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Newsletter No. 19: WHILE MY REVOLVER GENTLY WEEPS
"FOR WHO, IN VIEW OF THE DIABOLICAL CRAFTINESS OF THESE SEDUCERS, COULD DAMN THE LUCKLESS VICTIMS?" Jesus Horace Christ. I mean, really. "There are no sorrows on Earth that can't be cured in Heaven." "Oh really? What about the sorrow of the expanding miseries? The accreted deceits? Or the sorrows of young Werther? What about the groaning sadnesses of nights that eat themselves up, liver first? What about the dying time of no cash, no credit, and no checks? Your system is flawed. You know why? Because you can't get a good blow job in Heaven, that's why. I mean that'd just about make all the difference in the world, don't you think?" "I'll pray for you, my child." "Pray for yourself, Jeremiah, you fuck. As for me? I'll be the drunk and disorderly one. The one that's there when the little guy is getting kicked around�either looking the other way or doing the kicking. I'll be the one whose voice is raised against the forces that oppose tyranny. I'm the face of the last and greatest wish of failed humanity: to be left alone. Now please, go while you still can." (Oh yeah? http://www.churchofsatan.com/Pages/BOT.html) |
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AND WE'RE OFF TO SEE THE WIZARDS
Here we are and we're back again. Right before everything slips into the hole of both nothing and too much, OXBOW leaves when the going gets tough. We're leaving behind all the chest beating and flag waving and teary-eyed, blear-faced remembrances and escaping to countries that won't be erupting in flames in September. Like Switzerland. Italy. France. And England. Fuck you. Goodbye. We love you. OOH DADDY...WHERE ARE WE? Eugene will be flying into Zurich on Sept 9th, rehearsing with STEAMBOAT for 4 drunken days (also called the "swiss awareness of this maybe not being such a good idea" phase) and then doing the Taktlos Festival on the 14th. Sat, September 14, 2002: berne taktlos festival STEAMBOAT SWITZERLAND: Lukas Niggli, percussion; Marino Pliakas, bass; Dominik Blum, organ; Eugene Robinson, vocals; Michael Wertmuller, composition; Dominik Stauch, visuals. Read all about it at www.taktlos-bern.ch THE SMOKING WORD (feat. eugene robinson: words, niko wenner: guitar, manuel liebeskind: electronics) + THE HALF OXBOW ACOUSTIC TEASER wed September 18: bologna thu September 19: roma fri September 20: milano mon September 30: Britain/Brighton OXBOW mon September 23, 2002 France/bordeaux tue September 24, 2002 marseille/grenoble wed September 25, 2002 lyon thu September 26, 2002 paris fri September 27, 2002 orleans sat September 28, 2002 rennes sun September 29, 2002 Britain/london @ ICA ICA information: www.ica.org.uk/index.cfm?articleid=8381 |
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IF STEVE ALBINI SAYS IT IS SO, THEN IT MUST BE SO
"I am thrilled you are re-releasing 'Let me Be A Woman.' It is a great and perverse record." And so it goes. On CD again. Naturally. http://www.chez.com/ruminance |
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IT'S ONLY PORNO IF THERE'S AN ORGASM
I know you all HEARD us talking about a documentary film guy following OXBOW around on the May Euro Touro but as with any other aspect of OXBOW endeavor I'm sure if you thought about it for any length of time at all you may have thought: what a load of goddamn fucking crap. Which it still may be. HOWEVER take a look at these big old sized Matt Damon fucking apples. http://www.3580.com/oxbow/ The director's searching for a name however. First two in the drawing are 1) MUSIC FOR ADULTS and 2) MUSIC TO FUCK BY More (your) suggestions are much welcome. Oh. And speaking of porno. Though I KNOW we said we only like to watch the porno we make ourselves, we're offering something by way of cautionary tale. Following will be a username and a password (for a limited time only) to the "JackAsses" of the porno world: Mr. Sanchez's Bang Bus. The premise is simple: dudes drive around, trick women into fucking them in their van, while Senor Sanchez cracks wise throughout. The only reason we include this here is because 1) it's bullshit 2) if YOU (or me, for example) try to drive around and get people to fuck into your (or my) van for $100 you (or me, for example) will be murdered, arrested, murdered AND arrested, beaten and/or at least severely shamed. In other words, don't do this at home. Words of solid advice from one who now is more than painfully aware that you can't believe everything you see. Username: bb-warfelse Password: cedekelk Member Page: http://members.bangbus.com/ WHY WE ARE SO HANDSOME http://www.crisistheater.com/shows/Balazo_020802/ |
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YOU THINK YOU'RE TOO GOOD FOR US?
