Low: Classic or classic?

ha I never said on this thread that 'the curtain hits the cast' is one of my few most favorite albums ever.

i watched that low documentary on cable last nite. maaaaaaaan, was that boring. not even two members of napalm death could pep things up. HOW IRONIC LOW DUDE THEY ARE IN NAPALM DEATH AND YOU ARE IN LOW AND YOU ARE IN THE SAME BUILDING WHAT ARE THE ODDS. on the other hand, it made me want to listen to low records. i do like low. and watching low live from my couch is, if you ask me, the best friggin' place on earth to watch low live.

hahah, interesting post. a boring documentary that made you wanna listen to the records. i can see that. good documentary i guess, rather slow, i own it but have only watched it once, so far.

the live footage is indeed superb.

that's the Low In Europe thing, right? I've got that DVD too, should really watch it again too

they should have set up the most boring people alive premise even more than they did. they sould have called the doc: HOW LOW CAN YOU GO:THE DIRTY DULUTH 3 LAY WASTE TO EUROPE! with girls gone wild cover art.

Maybe the sequel will be even lower

Low & Lowerer, with new bass player Jim Carrey

ultimately characterless and forgettable

lol. Heard Drums and Guns?

it hadn't been released back then

i have "low in europe" and only got halfway through it. hmm. and as you all know, i adore them.

vvv tickled to see the original post -- it was alex who got me into low, some ... fucking hell, 12 years ago now. christ.

which album do I listen to right now if I've never heard any of them before? quick!

I think The Great Destroyer is very accessible, so that may be a good entry point. But I guess Things We Lost In The Fire might be a more representative disc.

A handful of songs on the new disc (called Drums and Guns) are also an excellent introduction to the band. Try, for example, this killer (no pun intended) version of Murderer, from a live, in-studio performance last year.

Things We Lost in the Fire is a great introduction. I'd also recommend Secret Name, which was my intro, also very good.

Things We Lost in the Fire, definitely. Worked for me at least, from the first chord change.

Anyone see that film about Low that's now showing on Pitchfork.tv? It's called You Might Need A Murderer. I didn't know how troubled Alan Spearhawk was. Semi-boring film, but a totally compelling band.

Oh it's on Pitchfork.tv? Sweet, I saw it in the local record store today and passed on it ($20 brand new) but i'll totally watch it for free. One of my all time favorite bands, love these guys.

npr interview with the sparhawks a while ago that touched on his issues

Catch it now, Stephen. It's the "One Week Only" feature on Pitchfork.tv.

That NPR interview is fascinating. Sparhawk dances around his problems some, but this is the first time I've heard he was suicidal.

Thanks Daniel, I'll be sure to check it out Sunday morning when i get up :D

Retribution Gospel Choir (Alan's new, catchier, LOUD, rock band) played a sparsely attended show in Montreal on Friday that was fucking amazing. PLayed their hearts out for we seated folk, left my ears so happily ringing. Was sad to see him loading up the van alone in the street afterward (last time I saw Low it was at ATP with another 1000 people). If Retribution Gospel Choir come to chez toi, go go go. terrific.

Low have subtley crept, over the course of about ten years, into the position of being my favorite existing band.

"subtly"

Some good discussion on this thread, methinks.

Retribution Gospel Choir (Alan's new, catchier, LOUD, rock band) played a sparsely attended show in Montreal on Friday that was fucking amazing.

ARGH I was on the list for this but couldn't go, damn you, job.

I've seen them 7-8 times since 1997 and have observed as the venue/audience size has grown in tandem with the expanse of the band's dynamic (louder choruses, distortion pedals and such). The songs from their last few records are perfectly suited to the mid-size theatres they play these days. But my favorite gigs were one in the mid-to-late 90's, when they would come through the Ann Arbor/Detroit area quite regularly and play at little hole-in-the-wall spots: The (small) audience would generally sit on the floor and remain dead silent until the band finished playing (save for the occasional applause). There was a communal reverence, churchlike almost, unlike anything else I've experienced at rock gigs (even a "seated" Yo La Tengo show from their And Then Nothing.. tour, in which the band/venue provided the audience with folding chairs, didn't come close). It was a beautiful thing to be a part of, really.

I totally get that. I'm sure you'd agree, though, that they deserve all the additional attention -- and higher audience attendance at shows -- that they now get. I'm with you: Low has become one of my favorite, if not my absolute favorite, band of the moment.

