Sebadoh Head Implodes Folk

“Put your ass on the line like you used to, motherfucker.” Heard at a concert, these words might suggest a pissed-off crowd or a burgeoning riot. It’s quite a different matter, however, when these words are spoken by the musician to himself, as Lou Barlow proved when he wittily muttered them at the Middle East Upstairs last Wednesday. In the context of that intimate setting, on one of the first dates of his new tour, the words shed an old light on the new Barlow.

The show last week was just the second in support of his new album, Emoh (both “home” backwards and a tongue-in-cheek reference to the ephemeral music recently popularized by acts like Dashboard Confessional and Taking Back Sunday), since its Jan. 25 release. Barlow had to delay the promotion of the record for over a month, and for good reason: Emoh entered stores just two days before his first daughter was born, and he has spent the time since caring for her and his wife, who suffered complications from the pregnancy.

The new record is essentially the first official solo album from the new father, who previously spent his adult life nurturing underground music. He has played in influential underground bands like Dinosaur Jr., Sebadoh, and the Folk Implosion.

Though Emoh sounds distinctly different from his other recordings—even the quasi-solo tapes he released under the moniker Sentridoh in the late ’90s—it is very much a classic Barlow work, particularly when performed. In recorded form, the new disc’s sonic clarity is a clear contrast to the rest of his catalog’s muffled lo-fi recordings. Performed live, the sound is still very stripped-down, allowing the soft earnestness of the songs to shine through. Barlow even employed two microphones, one clean and one muffled, switching back and forth while calling to mind the insulated, distant sound of his work with Sebadoh.

Barlow’s fans continually requested their own pet sounds in an atmosphere reminiscent of a gathering of old friends. Barlow graciously accepted many requests, and mixed enjoyable crowd banter in with his mellifluous singing. Despite a history of rough musical relations (he was booted from Dinosaur Jr. because of his overbearing nature, and was responsible also for the breakups of both Sebadoh and the Folk Implosion), Barlow came off as neither stern nor aloof, and affably shared memories and stories with the audience all night.

After playing new songs like “Holding Back the Day” and “If I Could,” Barlow rewarded these old fans with “Perfect Way,” a classic Sebadoh song from the album Harmacy. The sing-along that ensued sparked a string of pleading requests for personal favorites that lasted the entire show. The songs from Emoh still dominated the set, revealing a new direction for Barlow that mirrors his new fatherhood.

A moment that captured the essence of the old Barlow came in his performance of “Mary,” another Emoh gem. The song is a wryly blasphemous tale in which the narrator claims to have had a fruitful affair with the Virgin Mary. “Thank you Mary, you saved me too/They’d stone us both if they ever knew,” he crooned with a smile, as the crowd erupted in laughter over Barlow’s proof that he’s as edgy as ever.

As the set waned, the cries achieved a desperate tone. When Barlow announced that he was taking requests for his final song, the crowd seemed largely unified in their desire, and he agreed to play “Brand New Love,” one of his earliest Sebadoh songs. “Weren’t you all here a year ago for the Sebadoh show?” he joked, and a majority probably were, as requests for Sebadoh songs far outweighed the others.

When thunderous applause continued after his stage-right exit, Barlow wearily returned for an encore, taking requests one last time. After listening to the shouting for a minute, he declared that none of the requests inspired him, and so instead strummed his way through “Home,” the closest thing to a title track on the new album. His whispered mantra, “Nothing good can come to someone pretending he’s alone,” came across as a hard-earned lesson from a man who has finally found peace.

Emoh, then, represents that peace, and a new phase in Barlow’s career. While some see him leaning ever closer to a twilight incarnation as a washed-up singer-songwriter, his stage presence is still as quirky and sincere as ever, and his songs still drip with emotion and past hauntings, if just a bit more clearly than before.

Barlow’s recent transition to fatherhood, then, may represent a broader shift, as more people acknowledge his vast influence on the ’90s music scene while he and the fans he played for age on into gray adulthood. No amount of production technology will strip Barlow of his underground edge, as he continues to put his ass on the line, show after show.