CREEM ONLINE: Sebadoh — The Retrun Of The Kings Of Lo-Fi

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Rising from the ashes of Barlow's tenure with Dinosaur Jr., Sebadoh was at the forefront of the so-called "lo-fi" movement, making simple, noisy records that contained moments of sheer beauty and great emotional power. It was the perfect soundtrack for people who found topics like love, friendship, sexuality and music confusing.

Throughout the '90s, the band revolved around the core of Loewenstein and Barlow and an ever-revolving cast of drummers, starting with co-founder Eric Gaffney, whose mercurial nature saw him leaving and returning to the group several times. He was followed by Bob Fay, who was followed by Russ Pollard.

The future seemed bright for Sebadoh, who were critical darlings. Meanwhile Barlow was reaping pop success with his other band, the Folk Implosion. The band signed to Sire and produced its last album The Sebadoh, in 1999. Barlow seemingly acknowledges the failure of The Sebadoh even as he professes to be proud of it. Or, at minimum, he's so used to hearing the criticism that it doesn't surprise him.

Dinosaur Archaeology?

When the upcoming Merge Records reissues of the first three Dinosaur Jr. albums surface, might there be a possibility of a reunion of J Mascis, Lou Barlow and Murph? Barlow isn't ruling it out.

A mutual friend of Mascis and Barlow is "desperately trying to engineer a Dinosaur reunion," Barlow said.

"I can't imagine picking up a fucking Rickenbacker bass and playing it through a Marshall on 10 and trying to compete with J's guitar on stage. That seems just so surreal to me at this point. But who knows? Weirder things have happened," he said.

Barlow said he found out that the reissue project was happening when he contacted Merge himself to see if they would be interested in releasing his upcoming solo album.

"J never approached me about it, but then I never expected that he would," Barlow said. He mentioned that there had been talk of him writing the liner notes to one of the records, but that he declined.

"I think that what I have had to say about Dinosaur over the years was so insanely negative. I'm proud of being a part of Dinosaur now and all that stuff, but it's probably best that I keep my mouth shut. I think I said too much," he said.

When Sebadoh shared the bill with Mascis at a benefit for an autism center where Barlow's mom works, there was no Dinosaur reunion. There was, however, a reunion of Deep Wound, the pre-Dinosaur band that featured Barlow and Mascis.

After that, the band didn't exactly break up, but it stopped functioning as a unit (the band's Web site said the band was "taking a nap"). Loewenstein released At Sixes and Sevens on Sub-Pop in 2002, and Barlow worked with a reconfigured Folk Implosion and as a solo artist.

The current Sebadoh reunion was prompted by a brief European tour Barlow was booked on as part of the Domino Records 10th anniversary celebration. The label—whose first release was Sebadoh's seminal Bubble and Scrape—wanted Barlow to play solo, but said he immediately thought "Why play solo when this seemed a good opportunity to call Jake and have him come over to England with me and play as Sebadoh."

The response was surprising, Barlow said. "I wasn't expecting anyone to give a shit, but that turned out not to be the case."

Following the success of that tour—and the surprising level of interest in Sebadoh that the guys found—Barlow's mother approached him to play a benefit for the Community Resource Center for Families With Children With Autism in Westfield, Mass., where she works. He agreed, and a brief U.S. tour was booked to make it worthwhile.

For the tour the band decided to return to its roots. "We spent a lot of our time already just making rhythm, so we're going to play the beats out of a boom box and play to those beats. I'm playing acoustic guitar and Jake's playing bass. It's sort of 'turboacoustic,'" Barlow said.

It's not an ideal situation, Barlow acknowledges.

"There's a lot of limitations when you're playing to beats. But we don't have a drummer, we don't have time to get a drummer, we don't really have a drummer in mind," he said. And it's not like Sebadoh hasn't had to come up with creative solutions to drumming dilemmas before.

"The very first Sebadoh tour we did, Eric had quit the band a week before or something like that," Barlow said.

The solution? Stomping on tambourines and other improvised percussion. And that method of working was emblematic of the Sebadoh work ethic. The band always seemed to produce the best work when there was some forced limitation in the way (like lack of access to good recording equipment).

"We seem to function the best that way, with the most interesting results," he said. "It just sees to be the way that we work. When things are just thrown together, its always more interesting with Sebadoh," he said. "That's just part of the aesthetic of the band. When we first started it was like whatever, do whatever you want. Anyone can do whatever they want. There wasn't any particular rules to the thing, which, in the end, only Jason and I could really handle."

Ultimately, the reunion was about rekindling the creative partnership between Loewenstein and Barlow.

"It's really just more of an opportunity for us to get together and play the songs and tour them again — more for us, in a way," Barlow said. "It's more about he and I keeping in touch and maintaining our friendship and partnership."

"We've played long enough that our styles just kind of fit together," Barlow said. "Jake and I spent the better part of 10 years just trying to make Sebadoh a band — never really succeeding, but we really tried. Now it's just like let's cut it down to basics and see what happens.

And for a group whose material frequently chronicled the break-up of relationships, seeing this one continue to flourish is a comforting thought.

—Brian J. Bowe
June 2004

Photo by Eric England