We would also make the claim that four hours of sleep a night, the rainbowed pharmacopia, and a genetic disposition for rage and high dudgeon have had something to do with it. We would might maybe also make the claim that if you were just a little bit more fucking sensitive you wouldn't have made us hurt you to begin with. And finally we would also claim that you should go fuck yourselves and that leaves you right back where we started: naked at the kitchen table drunk man rage. Things that it might help you to remember 1) there will be NO change…unless it is for the worse 2) there will be a change for the worse 3) when you are tempted to use the word IF in connection to us, please replace it with the word WHEN 4) it is only a cock. You've seen hundreds of them. 5) We don't care. We just don't care. 6) Cultures that place a high premium on fidelity are cultures in which others are frequently viewed as possible traded property. All property is theft. We will fuck what is yours if given the opportunity to do so. 7) Expect nothing else. FILE UNDER: WE FUCKING TOLD YOU SO In newsletter No. 46, DESTROY IT ALL AT ONCE, we described a young wag shaking out an open bottle of yellowed gel caps into Eugene's hand. The drug in question was NEURONTIN, taken for "epileptic seizures." Eugene "maintains" that he "declined" to "consume" said tablets. While we've never known him to decline much, his claims rang true until the following article. Which might have explained his past several months of blacker than black funk. And we don't mean fucking Issac Hayes. Read on. "Rick Crone was the rock in his family. The Marine veteran -- and father of two -- handled much of the care of his disabled wife, Nicolette, for the more than two decades they were together. But in 2001, Rick's spirits plummeted, an ominous change Nicolette said she first noticed after he started taking a new prescription for back pain. His upbeat personality faded over the next months, and late one night in April 2002 as his family slept, the 49-year-old father walked into the garage and hanged himself. Unknown to the family in Clearlake (Lake County), Nicolette Crone later said, was that the medicine, Neurontin, was an epilepsy drug. It had been prescribed to Rick "off label" because treating back pain was not a use approved by the Food and Drug Administration. She now is among 2,300 families who blame Neurontin for a suicide or suicide attempt and are taking legal steps against its maker, Pfizer Inc." OXBOW ANNOUNCE UK DATES…IN MAY BY Allison Schnackenberg The legendary and infamous Oxbow have finally made good on their threats and are actually coming to the UK in late May. Okay, well not the real Oxbow, but the so-called acoustic duo Oxbow. After painstaking scientific and social research, Oxbow have identified the four British cities in most urgent need of education and shall be appearing at : Sat May 28 2005 LIVERPOOL Sun May 29 2005 BIRMINGHAM - FIERCE FESTIVAL Mon May 30 2005 SWINDON - VIC with The Enablers Tue May 31 2005 LONDON - BULL AND GATE with Todd Word squared up with terrifying Oxbow frontperson Eugene Robinson to procure further information... So what's up with the unplugged thing? Has Oxbow gone soft? No. But Oxbow is a fucking oil tanker of crude. Getting it anywhere involves shipping 1500 pounds of custom made equipment all over the fucking world, as well as getting Greg (a race car fabricator who is on the race circuit when he's not goofing off with us) and Dan (a high performance, environmentally sound auto engineer), getting time off...add this to my new life draining gig and that leaves Niko....so it's a way for us to make a nickel last longer. Sort of like adding water to your juice. It's weak but it'll keep you from dying. And when we hear those lame excuses like "well NEXT time...." from non-promoting promoters we can just laugh and laugh, because acoustic is eaaassyyyy.... How come only four shows then? Tire easily these days? Because my job is looking to fucking fire me and frankly I NEED every penny of the jack they pay me. And we really have no acoustic record out so why bother? We could call these shows the WE DO YOU A FAVOR TOUR. So you're playing with Todd in London. Aren't you scared? Second time you've mentioned this. Have I fucked someone who someone in Todd is fucking? Only reason that I might be scared as some angry cuckolds wield mean icepicks when your back is turned. What the hell is going on with the new record? Haven't you been working on that for, like, seven years? Historically accurate. We take forever to finish shit. And in this case START it...our time has been eaten up by LOVE THAT'S LAST....our new summer release...and fucking around with producers and guest artists and such....but we go Coppola at the drop of a fucking hat and methinks that could be happening now... Now you know. More than you probably want to know. SHOW BLURB It's not Oxbow, it's OXBOW DISTILLATE. How the songs are written, how they're made. The voice and an old acoustic. Much less Simon & Garfunkel. Much more Johnson & Johnson. Robert, that is. Oxbow songs that have been written, Oxbow songs that are not yet written, the acoustic duo is the quiet quiet, separated from the sound but none of the fury. Watch your goddamned mouth. And your ass. And bring some wine. WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED? ACOUSTIC DUO: United Kingdom MAY 28, SATURDAY LIVERPOOL Well the pathetic thing is we've been working on this newsletter so long that while this should have originally appeared as PRE-show announcement given Eugene's niggardly ways, the ineluctable passage of time, and the fact that we are quickly growing beyond caring it, a mini-mini Tour Diary by the erstwhile Mr. Robinson, is here. Now. Deal with it. A MODEST PRE-SHOW EXCHANGE Kenneth Goodall: Tickets all booked for me showing up at your show Saturday. It should be a funny show. Eugene: None of them are. Really. They're all the exact opposite actually. KG: The promoter is woefully bad at PROMOTING the shows he does. E: I'd not have it any other way. KG: So the majority of the people there will be theatre going middle aged adults. E: Much like us. KG: No, really. It's a strange venue to be sure. E: I do not doubt you in the least. KG: And sadly I cannot hook you up with any skag, coke, uppers, downers, reds, bennies, meth, dust, hash, grass or ass. I've been trying for days to remember where we played in Liverpool. The fact that I CANNOT remember doesn't reflect badly at all on said club. Rather it is a testament to TO GOOD of a time. Either that or the fact that the sound track for all of our English shows is like something filmed in mumble-tone. I won't even try to fake it anymore: I can't understand what the hell the Brits are saying. Yes, yes, I know you can understand ME but that's not saying much. I mean my dog understands me as well. I just have no idea. Which means, beautifully that discussions reported herein will only be approximations of what was said, versus the real, true and accurate ones we usually run with and so… Liverpool: The promoter guy was amusingly enough named GUY. Now that name in and of itself is not so amusing but the fact that that's not even his REAL name is sort of amusing. Sort of like me changing my name to Howard. I mean what's the fucking point. But he picks us up at the train station and we ride through the celebratory and scenic Liverpool. The shadow of the fucking Beatles hangs over this town and this fact I find unaccountably depressing. I mean Paul McCartney's married to a one-legged woman, the other two