Hear 'Raw Impressions' Of MA On Lou, Adelle Barlow's New Podcast

GREENFIELD, MA — Over a decade ago, Adelle and Lou Barlow were riding in the back seat of a car driving through Los Angeles talking to each other busily, as usual.

From the front seat, Adelle’s mother wheeled around and asked if they were always so chatty.

“From the time we met, when we started sharing our life, we were constantly talking,” Lou Barlow said of the moment.

“Talking to each other is our engine; that’s our love story,” Adelle Barlow said.

So it fits that the couple — now 10 years married and now living in Greenfield — have taken that chatty manner and turned it toward a new podcast, “Raw Impressions.” But it's more than just conversations between a couple; the podcast is a window into the lives of two artists, with each episode inviting fans inside to hear new work, about daily struggles and to meet other Massachusetts artists.

Lou Barlow is a hugely influential figure in independent music as cofounder of bands like Dinosaur Jr, Sebadoh and Folk Implosion; he’s also credited with inventing the modern lo-fi music genre. Adelle Barlow is a fashion designer who specializes in hand-knitted clothing and home decor.

Across the first three half-hour episodes (plus a bonus episode) of “Raw Impressions,” the Barlows cover a lot of ground, from difficulties at home during the pandemic to the debut of a new Folk Implosion song and interviews with local musicians.

The second episode features a talk with John Maloney, a founding member of one of the wildest bands to emerge from Boston, Sunburned Hand of the Man (now based in the Pioneer Valley). Maloney is a friend of the Barlows, and the booking agent for Dinosaur Jr. — and likely the first of many Massachusetts-based musicians who may turn up on the podcast.

“Raw Impressions” is also kind of a celebration of the couple’s time in the Bay State. Barlow moved to Westfield at age 12 after a parent’s job change, but spent years living in Los Angeles. That’s where he met Adelle, a Minnesota native. They moved back about eight years ago.

The couple spoke to Patch recently about the creation of “Raw Impressions,” links to Massachusetts art and geography, inspiration from Fitchburg — and why a trip to Provincetown might be in their future.

You’ve said you've wanted to do a podcast for a while together, but what finally set it in motion?

LB: We had our 10-year anniversary recently, and also we realized through that milestone that we had been in Greenfield for almost eight years. We wanted to do something fun.

Adelle Barlow: We were trying to find different ways to be creative together. Obviously, Lou is a musician, and I do fiber art. I have a degree from the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising in Los Angeles. I did some knitting for film out there before we moved. Here I do mostly craft fairs. Now Lou and I have an online store together, selling my knits and his music. We've been talking about doing a podcast for 10 years, sort of jokingly and sort of seriously. The opportunity actually came up from Ben Lee, who's a musician. He and his wife, Ione Skye, have a network called Weirder Together. Ben approached Lou and asked if he would be interested in proposing something for the network. And we just kind of looked at each other and thought, ‘Is this our opportunity?’

Do you both, or individually, listen to podcasts? Are you fans of the medium?

AB: We listen to primarily one podcast, “Busy Philipps is Doing Her Best.” So it's Busy Phillips and her co-host Caissie St. Onge, she's from Massachusetts.

LB: She's from Fitchburg. I did notice over the years, and especially when we're listening to Casey and Busy podcasts, it's very free-form. I just realized this is a really free medium. You could kind of do anything you want with it. The other day, Adelle was like, we should make commercials for local businesses! So the first one we did was a jingle for CVS, because we had gotten our boosters and our daughter, Izzy [age 6], started singing a theme song for it. I’m like, 'OK, there we go.'

AB: I hope we give local people a chuckle.

LB: Friends seem to be the people that are listening to it the most. So we want to make them laugh. We're really psyched to make one for our local Honda dealership, Lundgren Honda. It’s our way of embracing where we live.

AB: We’ve been here for a while, we do have friends who run different establishments locally because it’s a smaller town. We know the guy who runs the record shop. We have friends who opened up a really nice little restaurant.

LB: We know the people who run this company called Real Pickles, a really successful fermented pickle company. We’ve made these funny, casual connections with people. It’s kind of our way of saying, ‘OK, this is where we are.’

