rocking the forest: Sebadoh (Lou Barlow edition)

Not feeling so verbose today. Perhaps it's because today's feature is Sebadoh, more specifically, your humble blogger's favorite Sebadoh songs written by Lou Barlow (or, a new generation of electric white boy blues).



That and your humble blogger is busily adapting to a new PC and Vista, having come from XP Pro. Not sure what I think of Vista, at least Home Premium, but that's a topic for another blog, another day....



Famously booted out of Dinosaur Jr in 1989 or so, Lou Barlow made his name with the ultra-low-fi early Sebadoh/Sentridoh recordings (a beaten-up 4-string guitar, and a boombox or 4-track recorder) sometimes made with early songwriting partner Eric Gaffney. Then suddenly his songwriting talents blossomed - or that his talents were subsumed in Dinosaur Jr by J. Mascis's admittedly-stellar songwriting...

Aw, hell. I wish I could write like Lou. He's got pretty much exactly the same vocal range as your humble blogger as well. Emotional songwriting (but not "emo", thank god...), great music, the works.

So... I've compiled my favorite Lou songs from the "main" Sebadoh catalog. Oh, there's hundreds more Sebadoh songs, some written by Lou, but others by Eric Gaffney (noisy noisefests) or Jason Loewenstein (noisy, sometimes mellow), but Lou's the main guy and the best songwriter, by several orders of magnitude. I've done you the favor of separating the wheat from the chaff, so to speak.

And we're not even touching Sentridoh / Loobiecore / Lou solo / Folk Implosion. That would take another 15 blog entries... Can't say the man's not prolific!

And you gotta love these lyrics....

Started back in '83
Started seeing things a differently
And hardcore wasn't doin' it for me no more
Started smoking pot
Thought things sounded better slow
Much slower, heavier
Black magic melody to sink this poseur's soul

VU, Stooges undeniably cool
Took a lesson from that drone rock school
Manipulate musician hack righteous drool
Getting loose with the Pussy Galore
Cracking jokes like a Thurston Moore
Peddle hopping like a Dinosaur, J...

Rock and Roll genius, ride the middle of the road
Milk that sound, blow your load
Soon it's further than you ever said it'd go
Four stars in the Rolling Stone
Oooh sludge rock,
That's hard-ass harsh

Just gimme indie rock!
It's gone big
Come on indie rock
Just give me indie rock

Taking inspiration from Hüsker Dü
It's a new generation
Of electric white boy blues
Come on indie rock
It's gone big
Come on indie rock
Just give me indie rock

Breaking down the barriers
Like Sonic Youth
They got what they wanted
Maybe I could get what I want too
Come on indie rock
It's gone big
Come on indie rock
Just give me indie rock

Time to knock
The hard rock on it's side
Time to knock
The shit right up a storm
Turn to amaze
With the indie sludge
Grunge!
Aaah!

So enjoy! Split into 3 RAR files, links below, as usual you need to download all 3 RAR's in order to extract...

01 The Freed Pig
02 Scars, Four Eyes
03 Brand New Love
04 Gimme Indie Rock
05 Soul and Fire
06 Two Years Two Days
07 Cliche
08 Sacred Attention
09 Homemade
10 Forced Love
11 Think (Let Tomorrow Bee)
12 License To Confuse
13 Magnet's Coil
14 Not A Friend
15 Dreams
16 Skull
17 Give Up
18 Rebound
19 Mystery Man
20 Together Or Alone
21 Rebound (alternate)
22 Social Medicine
23 On Fire (acoustic)
24 Magnet's Coil (acoustic)
25 Rebound (acoustic)
26 On Fire
27 Ocean
28 Willing To Wait
29 Too Pure
30 Perfect Way
31 Open Ended
32 Weird
33 Tree
34 Flame
35 Love Is Stronger
36 Colorblind
37 Thrive
38 Sorry

Grab 'em here!

tracks 1-2 from 1991's Sebadoh III LP
track 3 from 1992's Sebadoh vs Helmet EP
track 4 from 1992's Rocking the Forest EP
tracks 5-11 from 1993's Bubble and Scrape LP
tracks 12-20 from 1994's Bakesale LP
tracks 21-25 from 1995's Rebound EP
tracks 26-31 from 1996's Harmacy LP
tracks 32-38 from 1999's The Sebadoh LP