are dead and Ringo's on the fucking train. So much for earthly significance. Anyways, he takes us to where we're staying and are you ready for this: his SISTER'S house. I mean what man in his right mind has me all up in his sister's house. His married sister. His married socialist school teacher sister. But she and her husband are genius hosts and I feel a small glimmer of shame at the fact that I will try to fuck her the first available chance I get and even if this chance never presents itself as it doesn't, the thought of it shames me. No it doesn't. Anyway she and I at some point are standing in the kitchen and she's showing me something about Socialism. About what a great program it is really as it recognizes certain social realities that capitalism just glosses over. And I listen. Patiently. And when she finishes, me agreeing with her every step of the way I say…"yes…I've been traditionally VERY fond of socialism. Yes, national socialism does wonders for the human questions." And there's a pause and she laughs. And we eat and go to the show in some pretty cool bar/club. There are like 40 people there. We play. Acoustically. Successfully. That is to say, without any waggish behavior on the part of audience members who might have figured out that TODAY WAS THE DAY. In other words they shit the fuck up. And that's a-ok by us. Kenn Goodall shows up. Or is it Jim Jeffers? When I ask him why he has so many names and so many FAKE names he tried to explain that he thought it made good sense to do so when writing us. Whatever. We actually have separate rooms, Niko in his and I in mine…where I fall into a heavy sleep during which time I dream about knives. And sex. In other words: the usual. PS: Another band played with us and they were very good but I can't remember their name. You know, on account of my advanced age and all. Well, that and the heroin. MAY 29TH, SUNDAY, BIRMINGHAM: HOME OF ELVIS & ANCIENT GREEKS, the FIERCE FESTIVAL We were supposed to play last year with LYDIA LUNCH. A show that would have been highly enjoyable I believe. Made more so by the fact that even though we've known each other since like 1986, she has never seen any version of anything we've ever done on stage. Ever. At all. Like all that fucking summer stock. My searing rendition of Oklahoma. My star turn in The Music Man? Nothing. In any case it means she would have been surprised and well I'm not too cool to say it: I like surprises. Especially those that involve the cock. But anyways last year's fell through. But this year's is more than making up for it. We're staying in some posh digs, the 8th story of some hotel. The streets are filled to the brim with people. Because tomorrow is a holiday. And today there is the Gay Pride parade. We left San Francisco for San Francisco. Genius. Men are speaking to me on the street in languages I don't recognize though I do recognize the subtext, but I brush them off as Niko and I walk briskly through the streets. Two men walking amidst other men, off to do manly work. Like men. Exactly. Lots of cock in town if you like cock. Lots of pussy in town if you're pussy that loves other pussy. For us? A show that apparently has us going on stage at 4 IN THE MORNING. Yes. Welcome to festival fun. We see Mr. Selzer first off. And then the men from Capricorns. In fact it seems that I am singing a song with them tonight. A song whose lyrics I wrote. A song whose lyrics I wrote about the inevitable erection that accompanies a breaking and entering adventure into someone else's home. They don't ask me many questions about it and I don't offer details. Suffice it to say that there are certain things in life you need to be careful of and discovering that aberrant thrill seeking is, indeed, addictive is something you want to watch out for. Anyways we sound check, bullshit with the mighty mountain man-esque men of Capricorns, Nathan et al, before we realize that nine fucking hours is a long time to sound check, bullshit with the mighty mountain man-esque men of Capricorns and head back to the goddamned hotel where we settle in for a comfortable view of DIVORCE, ITALIAN STYLE. Marcello wants to fuck his 17 year old cousin, fuck her and marry her, but must divorce his mustached wife of many years and under the yoke of Catholicism apparently the only way to do this is if he catches her with cock. She runs off with her lover, he is shunned and derided as a cuckold, before he finally finds them together and he shoots his wife minutes after her lover's wife has shot her lover. Marcello bags the 17 year old cousin only to, if intimations are to be believed, be cuckolded by her in turn. Beautiful. In fact the only way it could have been MORE beautiful is if everyone died after getting absolutely NONE of whatever it is that they wanted. You know…just like real life. Niko and I begin arguing about geopolitics. I maintain that while not all Muslims are terrorists, as of late, all terrorists certainly seem to be fucking Muslims. The finer points of the argument are lost on me though as mostly I support terror, terror and moral panic, in any and all of its present guises. Well terror, moral panic and all of the innocents taking shots. In the ass. Yes. I support this. Kind of like I support the sun coming up. But I sing with Capricorns bringing my onstage celebrity Bob Hope walk on tally to SIX (Heliogabale, Neurosis, Capricorns, Conifer, Baton, Todd, Freakshow). It amazes me that there have been this many. It doesn't amaze me that there probably won't be many more. It was cool and still a little strange to turn around and not see who I usually see when I turn around but insofar as it baffled those in attendance who wouldn't have known Oxbow from any other random criminal act committed in a major urban center any day of the week, well it was fine. And Capricorn crushes and so, SUCCESS. But we go on and play on a stage that's probably where all the sex in this leased for the evening sex club occurs. It seems fine. I know there were lots of other bands playing that night. Bands and performance artists like RON ATHEY who I can't seem to get away from these days but there was one in particular who stands out. His band played before Capricorns and while the band played fairly competent action rock in the vein of The White Strokes Hives, HIS singing, his Arab on Radar whelping was about to drive me to murder. I kept drinking. Watching. Judging. Drinking. Until I started to VISUALIZE me going to the stage front, yanking his legs from under him and choking him into unconsciousness. That is not to say that I didn't LIKE him. That's just to say that this is what his voice MADE me want to do. And it was OVERPOWERING. And after we played this guy comes up to me and says that he was IN this band. I don't know, he could have been for all I didn't know, but that it was an honor to play with us and that he wanted to introduce me to his SINGER who loves us so much that he couldn't even bring himself up to me to talk to me. And then he's there and I shake his hand and it's like those parts of old cartoons where the guys on the deserted island start to imagine that the other is a leg of lamb. Or a goddamned hamburger or something. I hear myself compare him to Arab on Radar. We talk about music for a bit and he eventually escapes. Unbelievable. Ego is clearly the enemy of antisocial impulse. The enemy and the handmaiden. Who knows? He seemed like a nice guy in the end. The Polish guy who loved Oxbow before but seemed EXTREMELY disappointed AFTERward probably made my night. Well him and the drunken women who as the