TheOXBOW.com: OXBOW - Trouble That Will Trouble The World

Tour Diary: 1996 > Page 2

Oh, yeah, that's right, they also refused to unlock the front door of the club so there were 10 people in attendance...those outside after screaming to be let in and standing in the cold went home. DESPITE this we played very well and met a couple of decent people ONE of whom was a GOTdamned AMERICAN! Not a surprise...he was in a great band, another Albini-child called Deerheart. His quote about the entire evening was the best (he having seen it all occur as I've mentioned it) "most bands from america give them a little bit of america. I think you guys just gave them TOO much of america." Genius.

9) The girl who came up to me in Groningen and said "Can I ask you a question?" And I said yes. And she said, "what are sloppy seconds?"

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10) The pot-smoking, fume-huffing, sandal wearing maniacs who run the club in Krefeld called SPUNK! Despite our first impressions this ended up being a good show and an amusing time from the german punk rocker who had a bad fake english accent who kept muttering about "mein herz," to the heavily stoned doorwoman who when people came in and actually WANTED to pay to get in she just waved them inside telling them "pay when you leave," forgetting that the club's exit was on the other end of the club.

11) To all the guys that let us stay at their apartments who had closets full of women's clothes and claimed to have girlfriends that we just NEVER managed to see. And this includes Thomas in Hannover, whose appreciation of tranvestites warmed the cockles of my heart.

12) And finally (for the sake of not boring you) the drunk who I strangled at our last show in Berlin...going to an Oxbow show is like going to a Hell's Angel party, don't get too drunk or pass out too close to the stage or you are fair game.

But it was great and everyone who was part of it we feel fondly about. See ya next time.

The Damage Done

� M. Liebeskind

In between the small spaces that fit between the smaller spaces I sneak a glance at my watch...as though this might stand the faintest glimmer of a chance of letting me know where the fuck I am. I have no idea, no country, no city, no place, no nothing. This is the latest in a long line of failed stratagems to figure out where I am, who I am...and my watch isn't helping. Still set to California time like it is it offers nothing but reminders of what my life had been like before the great and glorious rock and roll windfall that had befallen me, namely Oxbow's Serenade in Red Tour. Like some kind of latter day Billy Pilgrim, I've become unstuck from time, and float from show to show of the 30 shows we play in some kind of fugue state with the throb and constant gnaw of the will to fuck grinding away inside of me like a buzzsaw that spins at two speeds: hot and hotter. The body starts to break right away--the back, the leg, the neck, my balls, my head--each show devolves into a litany of the ways I hate myself and the audiences seem to be most thankful, maybe because by comparison their own lives aren't that bad, and after many of the shows I'm guessing that this isn't a guess...when people like us, they tend to love us, and when they hate us, it seems, they just don't care. Both are okay with me, as long as the party stays polite.