Playing with Lou Barlow

What an amazing experience it was to perform with Lou Barlow in Montreal!

For those of you who don't know who Lou Barlow is, here's a biography I pulled off of his fan's myspace page: www.myspace.com/loubarlow

Lou Barlow has been writing and recording songs, sometimes obsessively, for over 2 decades. His name is practically synonymous with this thing that some would call indie-rock. Hopefully we don’t have to waste too much time telling the back story. Barlow has been an integral force in some of the most successful and influential underground bands of the last two decades—Deep Wound, Dinosaur Jr., Sebadoh, The Folk Implosion. A Google search will provide plenty of background in two seconds. But the past is the past and the future is now. And now is the time for Emoh.

Emoh is for all practical purposes, the first official solo album by Lou Barlow. There have been other collections and compilations to be sure...some under his own name, some under the moniker of Sentridoh. But those parts did not always make up an integral whole. Collections of songs, often recorded under the sparsest of conditions, do not always an album make. Emoh is an album. Conceived and executed as such, and it is a wonder to behold.

Recorded in studios as far flung as western Massachusetts, Nashville and Los Angeles, Emoh captures the essence of a talent that has made Lou Barlow one of the most respected and influential songwriters of his generation. There are not a lot of bells and whistles here, no extended guitar solos, no studio trickery or production gloss—which is not to say that production is anything less than extraordinary. The songs are distilled to their essence, acoustic guitar with subtle flourishes—cellos here, pianos there, tape loops and sparse percussion—all meticulously crafted, capturing the listener’s attention without distracting from the most important thing...the songs themselves. And these songs are signature Barlow— full of emotion, angst, hope, intelligence and a wry sense of humor. For good measure Lou throws in his own interpretation of a classic hair metal anthem of the 80’s, which is priceless to say the least. He gets some help here and there from a variety of friends, including former band mates Jason Lowenstein (Sebadoh), Imaad Wasif (The Folk Implosion) and Russ Pollard (Sebadoh, The Folk Implosion).

Lou Barlow might not be a household name, but in the world of indie-rock he is a superstar; no matter that this probably makes very little difference to him. But music this good, this subtle, this honest, this damn catchy, deserves an audience, the larger the better. One listen and you will know. Pop songs don’t get much better than this. Lou Barlow is here to stay. And we are all a little bit better off as a result.

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Everything seemed to be in the flow as I got a ride to Montreal with Lindsay Ferguson and her brother Jeffrey the day I was to perform with Lou Barlow... I had missed his soundcheck although Lou was kind enough to meet me at 9pm to try out a few of his tunes. I showed up at La Sala Rossa after saying a quick hello to the Mahogany Frog guys at the Green Room. The two clubs are very close to one another, both on one of my favourite Montreal streets, St. Laurent.

I was pretty nervous when I opened that door to the green room behind the stage where Lou was practicing. I just didn't know what he was going to think of my playing and since I didn't know his tunes all that well, I was nervous of messing something up. Lou was great with me though and immediately made me feel at ease. We both loved the acoustics of the room and commented on how fun it would be to record there. We ran through a few tunes, my favourite one being "Legendary" which is off of his new album EMOH. It was so much fun to jam together and felt so natural, like we had been playing together for years. He kept commenting on how much he liked my playing and he even lost his place a few times in the song because he was listening too much to me! We had so much fun that I ended up performing with Lou a few hours later to a packed audience. Another dream of mine was about to come true...

Our performance was magical. I played two songs with Lou about two thirds of the way into his set. Holy goosebumps! I discovered through our performance together that the synth is a great duet partner for the flute. The two sounds blend so nicely and really compliment each other. Gotta try that again sometime soon. Lou uses a synth from the early 70's which I would just love to get my hands on sometime.

The Montreal audience seemed really into my flute playing. I must admit, that was one of the most exciting moments on stage I've experienced in a very long time! I never wanted those two songs to end. Lou commented to the audience after my performance with him that it's the first time he's ever collaborated with a flutist. That made my day. I hope we get to collaborate together again someday soon. I plan to visit Lou in LA next spring so you never know what may happen...

If you are reading this Lou, I thank you for putting your faith in me when you hardly knew anything about me. You must have thought I was pretty nuts when I approached you in Ottawa! Well, thank you for giving me the benefit of the doubt and trying out something completely new. That takes serious guts. You are a great inspiration to so many of us and I can certainly see why. Thanks again.

I'll have pics posted soon from the show...

Go buy EMOH! You'll love it, I promise.

Love Rozalind