evening wore on and their boyfriends refused to find their way out of conversations about soccer found their way over to me to be subjected to the patented Dracula Eye, the trademarked Night of the Eternal Handshake and, of course, the inevitable Let's Talk About My Penis conversational gambit. All of these preceded them being yanked away by aforementioned and now angry boyfriends and as the sun comes up Niko and I make our way back to palace palatial and sleep fitfully a sleep laden with night terrors and surging feelings of pointless hopelessness. Or maybe that was just me. MAY 30TH, MONDAY, SWINDON: TRY SPELLING SWINE WITHOUT IT We tell people we're playing Swindon. And they laugh. In fact EVERY time we use the words SWINDON, people begin laughing. Me to the promoter, "say. How come when we tell people we're playing Swindon they all laugh?" He huffily responds, "I have NO idea." Fair enough. We're playing with our San Fran compatriots and former labelmates The Enablers. We both later play to an audience of 12. I know you might think that my dead end reference to it might indicate that this did not give me any pleasure of any sort, but you'd be wrong. OXBOW Acoustic, its coffee table vibe intact, WORKS in this kind of space. OXBOW proper, maybe not so much. But this? Well yeah….and I start to sort of think about the songs in a different way yet and the promoter an extremely decent guy who even violated deeply held personal tenets regarding eating death in the form of meat by products to get me meat for my dinner knows a lot about music and seems to appreciate it on the level of which it has been delivered and so when I leave the club with him and The Enablers, I feel OK. Even better when I see in the local newspaper that they did a full half-page piece on us. WITH a photo. And the spelling of our name as OXBROW. Perfect. And in no way scuttled by the fact that Niko "First Class Only" Wenner snaked me for the good blanket and I slept on a floor and froze my ass off that night. It's a long way to the top if you wanna rock and roll. Good thing then that I ain't trying to do that. MAY 31ST, TUESDAY, LONDON: The Bull & Gate Here is London. Dizzy London. And now Morrisey lives in LA and rocks La Raza. We call Southern like a million times expressly to deliver a confusing series of messages, misdirections, and confused man entreaties to? What the fuck? We don't know. It's almost like that kind of meth-fueled frantic confusion right before you crash. Yeah. KIND OF. In any case we get to the club pub, meet up with the promoter, a nervous looking soccer fan and Allison, the grand dame of Southern distribution who then later introduces us to other folks and then there's Bengali food, and drinks and drinks (make that TWO for me. Which means I am now officially LITE UP, lightweight that I am), and then the news that Nate Olivieri from Queens of the Stone Age is playing RIGHT DOWN THE STREET. And then some momentary panic when we think that this will actually MEAN anything in regards to our show. Before we remember who the fuck we are, what we're doing and that like a bullet that's been fired not much will change the course of this unfolding horror as it stands: OXBOW Acoustic. And when we do get back. Expressly to see Steve Gullick's band Blender play, besides being warned against doing so. Well we're happy to see the club pub full. Steve announces that this is NOT Blender but is some OTHER band called, ah shit….Asymptote? I don't remember. In any case I'm enjoying it. At first. I love Steve and so seeing him onstage doing something other than snapping pictures is a great boon to my eventual plans to start exercising my dream of landscape painting. He's got a couple of women on stage with him and four days into this very long (McCluskey Standard) tour I'm just happy to see women. He's got The Guy From Gallon Drunk on bass (he later denies this. A denial I am still hard-pressed to believe). And then he's got a singer in a Jimmy Buffet straw hat, a shirt that proclaims Geek Love and a beard that proclaims "somewhere at home I have shoes made of hemp and a purse made of recycled paper products." The singer between saying things like "go get yourself arrested at the G8 Meetings" and "can you HANDLE my NIGHTMARES?" has succeeded where many others have failed: he is slowly but most assuredly sapping my will to live. And then his drummer, the singer's spiritual familiar is leaning forward to high five the aging agitpropster while Steve smiles away in the way that I imagine he would have if he had put piss in my drink. Perfect. Todd plays. After weeks of being asked by various pundits at Southern if I was afraid of Todd we, that is me and Todd, by prearrangement agree to do a song together. They tell me that I "can do ANYTHING I want." I ask again, anything? And they assure me that they mean ANYTHING. I put a finer point on it: "say…ain't you got a few women in your band?" "Yes." "And aren't those women your wives?" "Yes." "Are they agreeing to this ANYTHING bit?" And Craig says "yeah….", but he's got that "c'mon, man…" sound in his voice. The one that I usually hear when I'm just about to be disinvited from some thing somewhere (1981: "hey…if your parents can't deal with my Fuck It shirt for Thanksgiving dinner well then maybe they don't need me there!!!"), so I decide to play it by ear. Which means in this instance standing back stage while Mr. Geek Love and his High Fiving drummer feel their way around to trying to provoke me. You know what I mean. All that false bonhomie. Deep soulful eye gazing, hearty pats on the back and an explosive sense of entitlement to the space in front of my face. I hate them. I later find out that the drummer at least is a Local Hero. And they both seem to be real friends of Steve's, which puts me in a horrible quandary as I imagine Steve would be saddened if I wrestled them to the floor in this tiny backstage room. They leave me alone but I start to obsess over them, their place in space and the fact that Todd is cruising into my the song we will do together and the now ONE woman in Todd, Craig's wife is drunk and looking goooood to me. I'm hiding my valuables (in this case: a knife and a cell phone) and as I get ready to beeline straight for her the High Fiving drummer comes up with yet another pat on the back and the immortal words "Go get 'em champ." The mere fact of which sends me into a rapidly spiraling upward rage. I forget about my intent to molest Craig's wife and stumble into a song in which I visualize myself killing High Fiver again and again and again. This seems to do, what they call The Trick. I'm off, Todd beats the fuck out of their set, and then we're back on. We play and I feel Geek Love and High Five somewhere in the audience. Somewhere maybe edging closer and I feel in my heart that if they say ONE WORD, I will attack. And what's more I can feel that they feel it too. So they try to decide, is it worth it? They decide it's not. And afterward they come up to me and say kind words. I'd like to return their kind words but I cannot. Who can explain this animal antipathy? Anyway I'm then buffeted about by a guy who is trying to get me to go see Whitehouse with him, an American photographer who tells me he's from Phoenix and who I really suspect is a pornographer of the most disreputable variety (that is: not like ME), a guy showing me his SS death's head tattoo (the Whitehouse guy again) and a few others. Steve almost gets into a drunken guy argument with Gabriella, the promoter pays us, we give all the money to Xoe, and all trundle off to a bar called