Ok. We rescheduled the September 12TH show in San Francisco at the Eagle. Forthwith all of our NEW American shows. October 17th, The Pound, San Francisco November 6th, the Bottom of the Hill, San Francisco November 9th, the Phoenix Theater, Cotati November 14th, The Eagle, San Francisco AS USUAL THIS SHIT COULD ALL CHANGE IN LIGHT OF JAILTIME, ACTS OF GOD, VENEREAL DISEASE, BOREDOM, STUPIDITY, AND/OR CUPIDITY. Yes. We ARE in Fact Too Good for You JD Pehling recently interviewed OXBOW for the SF Weekly that, in a rare explosion of sound thinking, decided to run something that was NOT total shite. Excerpted below are parts of the parts that will all end up at the bottom of his editor's waste basket. 1. How did Oxbow come together as a working unit? Was there any precursor to Oxbow as far as bands that included more than one member of the group? Eugene: Who cares? I mean really. In the slice and dice, slot and forget school of post-modern information consumption, where we had been musically prior to being here at OXBOW, musically, is as significant as anything else, or less so, in a culture where memory means 5 minutes ago. OXBOW has existed as a functioning unit since 1989. So if you have any questions concerning anything in, oh, let's see, the last 13 YEARS, please let them fly. yeah yeah, I know you're just trying to get some fucking CONTEXT going here.....well okay. how's this for chronology? 1) I started masturbating 2) I had sex for the first time 3) I started listening to punk rock... probably the same punk rock everyone else did... 4) I started making music 5) you contacted me about doing this interview. But the first part of your question makes sense....we met, like most people, by complete happenstance. Through newspapers. Through the web of associations and near associations. Through sex clubs. That sort of thing. Niko: The only important answer for me is this: The fact that, as we all had been in bands both together and apart that had various commercial agenda, I suppose it was easier to agree that it would be interesting if Oxbow should first be a group that had none, no commercial aspiration. The idea was to make any kind of music or sound that we wanted to use "ok." We have of course failed miserably, I don't think this is possible even for Mr. "Who Cares If You Listen" Milton Babbit, but the possibility of making music without worrying about an audience, the safety valve of that idea, has kept Oxbow from disintegrating. 4. Oxbow's compositions are credited to the band as a whole. Is the writing and recording process approached w/ equal input from all four members? Is the instrumental aspect of a song fairly well established before vocal/lyrical ideas are introduced and integrated, or are they developed simultaneously? Dan: The compositions are developed with all aspects addressed simultaneously. However, this does not imply we are all participating at the same level at the same time. For example, Niko typically brings the tunes into the band in some form - anywhere from complete composition to complete sections to complete inane guitar riff played over and over until we tell him to stop. Some of the tunes begin on piano. All of the tunes take form as complete compositions under the pressure of many rehearsals, playing them over and over and over, trying to beat them into form. Eugene seems to develop the voice components of the tunes while slumped in the corner of the rehearsal space. We don't hear the voice with all the other instruments until the vocals are being recorded to tape for a release. The records have required more and more hours or torturous fine-tuning during rehearsals. The tunes might get simpler, yet it has taken us a strangely long time to get them to work at all. Like well over 2 years of 2 rehearsals/week for the last record. Niko: Probably 50% of Oxbow music has been written on my 1950's Swedish "Frii Musikinstrument," "F" hole guitar. This was my first guitar. 