Sebadoh
Encyclopedia
Sebadoh is an American
indie rock
band
, formed in 1986 in Westfield
, Massachusetts
by Eric Gaffney
and Dinosaur Jr
bass player Lou Barlow
. Along with such bands as Pavement
and Guided by Voices
, Sebadoh helped pioneer lo-fi music
, a style of indie rock
characterized by low-fidelity recording techniques, often on four-track machines. The band's early output, such as 1990's Weed Forestin'
and 1991's Sebadoh III
, was typical of this style.
wrote songs, Mascis' material dominated the group's output because Barlow was intimidated by the guitarist's songwriting efforts. Barlow spent progressively more time recording his own songs at home. Barlow and Gaffney released the Weed Forestin'
cassette in 1987 on Homestead Records
under the name Sebadoh, which was a nonsense word
Barlow often muttered in his recordings. Both Barlow and Gaffney contributed songs to 1988's The Freed Man
cassette. Homestead Records head Gerard Cosloy
heard the cassette release of The Freed Man and released it as a full-length album on Homestead in 1989. Soon after the cassette's release Barlow was kicked out of Dinosaur Jr. Over time Sebadoh's releases became a way for Barlow to address the issues of control that manifested as the tension in and his ejection from Dinosaur Jr; Barlow said "I got a lot of hatred out just by writing those songs." Jason Loewenstein
joined in summer 1989, the first release that he played on being the "Gimme Indie Rock" single in 1991. Only ten 'band' shows were performed throughout Western Massachusetts, Boston, and New York over the period 1989-1990 before the third album Sebadoh III
was released.
After touring with fIREHOSE
in 1991, they signed to Sub Pop
(Domino in the UK and City Slang
in Germany) in 1992, and released the two EPs Rocking the Forest
and Sebadoh vs. Helmet released just two months apart. These EPs had their track listings truncated and shuffled around and made into the American full-length release Smash Your Head on the Punk Rock
. Their fourth album Bubble and Scrape
was released in April 1993.
Following 1993's Bubble and Scrape
Gaffney left the band. His replacement, Bob Fay, appeared on 1994's Bakesale
and the follow-up Harmacy
in 1996. Fay was fired before the sessions for The Sebadoh
(1999) and replaced by Russ Pollard
, a friend of Loewenstein's from Louisville. Following the tour to promote this album, the band went on hiatus, with Barlow concentrating on his other project, the Folk Implosion, and Loewenstein working on material for his debut solo album At Sixes and Sevens, released in 2002. The two reunited to play concerts in late 2003 and early 2004.
In March 2007, the "Sebadoh Classic" lineup of Barlow, Gaffney and Loewenstein went on tour together for the first time in fourteen years. This coincided with a new series of reissues which repackaged some of the early albums with extra discs of unreleased tracks. First came a reissue of Sebadoh III
, then The Freed Man
, and Bubble and Scrape
.
The reunion tour continued into 2008, and in May included a live performance of 1993's Bubble and Scrape
in its entirety as part of the All Tomorrow's Parties
curated Don't Look Back
series at London's Koko venue.
In 2011 Sebadoh reissued Bakesale and Harmacy, and toured in support. Taking the place of Gaffney on drums was Bob D’Amico, who plays with Lowenstein in both Circle of Buzzards and Fiery Furnaces. They have been chosen by Jeff Mangum
of Neutral Milk Hotel
to perform at the All Tomorrow's Parties
festival that he will curate in December 2011 in Minehead, England.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
indie rock
Indie rock
Indie rock is a genre of alternative rock that originated in the United Kingdom and the United States in the 1980s. Indie rock is extremely diverse, with sub-genres that include lo-fi, post-rock, math rock, indie pop, dream pop, noise rock, space rock, sadcore, riot grrrl and emo, among others...
band
Musical ensemble
A musical ensemble is a group of people who perform instrumental or vocal music. In classical music, trios or quartets either blend the sounds of musical instrument families or group together instruments from the same instrument family, such as string ensembles or wind ensembles...
