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Newsletter No. 17: MOM? I JUST RAPED A MAN Secret Tears "Carefully made up and styled to look like she belongs to the glamorous world of her dreams, she hopes she could secure a place for herself there, so far away from all the secret pain she holds inside. But sometimes under the cloak of darkness, she turns her face from the light, and the tears flow." - T.Tonooka Well if the wine is from Hungary, claims to be made with bull's blood, and was purchased by a Pole, it's got to be good. But good or not it's on the playlist tonight. A playlist that began with a light jam jar full of cooking sherry, followed with the fruity bouquet of a little Gray Goose, and was eventually washed back with the Hungarian Bull's Blood red wine as a digestif. Wunnerful. Now take your fucking pants off: the newsletter is about to start. So we - that is OXBOW - are now awake and hale and hearty and non-jetlagged and following our typical post-tour MO we've done jackshit since being back, (some of us more so than others) which means we are rested and ready to GO BACK TO EUROPE! That's exactly right. OXBOW is playing the dour festival 2002, the 11th belgian alternative music event - SUNDAY, JULY 14TH, 2002 - www.dourfestival.be Sometime in the afternoon. At some venue. For 40 minutes. 8000 miles for a 40-minute fuck and then back on a plane home. So it breaks down like this. 24 hours + 2 hours of ground travel time = 40 minutes of OXBOW at an afternoon venue on a festival with bands like Slayer, Echo & the bunnymen, Jesus & mary chain, Lee" scratch" perry, Rammstein, Asian dub foundation, Tortoise, and 16 horsepower. It could be worse, right? I mean it could be Akron, Ohio in front of 12 angry drunks: a veritable judge's jury of embittered ex-musicians whose sole reason for going to any shows at all is to report to their flying contingent of other embittered musicians that "the show sucked." I mean it could be an anarchists' street fare in the midst of a demonstration featuring the likes of Monopoly the Angry Mime and his World Beat extravaganza. I mean it could be that Eugene, tired of smuggling his drugs INTO Europe decides to take them all before boarding the plane and spends the flight, the drive, AND the show, grimly masturbating to torn out newsprint pictures of Thora Birch. It COULD be a whole hell of a lot worse and it WILL be in ways that are altogether both completely expected and totally surprising. If you are an OXBOW A-Lister (meaning you got this Newsletter in an email) let us know before hand and we'll smuggle you into the venue with us (WARNING: You may have to share ride-space with Eugene).

WHEN IT RAINS IT GODDAMNED SNOWS! We have also been asked to headline a Festival http://www.bloomington.in.us/~fest in Bloomington, Indiana on Friday, August 30th "Why don't we just play a shitty show in San Jose and be done with it?" - Dan, OXBOW So the tireless, wine-purchasing Pole Robert Iwanik soldiers on in total Quixote fashion trying to meet our 1) unreasonable cash demands 2) unreasonable sexual demands 3) unreasonable unreasonable demands. If the impossible dream is dreamt and we get enough cash, and can play Friday, Saturday and Sunday to more than 3 people, and don't lose a nickel on this show (unlike all the others�.pay to play, indeed), we'll do it. Chuck Berry style. Especially since the promoter says "Overall, the majority of the bands are not like Oxbow. It is a pretty even cut of local Indiana bands and punk/post-emo-whatever plus a lot (17) from the local labels Secretly Canadian and Jagjaguwar. It is always fun, there is a ton of shit going on because Indiana University just starts and there are kids just drooling to break away from their home bonds and get their groove on with good music. The one thing I can say for sure is that people will watch you play even if they have never heard yr music. Last year Scottish avant folk singer (and cookbook writer) Richard Youngs had an entire room watching him. I don't think 2% of the people there had heard of him before they got the fest schedule. That is how things go in Bloomington. There is always good press for this since Secretly Canadian handles that, and this year Insound.com is doing sales for tickets and hyping it via their web site. So people will know about it. There are even people here to sell your CDs/etc. for you and give you the money, not cut taken or any of that bullshit... And really, Bloomington is cool and Robert and Chris talk so much about your live show I just need to see it before I crack both of them in the mouth. And my roommate is really cute, with big doe eyes... " eric http://family-vineyard.com He's pimping his roommate. GENIUS!