9. There was mention in one of the newsletters from a European tour of an acoustic Oxbow appearance featuring just Eugene and Niko. What's the story w/that as far as song selection and delivery? That's something akin to Slayer unplugged to my mind, though I guess there are certain tunes that would lend themselves to a stripped down approach... Eugene: Well these are special event deals and the one in Berlin was done at this really special event or I guess you could say RALLY....there were wonderful uniforms, and marching... street toughs carrying torches... you know, all of that fun German stuff. We're going to do a few more this September... One in Italy called the March on Rome...and a few others. But what do they sound like? Well they don't sound like Slayer Unplugged, haha....though that's funny. They sound like OXBOW. Minus the ear-splitting volume. Plus the gentle, plangent touch that can only be delivered by an acoustic guitar and a really liquored up Negro, namely, ME. 11. There are very few bands that can approach Oxbow in terms of intensity, heaviness, and general sense of ill being/transgression both on album and onstage (FANTOMAS, the MELVINS, SHELLAC, and DIAMANDA GALAS come close in one or two catagories, but no one pulls off the trifecta). Are you more interested in entertaining, disturbing or providing a release/relief for your audience? For yourselves? Eugene: well if the audience was going to factor into this in any significant way at all we would have stopped doing this a long time ago (see above: playing to 2 people). I mean yes, it IS nice to play to 1600 people like we just did at the DOUR Festival in Brussels and have them all start eyeing the exits at about the same point. Yes, it IS nice to get my cock near the open and waiting orifices of anyone in the audience who I can get my hands on. Yes, there is a certain delight in the Roman coliseum love of the spectacle. HOWEVER, the point that everyone seems to miss with the tried and true journalistic swipe at the physiognomy of the OXBOW story (that always ends with: well they might SEEM wacky but they're not really bad guys after all) is that we, or some of us, or ME, just to be safe, ARE really bad guys after all. and I don't mean in the obvious drunk and fall down haha clown method of rock and rollage. I'm talking biblical. 11.5. Or is it more of a ritual that has become part of the performance? Has it always been part of Eugene's performance? Eugene: well if we were going to yield to ritual or "performance" even, we'd really put both hands around that rock and roll slapstick that seems so popular with the kids today. you know, goofy band photos, wallets on chains, leaping skateboarders, the whole "aren't we cute/mean/scary/badass/stoned/stoner" bit. I mean god love the bands that do that, just know that that doesn't interest us in the slightest because we KNOW it's all a horrible lie. Like Hitler said there are only three types of people, "the fighters, the lukewarm and the traitors." I guess unless you were in Poland...and then there were "those in jail, those who had been in jail and those soon to be jailed". anyway I digress. the point is this: when we don't tour, that usually means we don't play and the whole seaside of life washes over us...money we don't have, money we have that we spend badly, people who hate to love us, car troubles, police troubles, bills, boredom and insoluble emotional difficulties. OXBOW's shows never surprise me in light of that. I'm much more surprised that everyone else IS surprised. I mean to me it seems like a perfectly sane response to the lives we live and the people that we've become. Maybe if we played every weekend it would devolve into schtick. But for us to play every week people would have to really like us, and THAT, my friend, will NEVER fucking happen. "Performance"?!? Are you kidding? what's "part" of the "performance" is a Frankenstein mix of THAT EVENINGS influences. different influences, different shows. that's why our contract rider has a politeness clause in it. We've found in the past that rude stage hands often beget the most horrible of stage excesses. 13. Does Oxbow have a specific plan or goal in mind for its future? If there is one central idea/feeling you'd like to communicate through your music, what is it? Dan: Love is a many splendored thing.... |
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ODDS & SODS
SUICIDE COMES UP OFTEN IN OXBOW'S SONGS (1000, THE KILLER, THE UNDERCURRENT OF THE WHOLE FIRST OXBOW ALBUM FROM WHAT I'VE READ IN ARTICLES POSTED ON YOUR SITE). HAVE YOU SERIOUSLY CONSIDERED TAKING YOUR OWN LIFE? Haven't we all? I mean haven't we all just wanted the party to end a little sooner than it might ordinarily? I mean why wait for the fucking inevitable bus or cancer or man with a ballpeen hammer? So "seriously"? yes. for the same reason that I might do anything else: because I think I might find it amusing. DOES WRITING SUCH SONGS SERVE TO PURGE THESE FEELINGS? Does a suicide note purge suicidal feelings? ALL OF THE ALBUMS LEADING UP TO AN EVIL HEAT TOUCH HEAVILY ON BETRAYAL, LOST LOVE (OR LUST AT ANY RATE) AND THE VIOLENCE THAT FOLLOWS BEING DONE WRONG. THIS ALBUM FOCUSES MORE ON PHYSICAL COMPULSION OF PLEASING THE FLESH, BUT HERE THE VIOLENCE SEEMS MORE AN ASPECT OF SEX THAN PART OF ANY RETRIBUTION. WHAT LED TO THE CHANGE? hahaha... life. the death of love. and the primacy and sureness of the sucked cock. YOU call it physical compulsion. I call it the only sensible road to take. Abstraction is DANGEROUS. I've surrendered to certainty and the sucked cock is not nearly as dangerous...unless it trundles you headlong into abstraction. and then you're rolling around the floor of your trailer, crying, with a shotgun in your mouth. and believe me I wish I WAS playing this for laughs. but i'm not. sadly enough, I'm not. |