Crowbar where lo and behold we see the guy Seddi from Pale Horse (is that his name? Oxbow's Euro Touro diary of most recent times under the BRADFORD heading might clear this up). I talk to him for an hour about fighting and he tells me about getting stabbed by some thugs and then Nathan and I start talking about deviant sexual practices, get joined by some 21 year old woman who thinks, somehow, that we're talking about the blues. Her jacket sports an Exodus patch. This somehow all makes sense. I get braced by a snaggle-toothed Brit of west Indian extraction who says, apropos of nothing and in the middle of talking to me about his radio show and how he'd like to play some OXBOW on the air "Do you like girls?" "You mean versus your cock? Well, yes." "Why?" "Well I'm into smells and even the smelliest girl I know probably smells a lot better than your cock." "You never know." "Oh, believe me. I know." And so it goes. Four bone crushing shows (McCluskey standard), train rides to Heathrow sitting across from a guy reading the Koran and 12 hours later back at my desk at work. Baffled. Embittered. Suicidal. Just like I left it. WHAT HE SAID http://www.londonist.com/archives/2005/06/no_coldplay_sho.php Finding we're still too stunned to head for the station we stick around to catch Oxbow. We knew nothing of Oxbow other than a worrying rumour of nudity but the guy from Interpol (well he looked like the guy from Interpol) is playing some impassioned punk country riffs on an acoustic and it seemed like a grateful respite from the aural decimation we'd just received. What we hadn't counted on was mainman Eugene. Eugene proceeds to scare the living crap out of us. It's not with the hint of pure unbridled insanity in his eyes. Or the way he mutters softly to himself, or sings in a sweet southern gospel soul before letting the anger of the Gods loose in a bowl emptying, blood curdling scream. No, it's the way he's slowly removing all his clothes. The moment he's sitting in his smalls centre stage, rocking backwards and forwards, moaning to himself, a suggestion is made that perhaps it's time to get out of Dodge. If the previous has in any way made you think, though, that this is not a great show then you're wrong. It's utterly mesmerising, a real knife edge atmosphere, and a very palpable threat of danger (an aspect that they share with the Clouse Clan). It's just that we're fragile enough as it is and we need our last dregs of sanity to get us back to the tube. We can honestly say that we've seen nothing like tonight's show, which is a good and bad thing on so many levels. So we're not expecting many of you, hardly any even, to rush out and track either Todd or Oxbow down tomorrow. But if you enjoy playing 'chicken' with your ear drums and Russian Roulette with your sanity, and losing, then we suggest you make a concerted effort to check both of them out next time they're in town. WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED NOW? JUNE 7, TUESDAY, SAN FRANCISCO: The Hemlock with Totimoshi, the full band OXBOW and EASY ACTION Nick Blakey formerly of The Takers (formerly featuring the world's most high strung drummer) is a Broker. Nendie (AWOL since Underworld) is a Broker too. These people exist. God love them. It's been Nick's dream to see OXBOW play with EASY ACTION since about forever. The last time anybody in Oxbow played with anybody in Easy Action was when Eugene was doing a Whipping Boy show in Detroit with John Brannon's band Negative Approach. Brannon went on to Laughing Hyenas and then Easy Action, a band around here that we all love. And while Eugene hadn't seen John since 1982, he'd been a fan of his music and, of course, the jungle demanded that these bands play together. The jungle and Nick Blakey. And Peter Davis. Everybody played, everybody was great, Eugene went into a deep, deep, deep, possibly Neurontin-fueled funk. The reasons? Well to hear him tell it had something to do with looking down the long backward telescope of his life. He got to talk to one of his mini-idols in John Brannon and got caught up on whatever gossip existed regarding everyone they knew in common from 1982 but even more than that, well we'll let him tell it…. "Danny from Sheep Squeeze was there, Sam from Fang was there. Nicky Sicki from Sick Pleasure was there. Biafra was there for chrissakes. Add John into the mix and of course ME and one fact becomes undeniably clear: we're all going to die. Sooner rather than later now. Die to death, life, whatever and then nothing nothing. All of our vanities bonfired. Goddddd…rosebud?!?!" This went on for days afterward. He complained about personally playing a poor show. He complained about the death of love and the perversion of civilized values (he complained about this not happening fast enough, it should be added). He complained about the bar back Trixie owing him $2 for a tshirt he sold. Jesus H. Fucking Christ. CONVERSATION OF THE EVENING AS REPORTED BY EUGENE Sam from Fang: "Eugene. Hey. You remember Nicky?" Eugene: "Yeah. I was just thinking about you. Well I think about you every time I almost get hit by a Muni driver. So what you been doing?" Nicky: "Ah. You know. I just got out of the penitentiary in Texas." Eugene: "What? Man. Well it's a horrible thing to be incarcerated in the south." Sam: "Or anywhere else." SUICIDE! THE ULTIMATE HIGH! In December, 1932, a down and out Hungarian named Reszo Seress was trying to make a living as a songwriter in Paris, but kept failing miserably. All of his compositions failed to impress the music publishers of France, but Seress carried on chasing his dream nevertheless. He was determined to become an internationally famous songwriter. His girlfriend had constant rows with him over the insecurity of his ambitious life. She urged him to get a full-time 9 to 5 job, but Seress was uncompromising. He told her he was to be a songwriter or a hobo, and that was that. One afternoon, things finally came to a head. Seress and his fiancée had a fierce row over his utter failure as a composer, and the couple parted with angry words. On the day after the row - which happened to be a Sunday - Seress sat at the piano in his apartment, gazing morosely through the window at the Parisian skyline. Outside, storm-clouds gathered in the grey sky, and soon the heavy rain began to pelt down. "What a gloomy Sunday" Seress said to himself as he played about on the piano's ivories, and quite suddenly, his hands began to play a strange melancholy melody that seemed to encapsulate the downhearted way he was feeling over his quarrel with his girl and the state of the dispiriting weather. "Yes, Gloomy Sunday! That will be the title of my new song" muttered Seress, excitedly, and he grabbed a pencil and wrote the notes down on an old postcard. Thirty minutes later he had completed the song. Seress sent his composition off to a music publisher and waited for acceptance with a lot more hope than he usually had in his heart. A few days later, the song-sheet was returned with a rejection note stapled to it that stated: "Gloomy Sunday has a weird but highly depressing melody and rhythm, and we are sorry to say that we cannot use it." The song was sent off again to another publisher, and this time it was accepted. The music publisher told Seress that his song would soon be distributed to all the major cities of the world. The young Hungarian was ecstatic. But a few months after Gloomy Sunday was printed, there were a spate of strange occurrences that were allegedly sparked off by the new song. In Berlin, a young man requested a band to play