I'll third that. Best band going today.

i saw RGC a few years back with Kozelek and they were alright but the drummer was really stiff; if it's the same guy I'm sure they've loosened up a bit. I'm assuming Kozelek isn't on this tour.

the best thing they played though was a crazy ass cover of "the carpet crawlers"

I'm sure you'd agree, though, that they deserve all the additional attention -- and higher audience attendance at shows

Yeah, it has actually been very rewarding to watch a humble little band like Low build and expand their aesthetic over the years, and at the same time gain popularity because of the sheer quality of their art. Even thought I have those fond memories of tiny quiet shows, I have no problem sharing Low with The World.

Strictly in terms of popularity, though, I know Low is bigger in Europe than The States, at least circa early-2000s. Was it that way in the mid-to-late 90's too? I'd been used to Low concerts being generally as described above. But then, in 2000, I moved to Dublin for college and twice saw Low in sold-out concerts at The Olympia, a fairly large theatre (fantastic shows both, one with cello!).

"thought" = though

stop all the clocks, quieten all the whisperings about low's republican tendencies:

low are playing an obama benefit somewhere.

they're also doing christmas shows in the uk, in november.

I had only heard about teh one show. Is it definitely shows plural?

yeh, manchester ('uni' i think, which i guess is hop & grape/academy three?) and oran mor glasgow. there's a churchy bit to oran mor, although i guess it's more likely they'll be downstairs.

I'm going to the London one - it's at Koko.

So I've just heard something bizarre about how Alan S. threw a guitar at his audience at a Saturday show in the UK?

Drowned in Sound thread with details:

http://drownedinsound.com/articles/4020122

^^ shit's wack

and yeah, classic. particularly the very early stuff, which stylistically i prefer a whole lot to the recent stuff, which tends to be a little too comfortable and prosaic for my liking

Buncha fuckin Helen Lovejoys on that DiS thread non-shocker

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZwriY0HEaE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCu0uLb8AkY

'i could live in hope' came out 30 years ago today

Really great "it's Friday I'm in low" last week. Cyrus on bass

Well, "Lullaby" still makes me cry, so there's that.

Got tix to see Sparhawk play in Chicago.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7i-wjCZhXw

professional footage of some of alan's new songs

Wow, his son looks so much like him.

There's a local band here called L0veblaster that is doing the exact classic Low instrumentation and approach. It's pretty good actually, but begs for comparison in a way I find distracting.

don't love that band name

i'm friends with them (the local band)! they're so good. what's hilarious is that they don't even listen to low and were kind of unaware of them, last time i played with them, lol! but i think people mention it to them all the time

really great to see alan playing shows again - i'll have to give that video a deeper listen later today

Oh huh, I read an interview with them where they said Low was one of their two favorite bands and that they wanted to try out the format. It's a nice record though.

(lol I agree about the name though)

haha, whoa! yeah i just found that interview! okeydokey then, no comment :) anyway they definitely fall into the non-musical low tradition of being incredibly sweet and supportive people in addition to talented musicians.

denying your most obvious influence is a grand rock tradition

Is it strange that I don’t really care about Alan’s music without Mimi?

what DO you do in his place? I fully support his decision to continue making music (and involving Cyrus) but Low is over, he said so himself, and finding another style that pleases the former fans isn't going to be easy any time - (I shudder to think of the alternatives: continuing Low with another female singer? Hologram Mimi?)

dude looks like thom yorke now & the band sounds like radiohead

I don't think it's weird, it was always the two of them. I mostly care out of goodwill for Alan, and out of curiosity about the music that comes out of this.

There is a lot of goodwill and I hope he can make it work for his family. I was however always much more into Mimi's voice.

I'm definitely curious to hear what he does next. if only because Retribution Gospel Choir was a fantastic and criminally underappreciate band and that was without Mimi.

I feel the world for him— I mean, my life has been utterly altered by cancer and death and pain in my family. So, I extend my love and support to him— I just don’t really want to listen to the music he makes, it simply makes me want to listen to Low

Yeah, cosign. There's more than enough beauty and pain in Low to keep me enthralled, I don't need to hear anything new from him.

I get it. I just consider it a testament to Low being one of the truly great, truly special bands of our times. I can't be duplicated or bettered. but I'll still keep up with him.

I think he’s had enough of a track record of making music outside of Low, and it has been varied, that I’m eager to hear whatever he releases next. And I don’t have any expectation that he’s going to make something that is supposed to be a, uh, new low.

I’m very at peace that Low’s catalogue is now complete. It’s a beautiful discography to behold.