, formed in 1986 in Westfield
Westfield, Massachusetts
Westfield is a city in Hampden County, in the Pioneer Valley of western Massachusetts, United States. It is part of the Springfield, Massachusetts Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 41,094 at the 2010 census. The ZIP Code is 01085 for homes and businesses, 01086 for Westfield State...
, Massachusetts
Massachusetts
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...
by Eric Gaffney
Eric Gaffney
Eric Gaffney is a songwriter and recording artist. In 1989, he co-founded the indie rock band Sebadoh, and since 1998 has been performing and recording with his own project Fields of Gaffney. In 2007 a reformed Sebadoh began touring again.-External links:...
and Dinosaur Jr
Dinosaur Jr
Dinosaur Jr. is an American alternative rock band formed in Amherst, Massachusetts in 1984. Originally called Dinosaur, prior to legal issues that forced the group to change their name, the band disbanded in 1997 until reuniting in 2005...
bass player Lou Barlow
Lou Barlow
Louis Knox Barlow is an American alternative rock musician and songwriter. A founding member of the groups Deep Wound, Dinosaur Jr., Sebadoh and The Folk Implosion. Barlow is credited with helping to pioneer the lo-fi style of rock music in the late 1980s and early 1990s...
. Along with such bands as Pavement
Pavement (band)
Pavement is an American alternative rock band that formed in Stockton, California in 1989. In their career, they achieved a significant cult following, and they were called the best band of the 1990s by prominent music critics Robert Christgau and Stephen Thomas Erlewine...
and Guided by Voices
Guided by Voices
Guided by Voices is an American indie rock band originating from Dayton, Ohio. Beginning with the band's formation in 1983, it made frequent personnel changes but always maintained the presence of principal songwriter Robert Pollard...
, Sebadoh helped pioneer lo-fi music
Lo-fi music
Lo-fi is lower quality of sound recordings than the usual standard for music. The qualities of lo-fi are usually achieved by either degrading the quality of the recorded audio, or using certain equipment. Recent uses of the phrase have led to it becoming a genre, although it still remains as an...
, a style of indie rock
Indie rock
Indie rock is a genre of alternative rock that originated in the United Kingdom and the United States in the 1980s. Indie rock is extremely diverse, with sub-genres that include lo-fi, post-rock, math rock, indie pop, dream pop, noise rock, space rock, sadcore, riot grrrl and emo, among others...
characterized by low-fidelity recording techniques, often on four-track machines. The band's early output, such as 1990's Weed Forestin'
Weed Forestin'
Weed Forestin is an album by the American indie rock band, Sebadoh. It was self-released by Lou Barlow on cassette in 1987, under the guise Sentridoh, and sold at record stores in his native Massachusetts...
and 1991's Sebadoh III
Sebadoh III
III is the third album by the American indie rock band, Sebadoh. It was released by Homestead Records in 1991.III was the first full length Sebadoh album to feature Jason Loewenstein, who joined the band's two founding members Lou Barlow and Eric Gaffney in 1989, and debuted on the "Gimme Indie...
, was typical of this style.
History
Lou Barlow was the bass player for alternative rock band Dinosaur Jr in the late 1980s. While both Barlow and leader J MascisJ Mascis
J Mascis is an American musician, best known as the singer, guitarist and songwriter for Dinosaur Jr.. In 2011, he was ranked in Rolling Stone's list of the 100 greatest guitarists of all time.- Biography :...
wrote songs, Mascis' material dominated the group's output because Barlow was intimidated by the guitarist's songwriting efforts. Barlow spent progressively more time recording his own songs at home. Barlow and Gaffney released the Weed Forestin'
Weed Forestin'
Weed Forestin is an album by the American indie rock band, Sebadoh. It was self-released by Lou Barlow on cassette in 1987, under the guise Sentridoh, and sold at record stores in his native Massachusetts...
