In the first decade of the new millennium, Oxbow only issued two proper studio albums - An Evil Heat in 2002 on Neurot Records and the conceptual opus The Narcotic Story on Hydra Head - but the group also branched out into film with the release of the tour documentary Music For Adults. The latter album featured a guest spot from UK chanteuse Marianne Faithful on a harrowing cover of Willie Dixon’s “Insane Asylum.” The band’s dense and challenging early albums found a core of fans drawn to the extremism of the music, including noted recording engineer and Big Black/Shellac guitarist Steve Albini who would help track Oxbow’s even more ambitious efforts, 1995’s Let Me Be a Woman and 1997’s cinematic Serenade in Red.

The cacophonous musical bed was matched by Robinson’s wailing, unhinged delivery of multi-tracked vocals that sound like avant-garde singer Diamanda Galas channeling the right Reverend Al Green. Former Whipping Boy drummer Dan Adams switched to bass for the band while drumming chores were split by Greg Davis and Tom Dobrov (Davis would take over full time in 1993 after Dobrov’s departure).įormed around the concept of musical freedom with no commercial aspirations, Oxbow mixed elements of noise rock that echoed Nick Cave’s early band the Birthday Party and NYC sonic extremists Swans as well as such diverse inspirations as blues (in Wenner’s screaming, dive-bombing bottleneck solos), dissonant modern classical, punk and metal. The far more unconventional Oxbow began strictly as a recording project late in the decade. Robinson first collaborated with Oxbow guitarist and main musical arranger Niko Wenner when he joined the singer’s art rock-meets-hardcore band Whipping Boy in time to contribute to the group’s final full album The Third Secret of Fatima in 1985. READ MORE: Shooting At Sunvalley Mall In Concord On New Year's Eve, Police On Scene One of the longest running experimental-rock outfits in the Bay Area, Oxbow has gone from clearing rooms in the early ’90s with it’s squalling, abrasive music and the disturbing, sometimes confrontational onstage performance of singer Eugene Robinson to become an acclaimed mainstay on San Francisco’s fringe music scene. SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) - A noted noise-punk pioneer and writer returns to the Bay Area with her latest music project when the Lydia Lunch Retrovirus joins celebrated local avant-rock band Oxbow and explosive punk power trio Victims Family at the Great American Music Hall Saturday night.

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