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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 OXBOW - An Evil Heat, (Neurot Recordings/Goodfellas) We must go back the course of the temporal river very six years in order to meet the previous extensive job of the Oxbow, but this is not the band that records albums only because there are contractual expirations to respect or because the ruotine to follow previews the infinite repetition of: recording studio + new record + tour. Every single composition of the Oxbow demands a process of inner analysis, of hurts to cure, cuts to self inflict, mental and corporal violence to endure and mystical suffering. Every single note is part of a therapeutic process thanks to which the Oxbow does not try to purify their own spirit or their own body, but their same existence. And it is not a coincidence that An Evil Heat, is issued via Neurot Recordings of Neurosis, which, with such arguments, have always cohabited. And it is not a coincidence again that Jarboe has co-operated to S Bar X, since she is used to similar sufferings too. But if the suffering and the cathartic process regarded only the Oxbow it wouldn't be so relevant; the fact is that all that flows on the listener, who is involved in a spiral of psychological perversion, from which he doesn�t succeed to come outside. A seduta spiritica made up of slaughtered blues, noise rock from psychiatric hospital and post-core for appestati. Like listening to the Melvins, the Cows and the Sleep that play together a track sung by a sick who declaims a poetry of inexpressibile beauty. If then you will survive to the 32 minutes of Shine (Glimmer), it means that you have obtained the definitive redenzione. (Roberto Michieletto) www.musicclub.it OXBOW "An Evil Heat" CD -- Fractured dysfunctional vocals. For some reason this has a decidedly unwholesome appeal. Like razor blades in Halloween candy. MELVINS style experimental heaviness. Pissed + wallowing in anguish. Beyond the norm. OXBOW are from San Francisco and have been kickin' it since at least 90'. Actually the vox kinda remind me of some early BUTTHOLE SURFERS. In their press pack OXBOW are compared to fucks like NICK CAVE, JESUS LIZARD, and THE SWANS and have worked with Albini, Lunch, Kern, and Klaus Flouride. Pretty great powerful emotional stuff going on here. Dark, brooding and then screaming and rumbling. Demented like a psycho killer rambling and and sputtering in a squalid den before breaking out and going on a kill crazy rampage (over + over again). "OXBOW does not sooth the savage beast. Yeah, OXBOW are the savage beast." http://www.doublethinkmagazine.com/sound/thrashtildeath.html OXBOW RAPES MEN http://www.barbelith.com/underground/topic.php?id=6151 ADAM IS A MAN THAT LOVES OXBOW. ERGO, ADAM WANTS TO BE RAPED BY OXBOW. SEE HOW SIMPLE IT IS WHEN YOU KNOW PHILOSOPHY! "There was a time when I considered bands such as SWANS and BIG BLACK to be the most confrontational non-noise music ever. There was, believe me. But now I realize I have been misled. OXBOW has changed my world. I can find no flaw with the album AN EVIL HEAT, excepting that it should have been a four or five disc set. Such pain, such anger, such noisy goodness (badness?). Now why the fuck won't you perform in Maryland? I swear, if shit bands can play here all the time, I should be allowed the chance to see OXBOW. Best wishes, adam OXBOW responds: Hello Adam, in November of 2001 we tried to book some shows in Maryland. Having an affection for the state and having spent some time in Kensington, Olney, Prince Georges county and so on, we thought what a great idea. Well Baltimore said "fuck you" to OXBOW. As did DC. Ah well. Welcome to another fucking round of Sonic Youth shows. I mean you get what you pay for. cheers, OXBOW ps...thank you for your kind words regarding OXBOW....let those fucking club fucks know and maybe next year we can make it happen. THE FOREIGN LANGUAGE PAVILION OXBOW - AN EVIL HEAT: 7 Out