ALL OF YOUR BITCHIN' OXBOW NEEDS SOON TO BE FULFILLED. FOREVER. That's right. The OXBOW store will be open for business before July is out. Right now the section on our site that's currently called Sounds will soon be called $$$$$$ and will feature OXBOW Odds and Sods, hard-to-find shit and anything else we want to get out of the house. Orders will be filled by non-drug abusing Texans, promptly, correctly and without any of that nasty "fraud" that poisoned your OXBOW dealings in the past. YOUNG MEN! IF YOU EVER FEEL DOWN. I SAID YOUNG MEN: GET YOURSELF OFF THE GROUND!

SEPT. 12, 2002, SAN FRANCISCO: THE EAGLE... OXBOW plays the leather bar battlestar galactica with Touched By a Janitor. It's a Thursday. A rock nite. Bring your chaps. Show up. Get down.

From the OXBOW MailBag A TOOL fan says OXBOW RULES! I like Tool. I love Oxbow. I think the two bands should Tour together. Of course, Tool will headline, and they probably should, if only to force the host of "dumfounded dipshits" that comprise most of the Tool fan-base to wake up and recognize the awesome power of Oxbow. Well,that may be wishful thinking, but at least they won't all walk out after Tool and leave only Nick Blakey, me alone with that ambivalent fellow who tried to write Oxbow off as "performance art" for the rest of the evening (although Nick and I have been waiting for someone to receive all of our Violent frustrations in one big, bloody package...) Then maybe both bands could play "Stallkicker" and "Prison Sex" together? -- Knuckles OXBOW responds: Tool? I hope those guys are at home laughing, wearing fur coats and counting their money. I suspect not. So you have a solemn OXBOW OATH: if we ever get our hands on huge amounts of jack WE PROMISE to stay home laughing, wearing fur coats, counting our money and sniffing cocaine off of stripper's tits. You have our word. TO KILL A HOOKER When is OXBOW coming back to Boston? Fall is good. You can catch the foliage in VT on your way to a bloody rampage in NH and then it's all downhill to beantown.--Sam OXBOW responds: Get some maple syrup...a few roadside murders...a few teenage hookers and a whole lot of drugs and we'll be set.... Sam responds: Maple syrup? Check. Whole lot of drugs? Check. Teenage hookers? They come with the drugs. You're on your own for the rest. Just do what comes naturally. OXBOW responds: okay... I'LL handle the murders... sigh... just like I always do... sheesh. Sam says: Oh yeah. Like it's easy to bury a bunch of white trash gash in some backwoods NH landfill after you're done with them, to say nothing of their inbred, nazi-biker-coke-dealing-maple-syrup-brewing-pimp. Here on the East Coast you gotta work fer yer bloodsport, man. OXBOW concludes: OXBOW actually prefers BOY hookers. BUM FIGHT Eugene, This could be the next chapter in your ongoing saga of self expression. http://www2.bumfights.com/indecline/ Tibor Spoon OXBOW responds: Some people are scandalized at the prospect of people making money off of videos of winos fighting, fucking and smoking crack. We, however, don't.

