After over 35 years, eight records, and a number of extensive tours, founding member of experimental noise rock band Oxbow Eugene S. Robinson announced his departure from his own project on Sunday. This rather shocking turn of events explains the sudden cancellation of the last five shows of the band’s European tour in June.
Robinson announced his departure in a lengthy post on his Substack page, giving only vague explanations of “irreconcilable differences” and comparing his departure to Dr. Dre’s departure from Death Row Records in 1996. Here’s an excerpt from his post:
“While I don’t feel that my life is being threatened, my physical life, I do feel, under the weight of irreconcilable differences, none of them aesthetic or musical, that I now must leave OXBOW. Recent circumstances have caused me several dark nights of the soul and while it feels/seems crazy to kill my involvement in that which I started, I think it necessary so that maybe a kind of healing can take place that will make OXBOW a comfortable place for me to be again. If not, then not.
“So the last five shows of the tour were scrapped and I’m sitting in a cheap hotel in Fuengirola, Spain, thinking of how the band began, and how the last video we just released from Love’s Holiday was so aptly named. “All Gone” it was and perhaps seems to be.
“So that’s where we are, and this is where I am. For the first time in just about forever I don’t have any idea of what to do. I’ve always envisioned that by bringing OXBOW to the masses I was engaged in what might crazily be considered G-d’s work. Bring me your lonely, downtrodden and so on…a tribe for people who have no tribes. Sure I’ve punched people in the face at our shows before but this was usually a course correction for people who thought punching me in the testicles was sexy.
“However, the very real prospect that we might have contributed to the misery of the world makes me sick to my stomach.”
That’s a pretty long explanation for something that continues to leave a lot of questions unanswered. Amongst them is who exactly punches the vocalist in the testicles during a band’s live performance?! In all seriousness, Oxbow is an absolute legendary band and the departure of Robinson is heartbreaking to hear about. It seems inconceivable to imagine Oxbow continuing on without him.