American indie rock band Sebadoh, which plays in Taiwan for the first time this Sunday at The Wall (這牆), dates back to the days when aspiring musicians recorded demos on a four-track cassette recorder instead of a computer hard drive.
Sebadoh’s “lo-fi” sound earned the group a loyal following, thanks to its cassette albums of folk and post-punk laced with off-the-cuff noise and sampled sounds. The “band” began as a one-man project in western Massachusetts in the late 1980s by vocalist and guitarist Lou Barlow, also a founding member and bassist of alt-rock legend Dinosaur Jr.
At first, Sebadoh was Barlow’s personal creative outlet — at the time, he felt overshadowed by the songwriting prowess of his Dinosaur Jr bandmate J Mascis. Then it became an outlet of frustration after he feuded with Mascis and got kicked out of Dinosaur Jr. That experience partly inspired The Freed Man (1989), a beloved album among devout Sebadoh fans.
Photo courtesy of Earwax Productions
Beneath the tape hiss, there was a clear sense of songcraft in Sebadoh’s music that helped the band get signed with Sub Pop, the Seattle indie rock label best known for nurturing grunge groups Nirvana and Soundgarden and currently popular bands like the indie folk ensemble Fleet Foxes.
While scores of indie musicians and fans today have embraced lo-fi as an aesthetic and even a genre, Barlow says it’s just a “technical term referring to the way a song was recorded.”
“I think we are mid-fi,” he wrote in a brief e-mail interview with the Taipei Times.
“We recorded our songs well but not to industry standards.”
Through Sub Pop, Sebadoh reached its closest to mainstream success with Bakesale (1994) and Harmacy (1996), which saw Barlow’s melodic, confessional songwriting come to the fore. The band’s sound became more focused, favoring anthemic indie rock songs full of cynical musings on love and heartbreak.
Barlow has been keeping busy in recent years. He is now back touring and recording with Dinosaur Jr. And Sebadoh is picking up steam again: Sub Pop re-released Bakesale earlier this summer, and the band has just finished a tour of Europe and Australia, with a run of shows scheduled in Japan after its Taipei concert.
Concertgoers will hear songs from Bakesale and Harmacy on Sunday when Barlow takes to the stage with his bandmates, bassist Jason Loewenstein and drummer Bob D’Amico. Barlow says the band’s current repertoire of 30 songs also includes a few from outside of those albums.
That US assistance was a model for Taiwan’s spectacular development success was early recognized by policymakers and analysts. In a report to the US Congress for the fiscal year 1962, former President John F. Kennedy noted Taiwan’s “rapid economic growth,” was “producing a substantial net gain in living.” Kennedy had a stake in Taiwan’s achievements and the US’ official development assistance (ODA) in general: In September 1961, his entreaty to make the 1960s a “decade of development,” and an accompanying proposal for dedicated legislation to this end, had been formalized by congressional passage of the Foreign Assistance Act. Two
Despite the intense sunshine, we were hardly breaking a sweat as we cruised along the flat, dedicated bike lane, well protected from the heat by a canopy of trees. The electric assist on the bikes likely made a difference, too. Far removed from the bustle and noise of the Taichung traffic, we admired the serene rural scenery, making our way over rivers, alongside rice paddies and through pear orchards. Our route for the day covered two bike paths that connect in Fengyuan District (豐原) and are best done together. The Hou-Feng Bike Path (后豐鐵馬道) runs southward from Houli District (后里) while the
President William Lai’s (賴清德) March 13 national security speech marked a turning point. He signaled that the government was finally getting serious about a whole-of-society approach to defending the nation. The presidential office summarized his speech succinctly: “President Lai introduced 17 major strategies to respond to five major national security and united front threats Taiwan now faces: China’s threat to national sovereignty, its threats from infiltration and espionage activities targeting Taiwan’s military, its threats aimed at obscuring the national identity of the people of Taiwan, its threats from united front infiltration into Taiwanese society through cross-strait exchanges, and its threats from
March 31 to April 6 On May 13, 1950, National Taiwan University Hospital otolaryngologist Su You-peng (蘇友鵬) was summoned to the director’s office. He thought someone had complained about him practicing the violin at night, but when he entered the room, he knew something was terribly wrong. He saw several burly men who appeared to be government secret agents, and three other resident doctors: internist Hsu Chiang (許強), dermatologist Hu Pao-chen (胡寶珍) and ophthalmologist Hu Hsin-lin (胡鑫麟). They were handcuffed, herded onto two jeeps and taken to the Secrecy Bureau (保密局) for questioning. Su was still in his doctor’s robes at