Lou Barlow Joins the Merge Harem
McCaughan's thugs stake out Mark E. Smith's London flat for next kidnapping

So, it would seem that Merge Records is well on their way toward completing their five-year plan to quietly scoop up every possible prominent indie artist on the market. Oh, you can say I'm being paranoid, but really-- Spoon, Destroyer, American Music Club, Buzzcocks, The Clean? And that's just the short list. So maybe there's nothing sinister behind it all, but if you're the suspicious type, this should chill you to the bone-- now they've got Lou Barlow. Should you perhaps be unaware of who that is, let us run it down for you: Dinosaur Jr., Sebadoh, Sentridoh, The Folk Implosion, Deluxx Folk Implosion. Yeah, that guy.

Considering that Barlow was one of the most prolific and revered voices of the independent music scene for pretty much the entire 1990s, he's actually been pretty quiet as of the last few years, releasing one album of assorted ephemera under the Sentridoh moniker, and one full-length as The New Folk Implosion, both in 2003. But now that he's back in full swing, Barlow will reportedly make his Merge debut with a solo EP to be released October 12th, with a full-length solo album scheduled for early 2005. In addition, Billboard reports that Merge is planning to reissue the first three Dinosaur Jr. albums-- Dinosaur, You're Living All Over Me and Bug-- late this year or early next. We're already rockin' the old Converse and mailman pants in anticipation.

Merge: http://www.mergerecords.com