WHAT THE FUCK ARE THEY YELLING? MORE WORD ON THE LARGE SAC'D AND EIGHTH WONDER OF THE FUCKING MODERN WORLD: OXBOW'S AN EVIL HEAT 04.22.02 An Evil Heat: CD: Neurot Recordings Oxbow make horrifying music. I don't mean scary like in the Black Metal "we wear white face paint and worship the devil" kind of horror shtick. I mean something really cerebral and to the gut. When I saw them play at the Beyond the Pale music festival in San Francisco last August, I was caught off guard. Singer Eugene is a huge, muscular black man covered in perplexing tattoos (I believe he had a swastika and a star of david tattoo right next to each other). He had black electrical tape over his ears and within minutes he was only wearing his briefs and fondly stroking himself. Thrusting his arms up and down, punching, staring down the audience and screaming to the point of nearly crying. Meanwhile, everyone in the audience was starring as if they knew that they probably shouldn't be. Nervously chuckling and commenting "Weird!" to the friend next to them at a loss for words. A certain degree of guilt comes from standing in a social situation sipping a cocktail while a man rips himself apart on stage. What has this world come to anyway? I think most people in the club let out a sigh of relief when the band's set ended and nothing bad had happened. Later during Neurosis, I found myself standing right next to Eugene (who had sorta barged his way through the crowd, who eagerly parted to get out of his way). I felt nervous. He was really into the music and part of me kept my eye on him, hoping he wouldn't do something violent. Not allowing myself to separate the art from the artist. Of course, nothing bad happened and after a few minutes I lost myself in Neurosis's cathartic set. Now you are probably confused. The music isn't even all that fast and hard. Mostly, it's slow, creepy buildups that do explode, but take a long time to get there. Like a race that takes an hour of warming up and calisthenics just to spend it's course in 4 minutes, Oxbow's music takes it's time. Meanwhile, Eugene growls, screams (and not like Hardcore screams, but real screams of terror) and begs "Father forgive me like you forgot me." The drumming is primal and repetitive and the guitar is sullen. The content of the lyrics are of depravity and sexuality in a way that most people are afraid to explore (and perhaps with good reason). In real life, Eugene is the editor of a glossy fighting magazine in which apparently (I haven't seen it, only heard of it) every month he fights someone and then writes a column about the experience. Supposedly, his writing is incredibly witty and even funny. In fact, I am so frightened by Oxbow that if I didn't enjoy the experience of listening to this record, I would probably keep my mouth shut rather than diss it. This isn't for everyone, but fans of early Swans records (back when they were just super fucked up and noisy) would like this a great deal. Actually, one of the tracks has Jarboe from Swans helping out with vocals for a really frightening effect. http://www.sincerebrutality.com/reviews/o.shtml

Oxbow An Evil Heat [Neurot; 2002] Rating: 8.1 Out of this summer's furnace, their first album in five years. Oxbow, apostles from that small seam of true, gut-wrenching horror. Oxbow, who stink of phlegm and germs and unprotected sex. Oxbow, whose live shows frighten even the few converts who've come to see. Hard music born of slow, corruptive bile from deep down inside, not the tantrums of chugging cheerleaders of doom. They'll put the lie to your grindcore bands right quick. With titles like "King of the Jews" and "The Balls in the Great Meat Grinder Collection," it's not hard to fathom Oxbow's lack of fame. But you'd think the foursome would at least be known for their frontman-- if only for the hecklers he's beaten down in his day. There are few spectacles like Eugene Robinson, more than six feet of black muscle standing downstage, thighs spread, brief-clad crotch thrusting forward, eyes rolling in holy fervor. The crowd steps back a few feet and eyes the exits. The two-track opener, "The Snake & The Stick," finds him perched in the pulpit more than ever before. Cursing, shouting, screaming from the background, his cries come like those from the drunks you see stalking down the street, lost in their own private stew of hate. At the same time, he whispers up close with allure: "One Sunday morning, the preacher went a-trawling/ To the House of Fuck, he come a-calling." A raspy voice admits, "I got couch sluts of every stripe, sir, boys and girls and the in-between types," and right afterwards the band busts into an exaltation of Sabbath riffage. Might as well strip your clothes off, burn your Preacher comics and bask in the squalor because Garth Ennis ain't never going to come close to this freaky. In times past, Oxbow sounded somewhat like labelmates Neurosis, or a spoiled Birthday Party. An Evil Heat cools the fire just enough for a slower burn. The main hooks of these songs seem blues-based, at least at the beginning, as you're reeled in. "Stallkicker" opens with a rough blues crunch, and the cymbal crashes resonate like electric shocks. It even ends with a brief coda of almost pretty guitar picking. But they return to their trademark queasiness-- a sidelong slither between noise-rock and metal-- on "S Bar X," on which former Swan member Jarboe guests. Her low moans circle his high-pitched keens until it all mashes together in a swirl of seething feedback. Given all the old folktales of forks in the road and deals made at midnight, the whiff of blues here makes sense. Scent-words seem to be the most appropriate; there's an odor of pheromonal aggression that's just tangible on this record, and it alternately sickens and succors. Rarely have I been so thoroughly seduced after an averse reaction, and rarely have I been so driven to get up and thrash around and feel the blood pulse through my veins. "Skin," in particular, grips me until I'm aware of the sad state of my own flesh, what with the brutal whip of the snare and the tale of "the cockhorse, teeth like sugar cubes/ Play the blues, balls hanging/ Between his between, like crab apples... hating his hide, and hiding his hate/ Potentate of the small, and the great." What wages do you earn after the sins of the first half-hour? The other half: a thirty-two minute (near) instrumental by the name of "Shine(Glimmer)." It builds in buzzing bass drones and dives back down into distortion, endlessly climaxing and clenching up and coming at you again. It's a primal jam, fueled by pure carnal libido, so get together with some inclined bodies and slap skin together. An Evil Heat may not be for everyone, but you're going to keep an open ear-- it's been too long since you've listened to anything this hard. So kneel yourself down now, and look upwards at old Eugene. It's time for your confession. -Christopher Dare http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/record-reviews/o/oxbow/an-evil-heat.shtml

