Lou's lips

>> After 10 years with Sebadoh, Lou Barlow no longer wants to keep it casual

by CHRIS YURKIW

It's the second time I ask the question, and the second time I get no response.

"Uh, can you hang on a sec?" says reluctant Sebadoh leader Lou Barlow, no longer in his longtime home of Boston, but planted for a year now in the glitzy horrorshow that is Los Angeles. And so after Barlow puts down his end of the transcontinental hook-up I hear a bang, and then a woman scream, and then...

"Sorry about that," says Lou, all loose-lipped and laughing in his Beantown twang. "I had to kill a wasp. I decapitated it with the Sebadoh record."

Ah. The new one?

"No, Bubble & Scrape actually."

Somehow, everything seems to make sense in Lou's life. Kill a bug and scrape it off the window with your most appropriately named album. Move to L.A. but remain in that glorious bubble which used to get you called a bedroom musician (or, more "significantly," the leader of the lo-fi).

"I moved out here because my wife likes it," says Barlow. "And I like it because I like my house. I don't get too concerned with what the vibe of the city is."

If he's no longer any leader of a lo-fi movement, Lou Barlow is certainly still a leader of the lo-key, indie-rock-guy gaggle. Keep your commitment to the biz casual, keep your relationship with your bandmates without obligation, but keep your studio close by (which is why Barlow likes his house). All of this seems to have changed, however, in the house of Sebadoh, which gets back to that unanswered question: why is the seventh album pseudo-self-titled The Sebadoh? Can it really be that corny "new beginning" thing?

It seems, in good ironic indie-rock fashion, that it started as a joke to rechristen the group (see: The Smashing Pumpkins). And then, guitarist Barlow, bassist Jason Loewenstein, and new (third) drummer Russ Pollard realized that as in all jokes there was a good-size chunk of truth in there.

"Russ brought a ton to the band," says Lou, "and Jason and I kind of renewed our vows to the band. Despite what we thought before--like, this casual band gets together and casually throws things together--really, it wasn't that casual at all. It was pretty much our lives."

Wasn't it some guy named Kurt who yowled so convincingly about denial? No matter--the pressure did him in. But Barlow's been feeling a slightly similar pressure on the past two Sebadoh records, ever since his side project the Folk Implosion blew up on radio in the States with a song from the Kids soundtrack called "The Natural One."

"It was pressure I felt from people outside the band, rather than myself," says Lou. "I think a lot of people, like Sub Pop and these engineers that we started to record Harmacy with, they were like 'Wow! Lou had a hit. He really has it in him. What's he going to do on this record?'"

And there will be more pressure, what with Sebadoh now being worked for crossover by the Sire label (as well as home imprint Sub Pop), and with a new Folk Implosion album set for summer release on biggie Interscope Records. Is this why, then, Barlow is no longer casual, why he's finally serious about Sebadoh after 10 years?

"'Serious is kinda the wrong word," says Lou, "because that can mean anything. People can take 'serious' to mean like, 'You mean you were seriously going to get down to making a hit record?' No, I think we're just more dedicated to each other."

Sweet.

Sebadoh + The In Out play Cabaret this Tuesday, March 9, 8pm, $16+t/s