cassette in 1987 on Homestead Records
Homestead Records
Homestead Records was a Long Island, NY based sublabel of music distributor Dutch East India Trading. It was founded in 1984 by Sam Berger, who was the American Independent buyer for Dutch East India Trading. Berger was finding that many bands who had perhaps released their own first 45 were...
under the name Sebadoh, which was a nonsense word
Nonsense word
A nonsense word, unlike a sememe, may have no definition. If it can be pronounced according to a language's phonotactics, it is a logatome. Nonsense words are used in literature for poetic or humorous effect. Proper names of real or fictional entities are sometimes nonsense words.-See...
Barlow often muttered in his recordings. Both Barlow and Gaffney contributed songs to 1988's The Freed Man
The Freed Man
The Freed Man was the debut album by Sebadoh. The title refers to the Friedman Complex apartments at Smith College where Lou Barlow was living with his then-girlfriend Kathleen Billus. As Barlow says in the liner notes, ".....
cassette. Homestead Records head Gerard Cosloy
Gerard Cosloy
Gerard Cosloy is an American music industry executive.-Biography:Cosloy was raised in Wayland, Massachusetts, a western suburb of Boston. While he was in high school, he became involved in the local hardcore punk scene, put together many punk shows, and started Conflict, a mimeographed fanzine of...
heard the cassette release of The Freed Man and released it as a full-length album on Homestead in 1989. Soon after the cassette's release Barlow was kicked out of Dinosaur Jr. Over time Sebadoh's releases became a way for Barlow to address the issues of control that manifested as the tension in and his ejection from Dinosaur Jr; Barlow said "I got a lot of hatred out just by writing those songs." Jason Loewenstein
Jason Loewenstein
Jason Loewenstein is an American alternative rock singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist and a member of the indie-rock bands Sebadoh and The Fiery Furnaces...
joined in summer 1989, the first release that he played on being the "Gimme Indie Rock" single in 1991. Only ten 'band' shows were performed throughout Western Massachusetts, Boston, and New York over the period 1989-1990 before the third album Sebadoh III
Sebadoh III
III is the third album by the American indie rock band, Sebadoh. It was released by Homestead Records in 1991.III was the first full length Sebadoh album to feature Jason Loewenstein, who joined the band's two founding members Lou Barlow and Eric Gaffney in 1989, and debuted on the "Gimme Indie...
was released.
After touring with fIREHOSE
FIREHOSE
Firehose was an alternative rock band consisting of Mike Watt , Ed Crawford , and George Hurley .-History:...
in 1991, they signed to Sub Pop
Sub Pop
Sub Pop is a record label founded in 1986 by Bruce Pavitt and Jonathan Poneman in Seattle, Washington. Sub Pop achieved fame in the late 1980s for first signing Nirvana, Soundgarden, Mudhoney and many other bands from the Seattle music scene...
(Domino in the UK and City Slang
City Slang Records
City Slang is an independent record label based in Berlin, Germany. It was created in 1990 by former tour agent Christof Ellinghaus. Its main goal was to provide American, Canadian and German independent artists with a way to distribute their records in the European market, particularly the UK,...
in Germany) in 1992, and released the two EPs Rocking the Forest
Rocking the Forest
Rocking the Forest was an EP by Sebadoh, released in 1992. It was the first release on the label Domino Records, who released it in the United Kingdom via a licensing agreement with Sebadoh's American label Sub Pop.-Track listing:#"Gimme Indie Rock"...
and Sebadoh vs. Helmet released just two months apart. These EPs had their track listings truncated and shuffled around and made into the American full-length release Smash Your Head on the Punk Rock
Smash Your Head on the Punk Rock
Smash Your Head on the Punk Rock is a compilation album by the American indie rock band, Sebadoh. It was released in November, 1992, and marked the band's debut on Sub Pop Records....