Gloomy Sunday, and after the number was performed, the man went home and blasted himself in the head with a revolver after complaining to relatives that he felt severely depressed by the melody of a new song which he couldn't get out of his head. That song was Gloomy Sunday. A week later in the same city, a young female shop assistant was found hanging from a rope in her flat. Police who investigated the suicide found a copy of the sheet-music to Gloomy Sunday in the dead girl's bedroom. Two days after that tragedy, a young secretary in New York gassed herself, and in a suicide note she requested Gloomy Sunday to be played at her funeral. Weeks later, another New Yorker, aged 82, jumped to his death from the window of his seventh-story apartment after playing the 'deadly' song on his piano. Around the same time, a teenager in Rome who had heard the unlucky tune jumped off a bridge to his death. The newspapers of the world were quick to report other deaths associated with Seress' song. One newspaper covered the case of a woman in North London who had been playing a 78 recording of Gloomy Sunday at full volume, infuriating and frightening her neighbors, who had read of the fatalities supposedly caused by the tune. The stylus finally became trapped in a groove, and the same piece of the song played over and over. The neighbors hammered on the woman's door but there was no answer, so they forced the door open - only to find the woman dead in her chair from an overdose of barbiturates. As the months went by, a steady stream of bizarre and disturbing deaths that were alleged to be connected to Gloomy Sunday persuaded the chiefs at the BBC to ban the seemingly accursed song from the airwaves. Back in France, Rizzo Seress, the man who had composed the controversial song, was also to experience the adverse effects of his creation. He wrote to his ex-fiancée, pleading for reconciliation. But several days later came the most awful, shocking news. Seress learned from the police that his sweetheart had poisoned herself. And by her side, a copy of the sheet music to Gloomy Sunday was found. -- Tom Slemen For additional information on Gloomy Sunday and where you can obtain a copy of Gloomy Sunday on CD, visit http://www.geocities.com/tresbros/gloomy.html by Eduardo Valenciana! NICE KNOWING YOU! WHAT THE FUCK ARE THEY YELLING? THE LOVE SHACK Recent Faves from WFMU Reviewed by Music/Program Director Brian Turner VARIOUS/ Neurot Recordings Volume 1 CD/DVD (Neurot) San Francisco-based Neurot Recordings, run by Kristin and Steve Von Till (he of Neurosis fame) has grown into one of the more interesting independent US labels over the last few years. Dedicated not only to Neurosis' side projects, but many types of dark experimental sounds, the label's aesthetic is well branded into the identity of its artists who form a real community, yet are diverse in sound from folk to metal. This collection draws on the rich well of the label's catalog, from the volume dealers like Tarantula Hawk, Isis, Oxbow and Zeni Geva, to the more atmospheric subtleties of the Lotus Eaters, Grails and Culper Ring. To best illustrate the pallate of colors and hues that these artists deliver, the accompanying DVD is a real stunner, and worth the purchase alone, if not for anything but to bathe in the hallucinogenic Neurosis clip of shifting images and shadows. But the generous and lengthy excerpt of Oxbow's recent European tour documentary is totally mindblowing, seeing these guys unleash their crushing, slobbering mutant-blues on hapless fans (one of which gets headlocked and de-pantsed by Oxbow singer Eugene, a gigantic bodybuilder who writes for Grappling Magazine! He says to the frazzled Swedish fan, "This ain't the Hives!" No indeed.) http://www.wfmu.org/Playlists/Bins/new.0409.html IF IT'S GOOD ENOUGH FOR SNOOP… "From the Snoop Dogg fan beating... "any person who jumps onstage at a concert has to be interpreted as a security threat and an immediate risk to both the performers onstage as well as the fans in the audience. Once a breach of security has been made, authorities are forced to take the proper measures to ensure safety." THE MISSION CREEK FESTIVAL MYSTERY When I first heard of San Francisco's Oxbow I tried to find out about the word on the street, but most revealed little of their experience. So I decided I'm going to have to bypass the Revolution Cafe where Oakland's Mandrake is going to perform. No matter how much I want to hear "broken record" live, I needed to secure my place in line at the Hemlock. To my surprise the line was not a line, rather a mix between a going away party for Mr. L.A. and those few who ventured out on a Tuesday night to hear what the silence in the city was all about. We all found the answer when Oxbow's Eugene Robinson came on stage representing a ferocity that could only be seen at the center of an exploding grenade. Robinson is intimidating surely; it was like watching two performances at once as Niko Wenner (guitar), Greg Davis (drums) and Dan Adams (bass) played both their heaviest and lightest musical weavings to wrap around Eugene in his expeditious performance incorporating more than a little heavy petting. I won't give it away, Eugene sure didn't either, I was later told he has been known to grab members out of the audience and use them as a sort of prop for his performance. I had a brief encounter with him after the show and quickly learned that there's a big difference between his on and off stage persona. His relaxed and approachable nature was a surprise to me. As any artist or musician creates a work of art, they are truly on the outside looking in, which at times can have a very cathartic effect on your outlook. Oxbow's music is on another level to say the least and there are only a few bands in the country that can fit into the category that Oxbow has created. http://www.sfstation.com/article.php?articleId=1300 THE INSANE PAINTER. YOU KNOW LIKE VAN GOGH. "Dear Oxbow, The first 2 Evil Heat Pictures now up on site, sorry for their lateness.: http://www.lazaruscorporation.co.uk/v4/zenon/image24.php http://www.lazaruscorporation.co.uk/v4/zenon/image23.php Mixing paint and collage this time, still chose to call them paintings as it felt like painting to do them still. They are 1/2 ft by 1/2 ft square. Cheers for putting me on the newsletter you would not believe how much of an honour that is. Zenon Gradkowski. THE HATE PAVILION Kind Regards From North Carolina "ok now i'm confused. are you trying to be evil or rape men. your a talentless band. the vocals suck dicks. write some better lyrics you stupid mother fucker. stop humping trees and join the real metal world. pentagrams on your arms don't make you evil you stupid nigger fagg. its not music its a foul noise which pierces my well trained ears. your dvd is a waste of time, and i will go to your show and challange you to a fistfight. i hope they string you up in a tree oxbow. get a fucking clue on making music. stop charging people money to waste their fucking time. pick on somebody your own size. youre degree is a fraud. you only think your smart, but people are affraid of you so they don't tell you the truth. i'm not affraid. if you play near me i will jump on stage and hump your head you fucking waste of life. you should have been aborted. your mother is a cunt for acually having you. i wan to fuck your girlfriend in the ass with a big white cock. i smell nigger woogie boogie nigger. wanna talk shit back or meet for a fight email me. it is a real email as well. its ihateoxbowkillhim@yahoo.com and only if your not affraid