The CVS song was excellent. Your daughter is a great singer. Did you know that CVS is headquartered down the street in Woonsocket, Rhode Island?

AB: Oh, no, we had no idea! Maybe we’ll get to do a commercial for them.

Both of you have lived outside Massachusetts for quite a while. What do you think compared to living in a place like LA?

AB: It was moving back for Lou, his family is here, and his parents are here. There are Barlows moving around this town. It was new for me, so it was mostly a culture shock for me.

LB: It's been good for my work because I now live half an hour away from J Mascis; he’s in Amherst, and Murph, the drummer from Dinosaur Jr., is now in Deerfield. It's definitely more convenient. I found LA to be a very livable place. I would say that coming back here was kind of like my experience when I came here as a kid. These kinds of small Western Massachusetts towns are not diverse. That was something that really struck me when I first moved here when I was 12. Also coming from the Midwest, there's a lot of regional pride. When I came to Massachusetts, I was shocked that enthusiasm is just not really embraced so much.

AB: I think we're adjusted now. For me, being from Minnesota, Minnesota and LA are actually very similar in the way that people interact with each other. It's very like, ‘Hi, how are you?’ You know? I would say there's a warmth.

It’s taken me longer to feel my place here in Massachusetts. But having kids really helps because over time I've really made some of the most amazing friends and connections here. Different mom friends through the school and in the neighborhood. And so Massachusetts just reveals itself in a different way.

LB: Some of the best years of my life are spent in Boston. You know, when I was in my early 20s and my music was doing well, and I lived in Boston for almost 10 years and I absolutely loved it. And I still really like it when I go back.

Has anything in the state, whether it’s Boston or Greenfield, had any influence on either of your work?

LB: As much as I loved LA, coming back to Massachusetts actually focused me more artistically because there are fewer distractions. LA is such a sumptuous environment. There are huge, snow-covered mountains, and the ocean; the sunshine is almost relentless. I did find it hard to focus. Coming back here, really lends that cliché that when you are in a place where the climate is more challenging, it forces you inside. It does make your inner life become more vivid.

AB: It absolutely changed my design with my knitwear. I designed with a lot more color on the West Coast, and a lot more metallics. Here [Laughs] people are like, ‘black, gray, cream, don't give me any of that sparkle business, lady.’ Much more conservatively dressed with their fashion. I had to adjust to my audience. Different regions like different things. And that's true of anywhere in the country.

You had John Moloney from Sunburned Hand of the Man on the podcast, and he’s based in Western Massachusetts, and there are a lot of local musicians near you that are very well known. Are you going to use the podcast to explore some of those people and connections?

AB: It was fun having John on because he is so personally connected to us in our lives with him being tour manager for [Dinosaur Jr.] We’d like to talk to Murph, too, the drummer of Dinosaur Jr. And Julia Cafritz [of the band Pussy Galore] because she's a knitter and a musician.

LB: Julie is originally from DC. I mean, it's funny how Western Mass does attract people. Julie came here sort of in the wake of Sonic Youth [whose main members, Kim Gordon and Thurston Moore, lived in Northampton]. But she ended up teaching at Holyoke Community College.

AB: She's a fiber [art] person, too. And also, so is [Sonic Youth guitarist] Lee Renaldo. When I met him in New York with you, the first thing he wanted to talk to me about was my knitting.

LB: I think one thing that's appealing about the podcast, it is a way for us to reach out a little. I do play with local musicians here in Greenfield, and you hear all kinds of interesting stories. On the street parallel to ours, Keith Richards’ guitar roadie lives there … this guy Pierre [de Beauport] is Keith Richards’ right-hand man, and he has a studio downtown. Funny things unveil themselves the longer we're here.

AB: Or you know if you want to hear us talk to someone, [listeners] can always give us suggestions as well.

How do you record “Raw Impressions?" How do you sketch out episodes and a schedule?

AB: We have a cute little room in our house that, I think in the original blueprint print, it was called a sewing room. We live in an old house, old-ish for Massachusetts: 1894. It was Izzy's nursery. She's a big girl now, she needs a big girl room. So I just sit on like a little couch and [Lou] is on a chair and we have a couple of microphones and a tangle of cords.

LB: I record on my basic Pro Tools digital audio workstation. But I use my four-track a lot just for the funny textures.

