Lou Barlow
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| Lou Barlow | |
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| Background information | |
| Birth name | Louis Knox Barlow |
| Born | July 17, 1966 |
| Origin | Dayton, Ohio |
| Genre(s) | Indie rock, Lo-fi |
| Occupation(s) | Singer/songwriter guitarist |
| Instrument(s) | Vocals Guitar bass percussion keyboards |
| Years active | 1982-present |
| Label(s) | Shrimper Smells Like Records Mint Records Sub Pop Lo-Fi Records Little Brother Records Dark Beloved Cloud City Slang Merge Acuarela |
| Associated acts | Dinosaur Jr., Sebadoh, Sentridoh, Folk Implosion |
| Website | Official website |
Louis Knox Barlow (born July 17, 1966) is an American alternative rock singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist.
A founding member of the groups Dinosaur Jr. and Sebadoh, Barlow is credited[1] with helping to pioneer the lo-fi style of rock music in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Barlow was born in Dayton, Ohio and was raised in Jackson, Michigan and Westfield, Massachusetts. Barlow is widely considered[2] to be among the most prolific and ground-breaking indie musicians of the 1990s. Many labels have been applied to his unique brand of acoustic rock, including "folk-pop" and "folkcore."
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[edit] Dinosaur Jr.
- See also: Dinosaur Jr.
Barlow attended high school in Westfield, Massachusetts, where he met Scott Helland. The two formed the Massachusetts-based hardcore punk band Deep Wound. J Mascis joined the band after answering their ad for, "drummer wanted to play really fast".[3] After becoming disillusioned with the constraints of hardcore, Deep Wound broke up in 1984. Mascis and Barlow reunited to form Dinosaur (later Dinosaur Jr.) later that year. Throughout its early existence, however, Mascis and Barlow had frequent personality conflicts and after the release of their third album Bug in 1988 and the initial supporting tour, Barlow was kicked out of the band. [4]
In 2005, Barlow rejoined the band alongside the original drummer, Murph. Since then, the band has reissued its first three records, toured the world extensively, and released a new record, Beyond.
[edit] Sebadoh and Folk Implosion
- See also: Sebadoh
- See also: Folk Implosion
After his dismissal from Dinosaur Jr., Barlow turned his attention to his side-project Sebadoh, which he had formed several years earlier with the multi-instrumentalist Eric Gaffney. The project featured lo-fidelity recording techniques and combined Barlow's introspective, confessional songwriting with Gaffney's discordant noise collages. Bassist and songwriter Jason Loewenstein was later added to the line-up. Sebadoh's early efforts include 1989's The Freed Man and 1990's Weed Forestin', which were later combined into the double album The Freed Weed.
In 1991, Barlow began work on the first of many side projects in reaction to the growing popularity of Sebadoh. He dubbed his largely solo effort Sentridoh and reverted to earlier recording techniques, making much use of sampling and a four-track machine. Sentridoh released a series of recordings available only on cassette tape on the Shrimper label, with the highlights later being compiled on CD on 1994's Winning Losers: A Collection of Home Recordings and 1995's The Original Losing Losers and Wasted Pieces in 1996. Another EP, Another Collection of Home Recordings was released in 1994 on Mint Records.
In 1994, Barlow formed the Folk Implosion with fellow singer/songwriter John Davis. After the release of several Folk Implosion EPs and singles, Barlow & Davis composed most of the soundtrack for Larry Clark's film, Kids. From those songs, "Natural One," recorded by Walton Gagel, became a surprise top-40 hit following the success of the film. It remains Barlow's biggest commercial hit. The soundtrack also included previously released songs by Slint, Daniel Johnston and Sebadoh.
After the release of The Sebadoh in 1999, Sebadoh went on hiatus and its members went on to pursue other projects. Barlow continued to work with the Folk Implosion, releasing One Part Lullaby in 1999. Barlow took a break from the Folk Implosion in 2000 to collaborate on an album with Belgian musician Rudy Trouves. In 2003, Barlow released The New Folk Implosion, an album which featured a new line-up, with Imaad Wasif on guitar and Russ Pollard, a Sebadoh veteran, on drums. This album met with mixed reviews from long-time Barlow fans, who felt that the album was unfocused and uneven [1]. Also in 2003, Barlow appeared as a musician in the film Laurel Canyon. In Spring of 2004, Barlow briefly reunited with Jason Loewenstein for the Turbo Acoustic tour. During this tour, Barlow and J Mascis also reunited for a single performance of the song "Video Prick" with former Deep Wound vocalist Charlie Nakajima. This brief song with Mascis led to a full fledged Dinosaur Jr. reunion in 2005, with Barlow, Mascis & Murph playing "The Lung" on the 'Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson' on April 15, 2005 and a show at Spaceland in Los Angeles the following night. They then mounted well-received tours of the United States and Europe throughout the rest of the year. They continued to tour throughout 2006, heading to Japan, Australia and New Zealand.
2007 saw Barlow, again, reunite with a former bandmate when he and Jason Loewenstein reformed 'Sebadoh Classic' with Eric Gaffney and went out on the road from February through April as the original lineup for the first time in 14 years.
[edit] Other collaborations
- Recorded an instrumental split album with Rudy Trouvé on the Sub Rosa label
- Sings on the track Some from Sharon Stoned's debut album License to Confuse (Sharon Stoned is a side-project of The Notwist).
- Sings on the tracks My Brother Moves and Everything You Know Is Wrong from the Production Club album Follow Your Bliss.
[edit] Solo work
Barlow's latest album, his first "official" solo effort, is entitled Emoh and features many long-time collaborators and colleagues, including Abby Barlow and Jason Loewenstein. The album, released in January of 2005, "takes the songs of Sentridoh and rolls them up into the production values of Folk Implosion to create a sound rarely found in the Barlow catalog" [2]. In November of 2005 he toured Spain and the Iberian peninsula to promote his new album.
[edit] Discography
[edit] cassettes / albums
| Year | Title | Label |
|---|---|---|
| 1990 | Losers (cassette) | Shrimper |
| 1992 | Most of the Worst and Some of the Best (cassette); selections included on Wasted Pieces reissue | Shrimper |
| 1994 | Wasted Pieces (cassette); reissued on CD in 2003 | Shrimper |
| 1994 | Winning Losers: A Collection of Home Recordings 89-93 | Smells Like Records |
| 1994 | Lou Barlow and His Sentridoh (compilation) | City Slang |
| 1995 | The Original Losing Losers; reissue of Losers cassette | Shrimper |
| 2002 | Free Sentridoh From Loobiecore | Loobiecore |
| 2005 | Emoh | Merge |
[edit] EPs / Singles
| Year | Title | Label |
|---|---|---|
| 1993 | The Mysterious Sentridoh | Little Brother Records |
| 1993 | Sub Pop Singles Club | Sub Pop |
| 1993 | Losercore | Smells Like Records |
| 1994 | Louis Barlow's Acoustic Sentridoh | Lo-Fi Records |
| 1994 | Lou Barlow and Friends: Another Collection of Home Recordings | Mint Records |
| 2007 | Mirror the Eye | Acuarela |
[edit] References
- ^ Sprague, David. Sebadoh. TrouserPress.com. Retrieved on 2007-06-18.
- ^ Ankeny, Jason. Lou Barlow Biography. allmusic.com. Retrieved on 2007-06-18.
- ^ Azerrad, Michael: "Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground 1981-1991.", page 348. Little, Brown and Company., 2001
- ^ Allmusic.com