bitch should you contact me Brad Price, baprice14@hotmail.com" NORTH CAROLINA APOLOGIZES Hello Oxbow. Uhhh, not entirely sure what to say about all this so I'll just tell you exactly what happened. About 3 months ago, I bought one of the Neurot Recordings compilations that had an Oxbow song as well as an excerpt from the film based around you guys. I had let several friends listen to/watch it and they were, well, entertained at any rate. Then one night I was with several people who had not seen it who had taken some acid, when one of my friends who had already seen it suggested that we watch it (mainly to fuck with one guy in particular). So we did and I guess that it made that person have a bad trip. So this guy now has some sort of crazy problem with Oxbow. Anyways, somebody had told me that he had written some sort of hatemail to you guys, mostly juvenile racial slurs and macho challenges directed towards Eugene, but I did not realize until i was e-mailed by you guys that he had sent the message from my account. I am guessing that he happened to be at the same place I was soon after I had logged onto Hotmail, and that I had forgotten to log off or something. Not sure if it was unintentional or if he holds a grudge against me since it was my DVD, but whatever. So I was certainly surprised when I received your e-mail. Anyways, his name is Jeff Roberts. Not sure of his e-mail or anything, but I could probably find it out. He's never really in town these days 'cause he has some job where he goes on the road for weeks at a time. Not really sure what his purpose was in sending that to you was, but he must have been aware that there was a chance of repercussions, online or otherwise. All I can do is shake my head. I'm sure that given the content of the message, you must realize that there is no real threat on his behalf. "stop humping trees and join the real metal world," "its not music its a foul noise which pierces my well trained ears," "youre degree is a fraud." Anyways, that's about all there is to say. On the upside (I guess), I have introduced probably 20 or 30 people to Oxbow. Whenever I bring it up to work, my co-worker puts it on and tells other co-workers that in the next few minutes, one of two things is (are?) going to happen to them. About half of the restaurant has memorized it. Well, hope this has cleared things up. Take care. Brad QUESTIONING THE VALIDITY OF THE HATE I caught the blurb under Hate Mail from the last newsletter regarding the girl on MySpace and I shot her an email to the effect of "please also review and hate my band too". The girl writes back saying that she read a quote from some friend of hers but that she said no such thing about Oxbow. Moreover, some of your fans (myself included, obviously) have sent her "inquiring" emails and she was confused by the whole thing. So we've had a couple emails go back and forth, we're friendly and at this point and all I'm thinking is "why have I not started that cult yet?". To quote the kids on the message boards " the innernet rulz!!!" So I forward her the excerpt that she in turn forwards on to the girl that actually wrote it and now *that* girl apparently loves you guys. I cannot tell if this is love as in, "I love you. Please don't beat me" or just the fickleness of youth but one thing is apparent: You guys need to be on MySpace. Hoping this finds you well, Daniel NOT QUESTIONING ITS VALIDITY AT ALL: A CHAUTAQUA HATE: A PRELUDE "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. ... " Poor Joy had to withstand the horror that is Oxbow... anyone who thinks otherwise is truly insane. What an awful, awful band. HATE: A POST-LUDE JOY: I just discovered that you guys have a link to my Myspace profile http://www.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewProfile&friendID=14905&Mytoken=20040809214038 in your newsletter section of your site. (See cut and paste at bottom of email.) This is really uncool. EUGENE: the web is a public forum making this as uncool as anything else that people do in a public forum. But we just run a crawler and it picks up web references. It's mechanical. It cares not at all about who you are and just about what you said about Oxbow. It was mention of the word Oxbow that caused it to come up and make it onto the website and the newsletter. Oxbow prizes public opinion. JOY: But a couple wacky people have written me on Myspace insulting me for not liking Oxbow?? EUGENE: looking at it from the other side perhaps you should be happy that they're trying to communicate at all. JOY: First of all, I can't even remember what they sound like!! I was baffled at the time that I got those mean emails, but now that I have seen this post on your site, it all makes sense. First of all, I was at the Oxbow show at SXSW, but I can't remember any of it, except maybe the singer in his panties. EUGENE: And curiously I am in my panties again. JOY: Second of all, it was my friend Mila, not I who wrote that quote that you are linking to MY profile. I wasn't even paying attention to the show, but SHE did, although she left and I stayed. EUGENE: She just wrote me...and said that it was all YOU. Just kidding. Well thank you for staying and NOT remembering. I'm still in my panties, by the way. JOY: But this is HER quote, not mine. I would think that is pretty apparent since she is talking ABOUT me being there, and it is clearly her describing Oxbow herself. Jesus, I generally try to be a nice person who does not talk badly about people I don't know. EUGENE: heyyy....we're not blaming you for anything. Hate mail is good for the soul, we believe. And we don't expect or want the world to love us. JOY: But I don't appreciate getting hate mail from people when I've never even said anything. EUGENE: well I don't appreciate the fact that I must die one day but I've made my peace with it. JOY: Please, would you remove my Myspace link AND my name from your website? I would really appreciate it. EUGENE: man...your email is full of what all you'd appreciate and what you don't appreciate. And imprecations to Jesus. And your name is Joy? Well we'd advise you first to relax. And then we'd say that we'll do what we can (Oxbow translation: we will forget you and this conversation moments after it's over). JOY: I'm as Joyful as they get, asshole! EUGENE: Yes, yes. We can see that. Sal? Could you take care of this piece of shit? ENTER Italian Sal from www.skullgame.com, where the ensuing hilarity continues…. Special thanks to JOY aka JOSEFINA HIKADE THE PUNCHLINE "Hiya, I was the author of the blurb about you guys somehow you found on myspace... involving Pony and Kasabian...Sorry about the trashy review, I guess I should have simply said you aren't my cup of tea. You obviously have a huge audience so more power to you... Mila Mila Sterling VICE MAGAZINE: THE ANATOMY OF NON-PAYMENT Andy Capper from VICE: Eugene, we're doing a sidebar thing in the new issue and… Eugene: What the fuck happened to my steroid piece? AC: Look, we're just asking musicians and artists to list us 10-20 songs that they'd have as an ipod playlist to soundtrack a particular activity, mood or emotion… E: Ok. What happened to my steroid piece? AC: Well, Franz Ferdinand gave us 10 songs that are soundtracking the making of the new album. E: Or sucking cock. AC: Destiny's Child are gave us the ten songs they'd like to be playing as they gave me a three way blow job. E: I've had two on the pipe before. A few times....cool experience. Would have been even better if they had been in Destiny's Child. What the fuck happened to my steroid piece though? AC: OK, so I need Eugene Robinsons's playlist to.... Whatever you like. Can I get this like now?? E: Yeah. But what the fuck happened to my steroid piece? I'm going to be in London in like a week and a half...better to tell me now if it's bad news. That is: better if you don't like beatings. AC: http://www.viceland.com/issues_uk/v3n5/htdocs/gym.php Plus can you send a pic of yourself? E: Of course. Forthwith THE OXBOW LOVELIST 1) Pillow Talk: Sylvia 2) Raping a Dead Slave: The Swans 3) Joey: Johnny Hartman 4) 3 O'Clock: Oxbow 5) On the Wrong Side of Relaxation: Barry Adamson 6) Anesthetic: James Chance 7) Between the Sheets: The Isley Brothers 8) Theme D'Amour: Jean-Luc Godard 9) All Gone: Cleo Laine 10) Thunderball: Tom Jones JOB #1: GETTING REAMED BY VICE…AGAIN ANDY CAPPER from VICE: I know we haven't paid you yet but we're doing some small guide to L.A article and wondered if you can fill us in on what it's like. EUGENE: LA is like Texas: full of assholes. But some of my best friends are assholes. I am, in fact, an asshole. So that's number 1 of what it's like. The best thing about it being full of assholes is that it's all full of the same TYPE of asshole, you know, those that run the brown ring around various ideas of fame. IF assholes think you are famous they will let you fuck their assholes. And that's number 2. No assholes will ever help you at all. No matter what. Gossip: Naomi Watts was living in her car about to commit suicide up on Mulholland. and then the words of her "friend" Nicole Kidman came to her, "hang on. Someday you'll get an audition." nice asshole friend. People you used to like, are all now officially assholes: wanna hear Samuel L. Jackson rant about JEWS in Hollywood? Want Jack Black to stiff you for the bill for his lunch? Want Henry Rollins to get a bouncer and threaten to kick your ass for snickering because he dropped down in front of you and started doing push ups? WELCOME TO ASSHOL.A. ANDY CAPPER: What are the girls like? GIRLS IN LA Cons: 1) if you don't have a nice car, forget it. 2) if you are friends with anyone more famous than YOU, she will eventually fuck him and leave you 3) girls that are 10s in almost every other city are routinely ignored in LA...wait....that's a PRO Pros 1) easy to bag hot bitch IF you have hot car. This is TRUE. Beyond the shadow of a doubt. You don't believe me? Rent one. 2) spend ALL of their time trying to look good enough to make you miserable about not talking to them in high school. 3) if you have nice car and good drugs your worries here will soon be over. AC: What about the best / worst places to go? BEST To Fuck: The Beverly Center. sounds crazy? well it's not. Halle Berry met husband number 2 at the Beverly Center, the multistoried mall in beverly hills. To Fight: RAW in Redondo beach. To Eat: stick to delis or sushi places. Mexican food in LA will kill you. kate mantilini's is still a great fucking eat. so is jerry's diner. To Fuck, Fight, Eat: Venice. AC: Where do you score drugs? What are the best drugs to score? BEST: A resounding vote for SAN FERNANDO VALLEY....porn bitches have the best drugs. and they get them for free. and so do you. so do you. this is where we score. Drawback: porn stars ain't that easy to meet. and bikers make very, very heavy merchants. WORST: East LA...it's gonna be cut with dust no matter what it is. Compton...the songs don't lie. BEST DRUGS: if you are from somewhere else and think you know cocaine, you don't know shit. LA coke will fucking kill a Brit (Entwistle) faster than well something that'll kill you really fast. this makes it the best. WORST: there are NO bad drugs in LA but if you know what the fuck is good for you? yeah, you'll stay away from FENTANYL. AC: What to avoid. Men who shave their chests. And colonicists. sometimes one in the same. AC: What is the worst thing about it? The air really, really can fuck you up. And all of that stuff about the hot cars is cool but if you try to take it on the freeway you will not move. Traffic is slow. people will shoot you. the air will kill you. and it's full of assholes. outside of that? it's a great place. AC: What's the best thing about it? Fucking women with fake tits, fake lips, botox death masks, lipo'd asses and permanent makeup who don't remember your name. OXBOW INTERVIEW FOR SKOPE MAGAZINE NIKO WENNER -- How would explain Oxbow to the uninitiated? Well let's see, four people on stage, bass, drums, guitar, and vocals, it's rock and roll, it's blues based but not always obviously blues music.... But it is probably more interesting to blather on about that really, what we try to do is make music with a purpose no different than others who create music: Sound as a means of communication. Which is to say music that creates a sense of community, as in: "You are not alone in feeling devastatingly alone." This is completely, humbly normal as a musical goal. But to be sure we are very conscious of trying hard to make sound that moves a listener; to create meaningful, evocative music. Lately I've been thinking about how sound has the great ability to get into the receiver's brain like scent does, a non verbal, non visual experience of communication. This is perhaps undervalued or at least under expressed simply because of a lack of common verbal language to convey these non-verbal sensations. I mean, using words to describe something non-verbal can be a problem. Take for example wine writing and the fairly ridiculous (when taken out of context) way people describe the taste and aroma of something complex like good wine. A term like "cat pee" does not for everyone evoke anticipation of a pleasurable experience. Of course one difference between our music and good wine is the emotional content. Similarity? Stains your dress. -- Any news on The Narcotic Story? Have you settled on a producer yet? Before The Narcotic Story is out we will release on Hydra Head an inspiringly massive CD+DVD package called LOVE THAT'S LAST: including some musical rarities, some unreleased songs, some old songs, two entire live performances on DVD, and two 5.1 surround mixes of songs off of our last release AN EVIL HEAT. One 5.1 mix has a video too. At this point as far as recording new music, yes, we are working hard on The Narcotic Story. We are (as in the past) looking for someone to engineer and to worry about the technical aspects of making a new recording, rather than looking for a cigar chomping egomaniac "Producer." -- What are the best/worst bands you've been paired with on a bill, and why? What you think about seeing bands in general and seeing bands as part of playing with them is very dependent on circumstances, your mood, etc., I think. I guess that's the human experience with art, right? But let me give you an example. I had a chance to hear Scorn play live in 1994 at a festival in Belgium. This was when I was touring playing guitar with the English band God. That night I was just really fucked up, extremely emotionally distressed, and I'd not slept at all the night before. God played as a super loud, complex, noisy, early 70's Miles Davis influenced, British Hardcore, improv, 11 piece band for that tour. Playing in God was a little like getting kicked in the side of the head repeatedly. And by that I mean the physical effect and the emotional effect. Earlier at sound check while testing my guitar rig I'd improvised most of what would be the Oxbow song "La Luna" - for me, a howling black hole of music. After we played they turned out all the lights and on came this extremely loud, swirling, non-directional, ethereal but heavy sound. It was soothing