Lou Barlow
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Louis Knox Barlow (born July 17, 1966) is a musician from the USA credited with helping to pioneer the lo-fi style of rock music in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
Lou Barlow was born in Dayton, Ohio, but was raised in Jackson, Michigan and Westfield, Massachusetts. He 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".[1] 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. Tensions were high between Mascis and Barlow, who apparently battled for creative control and seldom spoke to one another [1]. This led to Barlow's removal from the band after the release of Bug in 1989.
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 this 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, with the highlights later being compiled into 1994's Winning Losers: A Collection of Home Recordings, and 1995's Losing Losers. Barlow released a third acoustic folk-pop album, titled Another Collection of Home Recordings, under the name Lou Barlow and Friends. This recording also appeared in 1995 and featured Bob Fay, Gaffney's replacement on drums in Sebadoh.
In 1994, Barlow formed the Folk Implosion with fellow singer/songwriter John Davis. After the release of several Folk Implosion EPs and singles, Barlow compiled the soundtrack for Larry Clark's acclaimed film, Kids. Barlow composed much of the material himself and hand-picked the rest of the music that was to appear in the film, giving exposure to many little known lo-fi bands and artists, including post rock pioneers, Slint. The Folk Implosion's contribution to the soundtrack, entitled "Natural One," became a surprise top-40 hit following the success of the film.
After the release of The Sebadoh in 1999, Sebadoh disbanded 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 [2]. 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 continue to tour in 2006, heading to Japan, Australia and New Zealand.
Little information is available on Barlow's personal life. During his 2004 Turbo Acoustic Tour, he appeared on stage with his mother, Louise, who continues to live in the Westfield, Massachusetts area and is an advocate for children with autism. He is married and lives in the Silver Lake section of Los Angeles with the couple's infant daughter, Hannelore.
Barlow is widely considered 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." 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" [3]. In November of 2005 he toured Spain and the Iberian peninsula to promote his new album.