. Their fourth album Bubble and Scrape
Bubble and Scrape
Bubble and Scrape is the fourth album by American indie rock band, Sebadoh. It was released by Sub Pop in April 1993.Bubble and Scrape was the final Sebadoh album to feature songs composed by founding member Eric Gaffney.-Music:...
was released in April 1993.
Bubble and Scrape
Bubble and Scrape is the fourth album by American indie rock band, Sebadoh. It was released by Sub Pop in April 1993.Bubble and Scrape was the final Sebadoh album to feature songs composed by founding member Eric Gaffney.-Music:...
Gaffney left the band. His replacement, Bob Fay, appeared on 1994's Bakesale
Bakesale
Bakesale is the fifth album by American indie rock band, Sebadoh. It was released by Sub Pop in 1994.Bakesale was the first Sebadoh album released following the departure of founding member, Eric Gaffney, though he did drum on four of the album's tracks from a session engineered by Bob Weston. Tara...
and the follow-up Harmacy
Harmacy
Harmacy is the sixth album by American indie rock band Sebadoh. It was released by Sub Pop in 1996.It is the second and final Sebadoh album to feature drummer Bob Fay, who replaced founding member Eric Gaffney in 1994....
in 1996. Fay was fired before the sessions for The Sebadoh
The Sebadoh
The Sebadoh was Sebadoh's last full album released in 1999.The Sebadoh was the only Sebadoh album with drummer Russ Pollard.-Track listing:#"It's All You" - 2:41#"Weird" - 3:26#"Bird in the Hand" - 1:36#"Break Free" - 2:39#"Tree" - 4:17...
(1999) and replaced by Russ Pollard
Russell Pollard
Russell "Russ" Pollard is an American rock musician, who has been a member of Sebadoh, The Folk Implosion, Alaska!, and Everest.-Biography:...
, a friend of Loewenstein's from Louisville. Following the tour to promote this album, the band went on hiatus, with Barlow concentrating on his other project, the Folk Implosion, and Loewenstein working on material for his debut solo album At Sixes and Sevens, released in 2002. The two reunited to play concerts in late 2003 and early 2004.
In March 2007, the "Sebadoh Classic" lineup of Barlow, Gaffney and Loewenstein went on tour together for the first time in fourteen years. This coincided with a new series of reissues which repackaged some of the early albums with extra discs of unreleased tracks. First came a reissue of Sebadoh III
Sebadoh III
III is the third album by the American indie rock band, Sebadoh. It was released by Homestead Records in 1991.III was the first full length Sebadoh album to feature Jason Loewenstein, who joined the band's two founding members Lou Barlow and Eric Gaffney in 1989, and debuted on the "Gimme Indie...
, then The Freed Man
The Freed Man
The Freed Man was the debut album by Sebadoh. The title refers to the Friedman Complex apartments at Smith College where Lou Barlow was living with his then-girlfriend Kathleen Billus. As Barlow says in the liner notes, ".....
, and Bubble and Scrape
Bubble and Scrape
Bubble and Scrape is the fourth album by American indie rock band, Sebadoh. It was released by Sub Pop in April 1993.Bubble and Scrape was the final Sebadoh album to feature songs composed by founding member Eric Gaffney.-Music:...
.
The reunion tour continued into 2008, and in May included a live performance of 1993's Bubble and Scrape
Bubble and Scrape
Bubble and Scrape is the fourth album by American indie rock band, Sebadoh. It was released by Sub Pop in April 1993.Bubble and Scrape was the final Sebadoh album to feature songs composed by founding member Eric Gaffney.-Music:...
in its entirety as part of the All Tomorrow's Parties
All Tomorrow's Parties (music festival)
All Tomorrow's Parties is a music festival which takes place at Camber Sands holiday camp in East Sussex and Butlin's holiday camp in Minehead, Somerset, England....
curated Don't Look Back
Don't Look Back (concert series)
Don't Look Back is a yearly series of concerts in which London based promoters All Tomorrow's Parties ask artists and bands to play one of their seminal albums live in its entirety...
series at London's Koko venue.
