Hiding All The Time Destroys Me

What I know about Sebadoh I could write with a marker pen on the back of a postage stamp.

 

Lou Barlow would regularly pop up in the music press, originally with Dinosaur Jr., then Sebadoh. I'd read with interest, but US indie/alternative/grunge music wasn't a big draw for me in the late 1990s and early 1990s. Lou's further involvement with The Folk Implosion briefly lured me in 1999 with the UNKLE remixes of Natural One, featured on the soundtrack to Harmony Korine's film Kids. But that’s pretty much it.

 

So, my regular dip into the KEXP archives has unearthed this 4-song Sebadoh set, recorded exactly a decade ago on 3rd August 2013. The line-up here is Lou Barlow (founder member, 1986), Jason Loewenstein (joined 1989) and Bob D'Amico (joined 2011), the latter the band's fourth and now longest-serving drummer.

 

The set comprises four songs, the first two sung by Lou, the other two by Jason. Opener Keep The Boy Alive and My Drugs are from 2012's Secret EP. Second song State Of Mine is from (then forthcoming album) Defend Yourself, whilst the closing song Careful was a single from 1994 album Bakesale, which famously features a photo of Lou as a toddler, peering into a toilet bowl. 

 

The backstory to the Bakesale album cover is explored a little further in the mid-set interview with KEXP host Troy Nelson that careers wildly from the banal to the bizarre, but just about holds it together.

 

All in all, an entertaining set and probably time for me to expand on the sum total of three Sebadoh songs in my collection, if only out of respect for Bob D'Amico as each features a different former drummer (or no drummer in one case). Sorry, Bob!