Lo-fi legend Lou Barlow has played in three of the most influential indie bands of the last quarter century: Dinosaur Jr, Sebadoh and the Folk Implosion. And while he’s still recording and touring with the reunited Dinosaur (whose Farm was released this summer), his main concern these days is his solo career. Goodnight Unknown (Merge), Barlow’s second album under his own name and the follow-up to 2005’s Emoh, is his best collection of songs in a decade and features guests including Dale Crover (Melvins) and Lisa Germano. Barlow also recently joined Lara Meyerratken in Ben Lee’s new incarnation of Noise Addict, which released It Was Never About The Audience for free last month. Barlow (backed by the Missingmen) is opening for Dinosaur throughout October and part of November. As if that double duty wasn’t enough, Barlow will also be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our Q&A with him.
Barlow: In Dawn Of The Dead, the zombies, middle-class suburbanites, stagger to the malls, where they congregated in their pre-zombie lives, drawn to its familiarity. It was a social critique. But the mall is OK by me. Originally, malls were designed to replicate a European city center; comfortable benches and common areas. American corporations did away with the “comfortable” idea: no backs on benches, plastic greenery. But, oh, The Americana At Brand in Glendale, Calif., is what the mall was meant to be. It’s outdoors and full of shops so expensive that normal people can’t buy anything in them. It has a huge water fountain that “performs” at the top of every hour to a Bobby Darin or Dean Martin song and an “olde tyme” trolley who’s engineer announces the shops as they come into view: “And on your right, Jamba Juice. They also have a selection of healthy wraps.” In L.A., it’s notoriously hard to find a place that feels like a center. The Americana is a sister mall to The Grove in Hollywood. The Grove is on TMZ all the time. It’s a huge net for celebrities who can afford to shop at places like Kitson and shops devoted to dressing tiny dogs. The Americana, on the other hand, has become the place to just hang out for regular families in the Glendale/Eagle Rock area. Since they built a sun cover over the playground, it has become my favorite place to unleash my girl and “people watch” (to use a term my mother drops all the time). I have yet to see a celebrity. I have seen micro-gangs of elderly Armenian gentlemen hunched over their canes. The shops are surrounded by four stories of swanky apartments, touting the “high life” in Glendale. The parking garage is an amazing construction, a corkscrew ramp that’s fun to drive. It’s partially carpeted and free five days a week—thanks, economic downturn! The view from the top is downtown L.A. to the south and the foothills and Pasadena to the northeast. When it all ends, I’ll be stumbling toward The Americana, my girl on my shoulders, hand-in-hand with my wife, seeking out the place we spent our happy times.