in a way I'd never exactly experienced. Near pitch blackness. Eventually I realized it was Scorn, two guys were on stage making and directing the sound. To me at that moment, standing pressed in by the other audience members listening in the dark, it was very, very cool. For what it's worth the next six months of my life were horrible. What would I have thought about Scorn under different circumstances? Something different I'm sure. OXBOW INTERVIEW FOR THE FIERCE FESTIVAL EUGENE ROBINSON FIERCE FESTIVAL: Introduce yourself. ER: Are you in the habit of sending emails to people you do not know? And if so, do you think asking them to introduce themselves is the most compelling opening conversational gambit? Isn't it customary to give gifts? Chocolates? Jellied candies from Asia known mostly for their ability to choke small children and the elderly? I'd assume so. I'm a philistine, so I wouldn't know, but I assume so. But my friends call me Eugene. I suggest you call me Mr. Robinson. FF: Describe your work in a few words. ER: "Dear John: I'm leaving you. Pleze don' try 'n fin me. Signed, Your Mother." FF: Briefly describe the piece you will be performing at the festival? ER: Well this piece will start off with lots of drinking of red wine and then conversations that previously had been very uncomfortable will now be less so. It'll move to me standing waaaay too close to you. And if things work really, really well, it'll move on to, I expect, general hostility. It'll eventually involve some OXBOW music, done acoustically by just Niko and I, which it will be expected that you will listen to. Attentively. FF: Who is your biggest hero? (this could be artistic or otherwise) ER: My father. Hahahahahahahahahahaha....just fucking kidding. Joseph Stalin. He was a great humanitarian. FF: Who is your biggest villain? (same criteria applies) ER: Ladder Pullers. These are the ones who roost on the parapets of found success and offer nothing BUT advice and so when you ask that they extend the ladder downward they ask "what ladder?" And when you say that ladder that you used to climb up there. And they say, "oh I didn't use THAT ladder. I got up her with my TALENT and I suggest YOU do the same." And their number is legion. And their spirit infests the world. I don't mind a great crook, if he greases the fucking skids for the crooks who are merely good. But that's frequently NOT the case. So fundamentally I have no problem with the raw and naked face of sin, as long as it cuts me in. If it fails to do so it's a moral failure that I despise. FF: What's the last performance/exhibition/any other artwork (book, film etc.) that really inspired you? ER: a film called The American Astronaut done by the fellows in that band the Billy Nayer Show. While I'm not crazy about their singer's sort of jokey Zappa-esque take on things, the film is an accomplished venture for sure. FF: What's the best piece of advice you've ever received? ER: "don't go anywhere with anybody." this from my mother. Either this or "don't bring sand to the beach," as spoken to me by the young and sadly mistaken John Getze when I suggested that he might want to show up at an Oxbow shindig withOUT his girlfriend. http://www.fiercetv.co.uk MAIL SCROTUM HI, I'M A 20 YEAR OLD BLACK GUY FROM MICHIGAN ELLIS: In any case I'd like to know what drives your expression and if racial hypocrises have anything to do with your seeming rage? EUGENE: RACIAL hypocrises? Rage? I don't know about any of this. As I write this I am sitting in my underwear at a kitchen table with a plastic tarp on it covered with illustrations of cherries. My pit bull (of course) is dozing at my feet. I am listening to Hank Mobley. Alone. And much more informed by the fact that I will be dead soon than almost anything else I can think of at this moment. But my gripe is Caligula's gripe: is there a reason that you can think of that I can't own the moon? ELLIS: To put things in clearer focus is there room for a higher state of consciousness? I'm thinking of an adoption of Holistic forms of information processing (Read: Thought). EUGENE: Oh. I see. Yeah. Thought is good. Thought has gotten a bad rap in this day and age. Plutocrats of all stripes, from rap artists to Republicans besmear it. But from my point of view thought and animal action are the twin handmaidens of my existence. MY existence. If everyone ELSE wants to eat shit, well they're welcome to. ELLIS: Maybe you've just given up on the human race. EUGENE: What you call "giving up," I call "facing facts." ELLIS: Maybe I should just say fuck it :) EUGENE: Well I'm a pretty happy guy these days. No longer the maundering suffering young wertheresque and callow youth....now? But as my life has grown externally more dysfunctional I have come closer to realizing true joy and fulfillment. Coincidentally what our whole next record is about. -----Original Message----- From: derek / solidpr [mailto:derek_meier1@yahoo.com] Sent: Wednesday, May 11, 2005 11:00 AM To: solid@solidpr.com Subject: SOLID PR COMPILATION UPDATE! hey all! i just got the finished master of the comp in the mail,should be getting sent to get pressed up early next week :) here is the tracklisting, I'm listening to it now and it flows beautifully...I'm really excited about this :) As soon as I get everything back from being pressed I'll be Sending everyone their copies... So far both Pitchfork and Punknews have interviewed me about this, they're gonna run some news stories and others seem very eager to write it up :) also I think NMSS is gonna make it available for purchase by linking somewhere like Amazon or Tower or something (the record is being distributed through Fontana (aka Universal) so it will be widely available :) below is the tracklisting, I think its pretty amazing and I'm really thinking we've done a good thing here...I'll keep everyone posted as more updates come in but thank you all very much again for being apart of this :) more to come! DISC 1 1. Jesu, "Tired of me" 2. Hella "Song from Uncle" 3. Man Man "10lb. Moustache" 4. An Albatross "Lets Get on With it" 5. Vanishing "Cuckoo Spit" 6. Year Future "Nature Unveiled" 7. Upsilon Acrux "Ballet Instructor/ 8. The Great Redneck Hope "Pssst! Hey, the Lord is awesome, pass it on" 9. S "Falling" 10. The A-sides "Everybody Knows the Way" 11. The Broadway Project "I believe in Superman" 12. The Post Office Gals "Right Click My Heart, Save as Broken" 13. Angel of the Odd "The Loved Ones" 14. Paper Lions "Line Up" 15. Lewis & Clarke "Dead and Gone" 16. Scouts Honor "Nowhere is Always Somewhere" * DISC 2 1. Crystal Skulls "No room for change" 2. I Am The World Trade Center "Shoot You Down 3. Discordance Axis "Sega bass fishing" 4. Mixel Pixel "At The Arcade" 5. Mommy and Daddy "Street Cleaner Demeanor" 6. Subtitle "Subtalk" 7. Ponies in the Surf "Little Boy Lost" * 8. Aqui "Eye of The Battle" 9. Oxbow "The stick(live)" 10. Shortstack "El Saboteur" * 11. The Static Age "Vertigo" 12. Rockethouse "Lock 'N Load" 13. My Epiphany "Body Talk" 14. Thunderball Fist "G-G-Gotta G-G-Get" * 15. Flashlight Arcade "Dead to The World" 16. All Parallels "Work" 17. The Braves "Noble of Me" * * = previously unreleased be in touch if you have any questions, comments, concerns, etc and I'll keep everyone posted w/ cover art, pressing info, and the like... the release date is July 12th... nice! thank you all again :) xoxo -- derek www.solidpr.com / (908)230-8371 / pobox 2471 Westfield, NJ 07091 NEXT ISSUE: GOOD HOLY FUCKING MOSES WE SINCERELY HOPE IT'LL BE SHORTER THAN THIS ONE, WHICH WE HEARTILY APOLOGIZE FOR. [ Newsletter ]