Events

[INDIE] Dinosaur Jr.’s Lou Barlow needed an outlet for his songwriting that he wasn’t finding while creatively partnered with Jay Mascis, and so Sebadoh was born with a pair of cassette releases in 1987 and 1988. Shortly after the second tape came out, Barlow was ousted from Dinosaur Jr., which fueled his interest in pushing Sebadoh—a nonsense word—to the next level. Known for their fuzzy, lo-fi aesthetic, the trio began touring in 1991 and released new music regularly, but from 1999 to 2007, the project remained on hiatus. The original lineup (which hadn’t played together since 1993) re-formed at that time and a series of reissues followed, just two years after the original Dinosaur Jr. lineup also buried the hatchet and came back to life. Drummer Eric Gaffney eventually left Sebadoh a second time in 2011, permanently replaced now by Bob D’Amico, and in 2013 the trio released Defend Yourself on the Joyful Noise label, also responsible for the reissues along the way. Returning to Buffalo to play the Tralf Music Hall on Friday, April 21, Sebadoh isn’t touring behind a new disc, but Barlow has released a pair of new projects – 2015’s typically angsty Brace the Wave, recorded after moving back to Western Massachusetts following nearly two decades in Los Angeles, and last year’s Apocalypse Fetish, a conceptual song cycle about a culture hell-bent on ending itself. Could that be us he’s referring to? Both projects make use of down-tuned, slack-strung ukulele, showing that Barlow is still interested in trying new approaches to his primitive style of music even if his message remains as macabre as ever.