Let's see... Their last few albums are some of the best reviewed and experimental of their career, and his side projects span a wide range of styles and sounds. Yeah, I can't see why anyone would be interested in what comes next. Ho hum.

idk why anyone would not want to hear what alan might put out at this point. absolutely no way he isn't capable of putting out his own "tonight's the night"

My wife came in and asked why I was listening to Pearl Jam. It’s not for me, but some bits sounded good.

Hideous Lump and Western, I am speaking only for myself, and also: I have not found much of his solo work that interesting, and also differ greatly from the ILX hivemind on the last few albums. I liked them, but Curtain, Things We Lost, and Secret Name will always be my favorites. About half of “Double Negative” is worth skipping afaic.

I do like HEY WHAT a lot better than DN, tho

I respect that Sparhawk needs to try new things to move on and find something that clicks, but I was not really into his set last night. Independently a lot of the ideas worked, more or less, but it felt indulgent in an uncomfortable way. About a third kind of a funk-soul thing (including covers of Roy Ayers and Childish Gambino), a few songs that fit sort of in the electro-clash mode (with electric percussion/drum machine and vocoder vocals), and a few songs that sounded a bit like electric Neil Young, so maybe more in his expected wheelhouse. But most of the lyrics were minimal, often just a few lines repeated, and the stylistic excursions felt a bit gimmicky to me (even though the playing was surprisingly solid). I assume this is what he's been up to as/in Derecho? The playing was all good, yet the set felt like watching a workshop. Which I guess it was, in a way, but if I didn't know he had the best intentions I'd almost call it trolling.

the funk/soul stuff, including the covers, is all from derecho yeah. the other stuff is unreleased new material but he seems to have a few different modes he's been writing songs recently in that are all very different which probably makes for a weird experience

i can't really blame the guy--glad he's still out there playing music.

i'm certainly looking forward to whatever solo album he comes up with, i think he's said he intends to keep working with bj burton

Yeah, I'm looking forward to whatever as well, it was just weird to see a guy who had worked with such laser focus for so many years suddenly come across a little scattershot.

I think he does really like playing with these guys (I mean, he better; his son is a great bassist, too), I'm just not sure I need any funk-soul from him, as fun as it is. I could imagine Derecho being its own thing and melancholy Sparhawk solo another. I could totally imagine a glitchy solo album from him, kind of like Neil's "Le Noise."

The playing was all good, yet the set felt like watching a workshop.

I'm guessing that he's literally workshopping material, before recording. Always hard to do if playing it live is part of your process, when people are coming out and paying for it (although playing bigger shows under his name instead of local gigs with Derecho does suggest that he's either more confident in it or could use the money?). And even harder when making a new body of work, as opposed to a band that can sneak in a few new tunes.

fwiw the audience was very supportive and receptive, though in my experience it's hard to get anyone to turn on an artist they love (let alone one who was recently dealt a tragedy). Not that anyone should have booed or anything, but after a few meandering or tentative genre explorations Sparhawk half-jokingly opened the floor to questions, and some dude yelled "yeah, how did you get so good!?!" And I thought, woah, slow down there, brown-noser. (Sparhawk's answer was, essentially, "practice.")

I think I would have preferred just a night of funk jams, tbh. They seemed to be having a lot of fun with that.

solo album from alan coming

Low’s Alan Sparhawk will release a solo album—titled White Roses, My God—under his own name this fall, according to a new interview ↓ https://t.co/D0rYOzbl5Q

— Pitchfork (@pitchfork) April 11, 2024

he has so many side projects locally it's hard to keep up. i'm not in mpls anymore but off the top of my head he's got derecho, retribution gospel choir, black eyed snakes, various neil young tributes, a ween cover band, and 2-3 i am forgetting atm. and sometimes he bills derecho as 'derecho rhythm section', not sure how/if that's different

sad i never caught him in NY mode before i moved

i also honestly admire that he also is a bigtime homer for and producer for local bands i'm too much of an asshole for. mpls heads will know who i'm talking about

anyway it's just cool that he's such a man about town. i've maybe posted this before but the last low show i saw was in a small forested grove exactly half a mile from my childhood home. pretty special experience, been listening to low since i was a teen stealing CDs from my big brother and i hadn't made it out to that area in a long time

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/persons-of-interest/alan-sparhawk-the-heart-of-low the full interview referenced in the Pitchfork news item

That's great. Funny that Bruce Adams is reduced to "music writer," but I guess it would be harder (or take a few more words) to describe the more important role he played. Though the article does bring up Sub Pop, so I dunno.

god, the detail of teenage Alan playing "Heart of Gold" and then Mimi joining in without asking broke me

i'm very heavily anticipating this album but i also don't know if i'm emotionally ready for it