Interview: Oxbow
by Jeremiah Griffey
“You know, this is the first all-ages show we’ve played in like five years,” Eugene Robinson tells me as we watch four teenage girls set up to play under the moniker Fallopian. “I’m rethinking my whole performance. You know…felonies.”
Robinson fronts San Francisco’s enigmatic Oxbow, the conduit for his sexually-charged live performances that include a terrifying strip act that leaves viewers, well, violated. One European concert-goer interviewed for Oxbow’s documentary release, “Music for Adults” (part of an Oxbow sampler called “Love That’s Last” released in February by Hydrahead) went so far as to say he felt raped after watching Robinson tear off his clothes and caress his genitals as his band shredded post-everything behind him.
On this night Oxbow are sandwiched between a ragtag bunch of novices. It’d be sad if the band actually gave a shit. Despite the fact the music they make vaguely recalls a terrifyingly epic adaptation of The Birthday Party, or perhaps because of it, the band has been kicked around labels more than Anton Newcombe has booted members of the Brian Jonestown Massacre. They’ve never managed to develop a huge following either: “I remember distinctly the day our status and standing as an indie band died,” Robinson says. “We were playing a show at Gilman with Creeps on Candy and we came out and we’re doing our show—it was palpable. It was great … People were kinda just saying, ‘We can’t deal. Fuck it. Whatever you’re doing, we’re leaving.’ And they fucking left.”
To his credit, Robinson ended up holding back only enough to avoid child endangerment charges. By the end of the show, he was drenched in sweat, naked but for some black underwear and a couple tattoos. The little sexualized teenage girls (and one or two guys) were swooning over his bulging pectorals.
Before all of that, however, we chatted on the sidewalk of L.A.’s skid row. Here are a few snippets of our conversation:
In the documentary you expressed a desire to make a ton of money…
Robinson: I think it was specifically to make a million dollars. Oodles and oodles of cash. I’ve had that desire for a long time.”
So that’s still with you then?
My desire to be hugely wealthy? Yes it is.
Are you any closer?
No. But it’s still my dream. I don’t have an anti-money philosophy. It doesn’t really hold in my household.
It almost seems like you have to sacrifice artistry for popular success.
Nobody’s asking any artist to sacrifice anything for art. I think a guy who is a multimillionaire as a result of playing music is not really concerned about art. Or if he is concerned about art, he’s probably concerned about the (whether or not) his art justified him being a multimillionaire. Or maybe they don’t worry about that at all. Maybe it’s just enough to have a million dollars: “I don’t have to worry about groceries.” And then you appear on “MTV Cribs” and it all makes sense to you. I don’t really know how it works. I think money has a corrosive influence when you try to do things to try to make money, but I’ve never been successful trying to make money, which is the frustrating thing. You like to think when you go to Vegas it’s your skill at the blackjack table that makes you money. That’s not the way it happens. You just happen to be sitting at the right chair at the right time. I’m sure there are people who do have skills at making money, but I’m not one of them … I’ve got a knack for other things.
What are they?
Masturbation. I’m very good at masturbation. I’m almost, probably a professional. I’m probably a decent writer, if you’re asking me to really seriously assess my personal attributes. Outside of being a decent writer, I don’t know that I’m good at much else. I can do many pushups.
Are your albums any solace to the fact you’re not a millionaire?
They’re not really connected to me, in my mind, and this is where I come out of it smelling clean. They’re not connected at all. For these guys who are on “MTV Cribs” I can imagine that it is quite connected for them. I imagine what they’re really saying by showing me their pool and their car is, “This is how good my art is. This car equals my good art.” It’s good for them to make that connection. It’s a causal connection for them that works. For me it doesn’t so much work. An interesting question would be if I had ten million dollars, would I continue making Oxbow music. I’d continue making music, but it probably wouldn’t sound like Oxbow anymore (laughs). I’d be doing songs about how tough it is to get good help and things like that. Money doesn’t really factor into my daily doings in a major way, because, as I said, I’ve never been able to make it. I kinda do what I do and try to get clean socks and nice shoes every now and again. If I can do that, I’m probably pretty happy. But these two things are not connected at all in my mind.
You guys have been going at it for like 16 years now…
Yeah I know. It’s weird. It’s been coming up more and more lately in every review. I haven’t quite figured out why you would focus or fixate on that vs. any other aspect of the band. It’s either because they look at the DVD and they’re like, “Oh my God. I can’t believe he’s been doing that for 16 years.” Or maybe it’s a critique. I don’t know. I don’t know how the 16 years factors into it. It is a long time.
It’s actually almost amazing because so many bands, around the eight-year period say, ‘You know what? Fuck it. We’re done.’
That’s because they have careerist notions about the music they make. If I was a painter or liked to take photographs or make pastoral scenes, I don’t think all of a sudden after eight years of painting bowls of fruit I’d stand up and go, ‘I’m finished. I’m finished painting bowls of fruit.’ I might. I might decide to do something else, but it wouldn’t be because I didn’t feel appreciated, you know. That’s the real issue … Fortunately Oxbow pays me no money at all. So I either live on the street or in a van to do Oxbow, or I get a job like everybody else. I’m a musical hobbyist.
In the documentary, you were talking about “An Evil Heat” as the album you’re most proud of. Is that still true?
I think I was talking in a very general way. I think each of these are documents for posterity, in my mind. At some point we leave remarkably very little behind. But think about all the music you listened to in the last day. It’s a cavalcade of corpses as far as I’m concerned. I’ve listened to Billy Epstein in the past day. I’ve listened to lots of dead guys, and people will be listening to these dead guys for a long time. I go from listening to those dead guys to picking up and reading a book by a dead guy. These are all artifacts—ways for us to extend ourselves through the future…I feel that way about all of our stuff. That whole “message in the bottle thing.” That’s useful to me while I’m alive. I don’t know how useful it’ll be to other people after I’m dead, but at least those who give a shit will be able to embrace it. That’s why we leave this shit behind.
2006 “The Narcotic Story” (Hydrahead)
2006 “Love That’s Last” (Hydrahead)
2002 “An Evil Heat” (Neurot)
1997 “Serenade in Red” (SST)
1995 “Let Me Be a Woman” (Ruminance)
1991 “King of the Jews” (CFY)
1990 “Fuckfest” (CFY)