OXBOW Clwb Ifor Bach, Cardiff Accentuate the positive by all means, but sometimes it's too easy to get complacent. Meaning: when was the last time you saw a genuinely incredible live performance that raised the bar for every band hereon in? Oxbow are an acquired taste for sure, a backline angle-grinding out dischordant Swans-meets-Beefheart-type psycho-noise. But it'd be dismissable fare were it not for the man fondling himself stagefront while bellowing grim oaths about sex, death, and probably sex during death. This man is Eugene Robinson. He's kind of Green Velvet meets GG Allin, a satanic Craig David, or merely the only black man I've ever seen with a swastika tattoo. Even before he strips down to his underpants and repeatedly glares at you, he's an utterly imposing figure, raising that bar in the same way Iggy Pop did thirty years ago. And then some. - Noel Gardner Oxbow - An Evil Heat (Neurot) Yikes, this is scary. The soundtrack to a murder. Texas Chainsaw shit. v.e.p. http://www.crimsonandcherry.com/music/haikuarchive/haikuarchive-O.html I must say that Neurot have unleashed some really sick records in the last few years. Following in that same path is Oxbow. The first track just starts so mental! This is such sick shit I'm trying to figure out how many languages they are singing in. Track two starts tripping out! Only the dysfunctional will make it through this freeform sonic mental music. They start going sonic in this track. So be ready to jump out of your seat just as you are becoming relaxed. Its just mental music period! Well over a decade of making noise as you'll hear how controlled it all really is. A band that is just too hard to explain. Freeform screams, sonic blasts and just utter experimentation. If you thought you could handle heavy music? You might want to check the twisted weirdness these guys supply. Just various vocals coming from everywhere. I thinks it was track five that I was about to take this CD out and throw it across the room. Then track 6six came out and I was laughing. Was that Japanese I'm hearing? Take your acid and trip out kids. This is one fucked band. If you think you could last. http://www.hammerheadzine.com/zine/spring2002_4.htm THE FOREIGN LANGUAGE PAVILION OK. We have no idea what these fucking people are saying. In fact we've come to feel like the whole "foreign" language dodge is just a scam to "confuse" or "bamboozle" or even "cloud the minds" of us monoglot Americans. So here are the URLs. Make of these reviews what you would. 1) http://www.discover.de/kritiken/sites/Oxbow2002-05-27.html 2) http://www.taz.de/pt/2002/05/25/a0300.nf/text 3) http://www.suburbiamagazine.net/recensioni_get.asp?a=4&id;=2151&y;=2002 4) http://www.stnt.org/UneChroniqueDeDisque.php3?i=292 NEXT MONTH: EUGENE'S LIFE BEGINS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! [ Newsletter ]