OXBOW + The Grammy Gank: The Horror, The Horror

In the middle of a US tour OXBOW discovers that getting INVITED to the party is not the same as GOING to the party.

The first time I went to the Great American Music Hall it was to see Bobby McFerrin. So, yeah, just like that. But with OXBOW. (Photo by Daniel Stevenson)

Someone just asked former singer for Black Flag, Henry Rollins, if he’d ever consider doing music again. He said something that indicated that yes, he did indeed think about it on occasion and found that that was a need he’d like to scratch. Right up until he got to the part when you have to climb into a van with four or five other people and do the strangest thing ever: drive all over the planet and into clubs and play music for all and sundry.

“What would these players had they the cue for passion that I have,” said Hamlet, and it becomes clear, in a weird way, that traveling players have been climbing into some version of a van and doing this since…forever. And beyond. One of my favorite sections of one of the worst books ever, the Bible, comes from the Book of Job where G-d has gathered his “sons” or some convocation of angels, and he asks Satan what he’s been up to and Satan says, simply, that he’s been walking up and down, to and fro. You can feel him shrug.

This stuck with me and for sure framed my understanding of what climbing in a van is all about and what it’s about, insofar as I’ve been able to tell, from 1981 to 2023, is maintaining a certain poise and balance worthy of any shaman to get through 40 plus years of staring at roads that ribbon out in front of you to fates and fortunes unknown. All of which you pay for, and hope you get paid back for.

If you’re still doing this and playing stadiums or at the very least large festivals, then it makes sense. If you’re doing this and you’re playing clubs, it becomes like the Jesus Prayer, something you say, or do, over and over again, hoping for some sort of version of enlightenment.

I slipped into a rock and roll fugue state and would day dream about enemies I would crush and those who could file their history with me either under “never saw that coming” or “eat it!”

And absent that…maybe what a bodybuilding friend of mine from Romania said after he lost a contest I had just asked him if he won: “Yes. The love of the people.”

There are lots of ways to measure this love. In NEW YORK where OXBOW just played on the last portion of our Northeast tour it could have been measured by how glorious it was to play a club that didn’t look like a porta-potty. Or the fact that Couch Slut, our support band, kills it as hard, or as significantly, as any band we would have played with before they were even born.

Moreover there’s something ineffably cool about looking out and seeing your Mom rocking out to the music you make.

But the Grammy deal. Well, first let’s back up a bit.

We first went to the Grammys when it first seemed we needed to. Our producer Joe Chiccarelli was nominated for Best Producer in a year that saw him producing our record The Narcotic Story, along with records by jazz vocalist Kurt Elling and The Shins. Chiccarelli didn’t seem confident in our winning but lack of confidence has never been an issue with me.

We went to the Grammys though and were promptly, and correctly, blown out of the water by Amy Winehouse and her producer.

Then she died.

So when Chiccarelli contacted us and asked if we were considering making a Grammy submission, this year, on the record we had just released that he had produced we were proud to be able to say: “what?”

“I think you should submit ‘Lovely Murk’.” It was a song with Kristin Hayter/ Lingua Ignota, her generation’s Diamanda Galas. Or some variant.

Plangent and with a video that played with the themes of body-less existence, eternity and the death of love, this seemed as likely a choice as ever, but getting Lucy Van Pelt’d by the Grammy people again? Why bother?

“We missed the submission date.” Then nothing from Chiccarelli. Which could have meant anything, but more than likely “I’m through with you low-expectation-having bums.”

In fact it meant he sent a letter to NARAS telling them that they need to put us in there and when you win 10 Grammys like he has already it’s unlikely that you’re ignored. And he was not. That he would do this for us, still chokes me up. It was nice and decent and just like that…we were BACK.

And then a coldwater enema clarification from our label dude: “you’re not actually nominated,” he said, interrupting the reverie. “You’re in the running to be nominated.”

An event that caused me to tell the world that we were nominated. More than this it caused a subtle shift in the firmament. A place where Sammy Davis Jr. said it best when he asked if everyone here could kindly step to the rear and let a winner lead the way. I slipped into a rock and roll fugue state and would daydream about enemies I would crush and those who could file their history with me either under “never saw that coming” or “eat it!”

And then a coldwater enema clarification from our label dude: “you’re not actually nominated,” he said, interrupting the reverie. “You’re in the running to be nominated.” And just that quickly the poker tell that I had gleaned the last time around for us when I found myself seated next to Yoko Ono and an awareness that no one sitting next to Yoko Ono was going to win anything.

I called my sister, also a singer, from my seat at the Grammys because g-ddamit I’d impress at least one person that I was here since none of my friends gave a sloppy shit that I was here. Especially those in music.

“Hey! Where you!?! I’m at the Grammys!”

“Really?” She sounded cool. My kid sister always sounds cool. “So am I. Where are you?”

That’s when I noticed Yoko: “next to [whispers] Yoko Ono. Where are you?”

“Oh. Near Dave Grohl.” Cue the clown music. Because Maya Azucena actually won a Grammy that night. OXBOW did not.

But this year, 2023 would be different Charlie Brown assures Lucy Van Pelt as she places the football he’s aiming to kick and she promises not to yank it away, again. “Lovely Murk” will compete in a new category, Best New Rock Music, or some such thing. So we had better than a puncher’s chance, and moreover, they’d be announcing the same day of the night that we played The Regent in LA. With our name writ large on the marquee.

LA is a machine and The Regent is no different. Pro in a way that makes getting in the van to get here, more than easy. So with all of the signs pointing in our favor we check the listings where we discover that we were, in fact, standing even less of a chance than we did back in 2007 during the first go-around. It’s one thing to not nominate Chiccarelli (very hard to refuse this man), it’s something else entirely to not nominate OXBOW (“hey OXBOW? You listening? Blow us!”).

The stage manager gives us the six-minute high sign, we hit the stage, and in front of an audience of 160 people kill it with me, personally, promising myself to not rail against an unjust G-d and murderous fate/destiny.

“Your fucking people, LA, have anally abused us this g-ddamned night.” Which was as predictable as it would have been when I pulled my penis out on stage upon winning the Grammy, if that had ever happened.

The audience laughed. We finished the set, and got back in the van where we headed to Scottsdale, Arizona to play our last West Coast/Southwest show, the last of six, with the great Psychic Trash (and for all the others with the fantastic band WHORES).

The drive away from LA was quiet. Quiet as could be as we walked up and down, to and fro to Arizona. Why and how do we do it? The van hums and thrums along to a freeway of many ways and it’s much more than clear that it’s probably because, like Job from the Book of Job, we’re just unlucky. Also, when considering the alternatives, we’re lucky, very, very lucky.

So, where to next? The midwest and the American South, we hope, and beyond that, the book tour for A Walk Across Dirty Water + Straight Into Murderer’s Row is coming up too. Because, after all, gluttony loves company. Or so we’ve heard.

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Also now that the book is out I’ve learned a few things. I’ve learned that it’s massively important that you who have already bought the book review it…here at Amazon. Or the Bookshop.Org dealie: Here!

IF you DON’T have it yet: why not?

It’s a simple question…with the holidays coming up you might even have a good answer for it. But a better answer is…just buy the book! And review it. With something other than an eggplant emoji.