of 8 Big Balls Contrairement � ce que leur nom et leur origine g�ographique pourraient laisser penser, les californiens d'Oxbow n'ont rien d'un groupe de surfeurs insouciants ! On d�couvrira au contraire, un groupe tortueux et d�rangeant qui ne fait aucune concession � la facilit�. D�s l'ouverture du premier titre, l'auditeur est plac� sous le feu d'une violente s�rie de plaintes lancinantes et de cris, que dis-je de hurlements, pendant environ deux minutes. On comprend alors pourquoi l'album s'appelle "An evil heat". Quand les guitares apparaissent enfin, on p�n�tre d�finitivement dans le cauchemard musical d'Oxbow pour 9 titres (curiosit� : ils commencent tous par la lettre "S") et 75 minutes de furie agr�ment�e des g�missements de Eug�ne Robinson, ces derniers se transformant par moment en v�ritables glappissements de d�sespoir et/ou d'impuissance. Fid�le � la philosophie de leur label Neurot recordings, la musique du groupe est anti-conventionnelle au possible, sauvage et surprenante. Destructur�e mais sans devenir incoh�rente, bien au contraire. Elle n�cessite comme toutes les exp�rimentations une phase d'adaptation de la part de l'auditeur avant de livrer une partie de ses secrets. Une sensation d'urgence et de rage inassouvie filtre � chaque instant comme si le groupe n'avait eu droit qu'� une seule prise pour enregistrer son (d�j�) cinqui�me album. Etrange et d�concertant, le rock brut des am�ricains laisse une place non n�gligeable aux ambiances dont le meilleur exemple est "Shine", le dernier morceau enti�rement instrumental de l'album, qui nous offre plus d'une demi heure d'atmosph�res satur�es et jouissives. Une tr�s bonne surprise sur laquelle on retrouvera m�me quelques invit�s de marque comme Jarbow des Swans et Marianne Faithfull. (May 2002) http://gutsofdarkness.nexenservices.com/modeles/disque.php?disque=1487&group; e=524 |
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END NOTE TIME OF FINISH WE'VE REACHED
Last month we had a contest (Newsletter No. 18). Here are the results of the winner, NICK BLAKEY, who, interestingly enough did NOT get even better than 50 percent of the correct answers. EUGENE ROBINSON 5. Buying steroids 9. Fucking married women 12. Staggering around the house barefoot and drinking red wine 22. Watching Ultimate Fighting Videos. Or Joseph Losey films. Strangely enough, not very much porno unless we're in it, of course, then well, hell yeah. 24. Unless you're Eugene and you don't speak to your parents NIKO WENNER 6. Listening to Jerry Vale sing like an angel 7. Tuning into Bishop PP Mobley's Hour of Power 16. Gossiping about all the people we know who have fucked animals 17. Arguing with the assholes we live with before throwing up our hands and saying things like "Jesus. You know I absolutely forgot who I was talking to about this. But THANKS for the fucking support." 21. Shopping for groceries DAN ADAMS 1. Eating peaches 2. Taking the train to work 3. Playing with the kids 14. Welding 15. Reading a political biography of Pol Pot GREG DAVIS 4. Scratching the dogs/cats stomach 11. Eating bad Mexican food 13. Lifting weights 18. Going to the gas station 25. Cleaning the fingerprints off of every single bullet you own. LOVE? LOVE! FAILURE? FAILURE!!!!!!! Mary, I have spent many hours searching for the right way to say what is in my heart today. I've read poems and prose and thumbed through books of quotations. I tried to describe my feelings for you in a dozen different ways but no matter how I expressed myself, it seemed inadequate. There are no words deep enough, meaningful enough and exciting enough to verbalize what I feel. And so, for lack of a better way, I will use the simplest expression of all. I love you. David -- David, I want to tell you some of the reason why I love you. I love you because you are gentle. In a world full of violence, you dare to be tender. You aren�t ashamed to cry and you have empathy for all living creatures. I love you because you are optimistic. You always look for the positive and overlook the negative. I love you because you are fun to be with. You see the humor in life and you laughter brings smiles to everyone around. I love you because you are loyal. I can trust you to keep my secrets. You never speak ill of a friend. I love you because you believe in me and your belief helps me achieve more than I ever could otherwise. I love you because you accept me as I am. With you, I can be completely myself. I will try, in every way possible, to make you as happy as you make me. I love you. Mary NEXT MONTH: BACK FROM EUROPE MORE DEAD THAN ALIVE [ Newsletter ] |