On the rebound

When Lou Barlow and Jason Lowenstein again take the stage as Sebadoh, it isn’t to inspire a small revolution or to flip off corporate rock, as they did in the mid-’90s. Instead, it is to do something that most indie rock purists consider verboten — celebrate the past. By doing so, the duo confronts a curious dilemma: How do you continue in college rock now that most of your earliest supporters have already earned their masters’ degrees?

Barlow and Lowenstein, along with drummer Eric Gaffney, formed the creative core of Sebadoh for most of the group’s 10-year lifespan. Its two major works, Bakesale and Harmacy, were instant indie rock classics, earning the kind of critical accolades and barista adoration that Interpol and the Shins currently enjoy. Songs like the bounding “Magnet’s Coil” found Barlow fashioning heartache and frustration from gnarled chords and fragile melodies, hammering out the template for much of what could be broadly termed “indie rock” today. The roughness and immediacy of the group’s work was a sharp contrast to alt-rock’s willful obtuseness, and Barlow’s knack for making personal heartbreak universally understood is a clear forerunner to the kind of anguish explored by groups like Bright Eyes.

“People love those records,” says Barlow, on the phone from his home in Los Angeles. “I went out on [a solo] tour, and people would come up to me and go ‘Yeah, I kind of like your new songs. But, man, Bakesale is my favorite. There’s a real energy to [those records].’”

It’s not hard to understand the affection. Both records take dead aim on the hearts of the disenfranchised, drawing their power from the polarity of Barlow’s heartache and Lowenstein’s rage. Where Pavement captured the aimlessness of the post-collegiate and Nirvana uncorked a volcanic adolescent anger, it was Sebadoh that seemed divinely attuned to the misery of the honors student whose dreams hadn’t quite panned out. Rock records for years had been milking the sorrow of the lovelorn teenager. But Bakesale, with wit and sympathy, addressed that same person at age 26.

The group’s downturn came with The Sebadoh, a record jointly released by major label Sire and stalwart independent Sub Pop in 1999. A rough-hewn, hostile and heavily amplified record, The Sebadoh dallied longer in full-on rock than any of the group’s earlier work. Though considered by many to be an artistic failure, Barlow still stands by the record.

“We had taken a real Gang of Four approach with synthesizers and jagged guitars, and that was just not happening yet,” says Barlow. “We just finally fell from grace. We had a really long ride where every record was No. 1 on CMJ [College Music Journal] college radio chart for 10 weeks and we were showing up on ‘Conan O’Brien,’ and then it just naturally crashed. But when it crashes like that, people don’t go to your shows. They don’t buy the records. Once you offend your core audience in some way, the judgment comes down.”

For Barlow, “the judgment” extended further than just his fanbase. Sire decided Sebadoh was a lost cause and pulled all financial support two weeks into the band’s tour. Without the backing of a major label to defray the costs of the group’s swollen itinerary, Sub Pop began to panic.

“They had no idea what to do,” says Barlow. “They just lost so much money. We get blamed for a lot of the label’s downturn. They wouldn’t even consider paying us to put out a retrospective. And they still won’t, to this day.”

Barlow hasn’t resurrected the name Sebadoh since that debacle, which is one of the many things that makes the current reunion tour a bit peculiar. There will be no drummer on the tour, owing in part to Barlow’s incredible distaste for “the sound of cymbals.” He and Lowenstein will be playing the songs accompanied by a cassette-recorded percussion track. The group is not preparing any new material, nor does there appear to be a renewed interest in its innovative but spotty back catalog.

It seems that in order to maintain his livelihood as a musician and revive his public profile, Barlow has been forced to reconsider the very rock music conventions his music once undermined. A large part of the initial appeal of bands like Pavement and Sebadoh was that they repudiated many of the cliches associated with lethargic rock dinosaurs. In the world of summer babes and alien lanes, there would be no drum solos, no light shows, no lighter ballads and no reunion tours. The music gained a following not only because of its sonic primitivism, but because it was perceived as an antidote to the poison of nostalgia that was weakening rock and roll.

It’s an ideology that works just fine until the pioneers start becoming the forefathers. It’s difficult to trade on legacy in a market where the natural reaction is to cast a jaundiced eye — and far less dollars if recent SoundScan figures of indie rock originators such as Guided By Voices, Stephen Malkmus and the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion are any indication — on assertions of heritage.

Even a band as beloved as the recently reformed Pixies has taken to selling T-shirts that read, “The Pixies Sell Out!” to both acknowledge and defuse the criticism its reunion will inevitably face. Punk rock, apparently, is still not ready to embrace the dinosaur — even when that dinosaur is one of its own.

Barlow has no illusions about the perceived hypocrisy of an indie rock reunion tour, but he isn’t especially concerned.

“The whole tour is one great big broad ego stroke,” says Barlow, in concession. “But fuck it, you know? I’m doing it because Jason is a really good person and we play well together. He was with me since he was 16, in a fucking rental car on our way to play acoustic opening for Fugazi. The songs, when they’re played back to back, the purity of it, it just makes me feel like it’s been worth it. If you want to be a critic ... and you want to really get in there and figure out what our motivations are, you’re free to do that. There are darker sides to everything.”

He sighs wearily.

“We’re doing it because people seem to be really excited about us playing together. After so many years of never being easy on ourselves I just thought, ‘Fuck it. We deserve this.’”

music@creativeloafing.com