Lou Barlow

Infobox musical artist
Name = Lou Barlow
Background = solo_singer


Img_capt =
Birth_name = Louis Knox Barlow
Origin = Dayton, Ohio
Born = birth date and age|1966|7|17|
Occupation = Singer/songwriter
guitarist

Years_active = 1982-present
Instrument = Vocals
Guitar
bass
percussion
keyboards
First_album =
Notable songs =
Label = 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
URL = [http://www.loobiecore.com 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 creditedcite web | last =Sprague| first =David| title = Sebadoh | publisher = TrouserPress.com | url = http://trouserpress.com/entry.php?a=sebadoh| accessdate = 2007-06-18] 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 [cite web
url=http://allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=11:0cfqxqe5ldke
title=Lou Barlow Biography
author=Ankeny, Jason
publisher=allmusic.com
accessdate=2007-06-18] to be among the most prolific and ground-breaking indie musicians of the 1990s. Many labels have been applied to his brand of acoustic rock, including "folk-pop" and "folkcore."

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". [Azerrad, Michael: "Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground 1981-1991.", page 348. Little, Brown and Company., 2001] 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. [Allmusic.com]

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".

ebadoh and 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 (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 from long-time Barlow fans, who felt that the album was unfocused and uneven [http://www.metacritic.com/music/artists/folkimplosion/newfolkimplosion#critics] . 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.

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".

olo 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 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" [http://www.emusic.com/album/10859/10859777.html] . In November 2005 he toured Spain and the Iberian peninsula to promote his new album.

Discography

cassettes / albums

EPs / Singles

References

External links

* [http://www.loobiecore.com Lou Barlow's website]
* [http://www.sebadoh.com/ Official Sebadoh website]
* [http://www.sebadoh-and-suchlike.com sebadoh-and-suchlike.com]
* [http://www.prefixmag.com/features/L/Lou-Barlow/422 Lou Barlow interview at Prefixmag]