In 2011 Sebadoh reissued Bakesale and Harmacy, and toured in support. Taking the place of Gaffney on drums was Bob D’Amico, who plays with Lowenstein in both Circle of Buzzards and Fiery Furnaces. They have been chosen by Jeff Mangum
Jeff Mangum
Jeff Mangum is a musician best known for being the lyricist, vocalist and guitarist of the band Neutral Milk Hotel, as well as being one of the cofounders of The Elephant 6 Recording Company. Mangum, along with the other founding members of the Elephant 6, attended Ruston High School in the late...
of Neutral Milk Hotel
Neutral Milk Hotel
Neutral Milk Hotel was an American indie rock band formed by singer, guitarist and songwriter Jeff Mangum in the early 1990s. The band was noted for its experimental sound, obscure lyrics and eclectic instrumentation....
to perform at the All Tomorrow's Parties
All Tomorrow's Parties (music festival)
All Tomorrow's Parties is a music festival which takes place at Camber Sands holiday camp in East Sussex and Butlin's holiday camp in Minehead, Somerset, England....
festival that he will curate in December 2011 in Minehead, England.
Studio and compilation albums
- The Freed ManThe Freed ManThe Freed Man was the debut album by Sebadoh. The title refers to the Friedman Complex apartments at Smith College where Lou Barlow was living with his then-girlfriend Kathleen Billus. As Barlow says in the liner notes, ".....
(1989) - Weed Forestin'Weed Forestin'Weed Forestin is an album by the American indie rock band, Sebadoh. It was self-released by Lou Barlow on cassette in 1987, under the guise Sentridoh, and sold at record stores in his native Massachusetts...
(1990) - The Freed WeedThe Freed WeedThe Freed Weed is a compilation album by the American indie rock band, Sebadoh. It was released by Homestead Records in 1990.It contains the band's second album, Weed Forestin, in full, followed by the majority of their first album, The Freed Man...
(1990) - Sebadoh IIISebadoh IIIIII is the third album by the American indie rock band, Sebadoh. It was released by Homestead Records in 1991.III was the first full length Sebadoh album to feature Jason Loewenstein, who joined the band's two founding members Lou Barlow and Eric Gaffney in 1989, and debuted on the "Gimme Indie...
(1991) - Smash Your Head on the Punk RockSmash Your Head on the Punk RockSmash Your Head on the Punk Rock is a compilation album by the American indie rock band, Sebadoh. It was released in November, 1992, and marked the band's debut on Sub Pop Records....
(1992) - Bubble and ScrapeBubble and ScrapeBubble and Scrape is the fourth album by American indie rock band, Sebadoh. It was released by Sub Pop in April 1993.Bubble and Scrape was the final Sebadoh album to feature songs composed by founding member Eric Gaffney.-Music:...
(1993) - BakesaleBakesaleBakesale is the fifth album by American indie rock band, Sebadoh. It was released by Sub Pop in 1994.Bakesale was the first Sebadoh album released following the departure of founding member, Eric Gaffney, though he did drum on four of the album's tracks from a session engineered by Bob Weston. Tara...
(1994) - HarmacyHarmacyHarmacy is the sixth album by American indie rock band Sebadoh. It was released by Sub Pop in 1996.It is the second and final Sebadoh album to feature drummer Bob Fay, who replaced founding member Eric Gaffney in 1994....
(1996) - The SebadohThe SebadohThe Sebadoh was Sebadoh's last full album released in 1999.The Sebadoh was the only Sebadoh album with drummer Russ Pollard.-Track listing:#"It's All You" - 2:41#"Weird" - 3:26#"Bird in the Hand" - 1:36#"Break Free" - 2:39#"Tree" - 4:17...
(1999)