Lou Barlow is kind of one of my personal heroes. I love his songwriting, his voice, his distinctive bass playing in Dinosaur Jr., and just his general approach to his various musical projects, whether it be Sebadoh or Sentridoh or Folk Implosion or solo stuff or whatever. Dude keeps it real.

I’m pretty sure I drove right past him, walking down the street, crossing a bridge in Minneapolis, just after the Dinosaur Jr. show I went to up there a couple years ago, a block or two down the street from the venue. It sure looked like him. To this day one of my biggest regrets is that I didn’t stop the car and offer him a ride. If it was indeed him. I should have at least checked.

Anyway Lou’s got a new record out on Merge called “= Sentridoh III” that I’m really interested in, wherein he’s teamed up with The Missingmen, the same group of guys who have lately backed up another personal musical hero of mine, Mike Watt. I’m not sure if Watt is himself in involved with the project, how bad-ass would that be?

But in any case, what I’ve heard/seen of this sounds great. And what that is, is this free mp3 from Merge of the new EP’s re-make of the classic Sentridoh song “Losercore,” and this video for “On The Face”:

Lou Barlow + the missingmen – On The Face from Merge Records on Vimeo.

You may have heard that I like Zoroaster a bit. I have yet to get any of their stuff on Cd; I have a tendency, when I think I’m likely to try and see a band live, to wait to get a CD at the show. But it looks like I won’t be catching Zoroaster on their upcoming tour, as their closest approaches to Des Moines are Kansas City on July 3, and Minneapolis on July 4, which coincide with 80/35 fest.

Anyway, here’s a sweet promo video for their upcoming album Matador:

Also, quick note: Last night’s Baroness show at Vaudeville Mews kicked ass. That’s all the review it needs.

I’ve had a passing interest in this oddcore outfit for a while now. They just put out this video for the song “Serf Song” off their most recent album Atlas Drugged, and it’s pretty darn clever.

I’ve been remiss in not posting this sooner, but a little over a week ago Iowa City songwriter Samuel Locke-Ward (is it supposed to be spelled with the dash or not? I never know for sure) did a live solo performance on the Little Village Live radio show on KRUI. In it, he tore rapid-fire through something like two dozen songs off his last something like eight albums. Download the audio, watch the video, read a bit about Sam at Little Village’s site. Or watch the videos below:

(va Scented Vinyl)

Via a Facebook posting last night by the video’s co-director Joel Anderson (also a guitar slinger in Tornavalanche, and back’na’day, Ten Grand):

this was co-directed by alan ortiz and myself. bill adams is not only an awesome dude, he ran a camera to boot. dean fisher handled the art direction and made the cabin look amazing. ruben vela II did the masterful editing. jill dibiase helped see the whole editorial process through. joey potts created the illustration…s and sean jean cough animated them to life. craig leffel worked his magic on the color correction and joel signer helped with the color as well. thanks to optimus, vagrant and the great people of murder by death!

Good Morning,Magpie came out last month on Vagrant Records.

Super-active Iowa rapper/songwriter/musician Coolzey has a new summer project. You’ve heard of this concept before: put out a song online every week. Except he’s also doing videos for them. For 12 weeks. Here’s the first one.

Check out Public School Records website for a download of the song, including a clean version suitable for radio.

I met John Pemble at Impromptu Studio the other day. I didn’t know who he was, but I knew he was fascinating. Here he is with Amadeo Rossi making the second lineup announcement for this year’s 80/35 Music Festival:

And since I missed out on posting it, and perhaps you missed out on it too, here’s the first one:

Heh, I love this band. This video is great fun. In the black-and-white shot of the two scientists freaking out, check out the blackboard behind them. I love when a heavy band doesn’t take themselves overseriously.

Also check out this live video of “Spirit Molecule”:

Both found via Sludge Swamp.