| Lou Barlow | |
|---|---|
Barlow performing with Dinosaur Jr. in 2005 |
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| Background information | |
| Birth name | Louis Knox Barlow |
| Born | July 17, 1966 Dayton, Ohio United States |
| Genres | Indie rock, lo-fi, hardcore punk |
| Occupations | Musician, songwriter |
| Instruments | Vocals, guitar, bass, percussion, keyboards |
| Years active | 1982–present |
| Labels | Shrimper Smells Like Mint Sub Pop Lo-Fi Little Brother Dark Beloved Cloud City Slang Merge Acuarela Domino |
| Associated acts | Dinosaur Jr., Sebadoh, Sentridoh, Deep Wound, The Folk Implosion |
| Website | www.loobiecore.com |
| Notable instruments | |
| Fender Telecaster Bass, Rickenbacker 4003 | |
Louis Knox Barlow (July 17, 1966) is an American alternative rock musician and songwriter. A founding member of the groups Deep Wound, Dinosaur Jr., Sebadoh and The Folk Implosion. 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.
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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".[2] 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.[3]
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 two new records, Beyond and Farm.
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 and rereleased as 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 2003. 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 (Subsonic 6) with Belgian musician Rudy Trouvé. 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 according to the website Metacritic.[4] 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.
Barlow's 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 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".[5] In November 2005, he toured Spain and the Iberian peninsula to promote Emoh.
Barlow's second solo LP, Goodnight Unknown, was released October 6, 2009 via Merge. The record was produced by Andrew Murdock and features guest turns from the Melvins' Dale Crover, singer-songwriter Lisa Germano as well as ex-touring guitarist of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs Imaad Wasif.[6] He toured the album in the US in the fall of 2009, opening for Dinosaur Jr. Mike Watt's band, The Missingmen, supported Barlow on the tour.[7]
| Year | Title | Label |
|---|---|---|
| 1990 | Losers (cassette); revised in 1991 | Shrimper |
| 1992 | Most of the Worst and Some of the Best (cassette); selections included on Wasted Pieces reissue | Shrimper |
| 1993 | Wasted Pieces (cassette); reissued on CD in 2003 | Shrimper |
| 1994 | Winning Losers: A Collection of Home Recordings 89-93; reissued in 2006 | Smells Like Records |
| 1994 | Lou Barlow and His Sentridoh (compilation) | City Slang |
| 1995 | The Original Losing Losers; reissue of Losers cassette | Shrimper |
| 1996 | Lou Barlow Plays Waterfront; authorised live album | Spun |
| 2000 | Subsonic 6; split album with Rudy Trouvé | Sub Rosa |
| 2002 | Free Sentridoh: Songs from Loobiecore | Loobiecore |
| 2005 | Emoh | Merge |
| 2009 | Goodnight Unknown | Merge |
| 2009 | Songs from Loobiecore 2.5 (tour edition) | Loobiecore |
| Year | Title | Label |
|---|---|---|
| 1992 | Losercore; later included on Winning Losers reissue | Smells Like Records |
| 1993 | The Mysterious Sentridoh | Little Brother Records |
| 1993 | Sub Pop Singles Club - Dec 93 | Sub Pop |
| 1993 | Louis Barlow's Acoustic Sentridoh | Lo-Fi Recordings |
| 1994 | Lou Barlow and Friends: Another Collection of Home Recordings | Mint Records |
| 2005 | Holding Back the Year | Domino |
| 2007 | Mirror the Eye | Acuarela |
| 2009 | The Right | Domino |
| 2010 | Sentridoh III | Merge Records |
| Year | Track(s) | Title | Label |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1991 | Commercial Losers: Sensive Dull Thump, King of the Dry Hump I | Capgun - A Shrimper Compilation | Shrimper |
| 1991 | Me and My Arrow | Ghost of a Rollercoaster | Shrimper |
| 1991 | Revolution #37 | Back to the Egg, Asshole | Shrimper |
| 1992 | Certain Dance Circumstance | Pawnshop Reverb | Shrimper |
| 1993 | Same Old, Say Mold | Hot Tips! | Dedicated / Melody Maker |
| 1993 | Certain Dance - Circumstance / Revolution #37 | Abridged Perversion | Shrimper |
| 1994 | I Stopped Singing | Ow, Quit It! Vol.2 | Volvolo |
| 1994 | Morning Rain '92 | Cool Beans #3 Split; split 7" with Matt, Dis- & sold with Cool Beans zine #3. | Cool Beans |
| 1994 | Black Sheep | Our Band Could Be Your Life; a Minutemen tribute album. | Little Brother Records |
| 1995 | Sorry | Escargot (EP); sold with Escargot zine. | Sick & Tired / Dark Beloved Cloud |
| 1995 | Loving Limbs / No Telling | Chemical Imbalance Vol.3, #1; came with Chemical Imbalance zine. | Chemical Imbalance |
| 1996 | Skull | Pipeline! Live Boston Rock on WMBR | Kimchee / Slow River |
| 1996 | Blown Pony | More of Our Stupid Noises | Squirtgun |
| 1997 | Riding | Flygirl (EP) #7; sold with Flygirl zine #7. | Flygirl / Blue Bunny |
| 1998 | Blown Pony | More of Our Stupid Noises '98 | Squirtgun / Nettwerk |
| 2001 | Morning's After Me | Colonel Jeffrey Pumpernickel | Off |
| 2003 | None of Your Goddam Bizness | In the Film They Made Us a Little More Articulate | Escape Goat |
| 2005 | A Man in Love | Comes with a Smile Vol.13; came with the Comes With A Smile zine #17. | Comes With A Smile |
| 2006 | Forever Instant | Rough Trade Shops - Singer Songwriter 1 | Mute Records Ltd. |
| 2009 | The Ballad of Daykitty / I'm So Glad | Score! 20 Years of Merge Records - Volume 6 | Merge |
| 2009 | Sit Back and Watch | Local Currency Digital EP | Fayettenam |
| 2009 | Song of the Tall Poppy | Stroke - Songs for Chris Knox | A Major |
| 2010 | Smooth Sounds for Your Fucking Face | Smooth Sounds: The Future Hits of WCKR SPGT | Shrimper |
| 2010 | Imagination Blind (live) | It Happened Here | St. Ives Records |
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