AB: We sit, and we go over it and listen to it and try to, we want to keep it somewhat shortish, like 40 minutes.

LB: I would say it takes us maybe two hours to record one and then maybe four to five hours to edit it.

AB: It’s kind of like a full school day. We have to really time it with the kids. When they get dropped off, we get breakfast, we're like, ‘OK, let's go record and then edit.’

LB: It's kind of funny because this is like a real step of like self-promotion that neither of us has ever been comfortable with. For Adelle with her knitwear, it was always hard to kind of take that extra step to promote herself. Maybe it’s the fact I grew up in Massachusetts that I do really chafe against self-promotion and I do really want everything to seem very natural. There’s this Massachusetts thing where they want you to know they haven’t tried too hard at it.

And I think there are definitely people even in our circle I just know that they're probably like, [laughs], ‘Oh, you guys are just really just putting yourself out there now, aren't you?’ What I found is the struggle is way overrated. The struggle mentality means less and less to me as I grow older as an artist. I have to follow what makes me laugh, and what’s fun.

The podcast has let people into your lives intimately. Adelle had an emotional moment talking about something that happened during the pandemic with Lou. We also got to listen to Lou sleeping. How do you decide what to share with the public?

AB: My dad after that episode — I think you're talking about the end of episode two — called me and first was like, ‘Are you okay?’ He thought we literally walked into a room, just talked, and pressed send. He didn't know we did this days in advance and that we edited it.

They do know us, and they know our personal struggles that go on behind what I was really talking about. But I think ultimately people feeling like they struggle to have positive self-talk is something a lot of people can relate to. And so ultimately it felt fine to leave it in there.

I guess that is the joy of editing, you can be free, we can talk freely and then we can think about and decide if something is too close. We've had a number of things that we've just not put in for various reasons.

LB: But much like my music, I do really strive for honesty. A lot of songs I write are generalizations of very intense personal situations, you know?

AB: Whatever you hear is 100% honest and authentic from us. But there’s plenty to go off of that you don’t need to know it all.

I'm sure a lot of your fans are listening to this, both your fans, but maybe the podcast adds a new dimension to that experience.

LB: I think that culture, or entertainment, actually has evolved in an interesting way to where things have become more personal. Especially with social media, you do get really wonderful glimpses into artists' lives. Like Jeff Tweedy [of Wilco] is very generous with his life and his family, and shares so much of what he does. I think that’s been a general trend sort of bubbling under in culture anyway. It certainly fits in with my aesthetic, I’ve always wanted to let people in a little more anyway.

AB: He's very comfortable with a lot of it; he's a public figure, and I'm not really, and so I guess there is a part of me that feels shyer, you know? I have to do a little more work. He is wildly more open than I am, so this is a leap for me to share more.

What do your kids think about this? Your daughter has been in the podcast, but do they think it's cool? Do they listen?

AB: No, they don't!

LB: During the pandemic, we did these videos [on Instagram] and my kids were like, ‘Don't do that!’ ’

AB: With kids, they don't listen to podcasts. They’re on TikTok!

LB: I love just imagining this future where we've really figured out how to really talk about stuff that's happening to us in a way that’s very open and honest, but also very protective. And also we're not embarrassing anyone.

AB: You don't want your family to keep listening?

LB: I don't want my family to keep listening. No. It happened with my music, after a while …

AB: They still listen to everything you do. They put your CD in the car, and they listen.

So you live in Greenfield, but if you could plan a day in Massachusetts, to see two or three things around the state, what would you do?

AB: I would like someone to plan a day for me somewhere I’ve never been. I don't want to drive too far, no more than an hour and a half, to a place with a local, really cool restaurant. Do you know what I’m thinking of? Remember when we went to that museum, the Norman Rockwell Museum? Then we ate at that cute place. I think it's called The Red Lion [in Stockbridge]. Where would you want to go if you had a day?

LB: I've never been to Provincetown. I don't think I ever swam in the ocean in Massachusetts.

AB: I would really like to spend a week in Cape Cod getting to really know it.

LB: And maybe Martha's Vineyard.

AB: Where's that?

LB: It’s the island off the arm of Massachusetts.

AB: And I've never been to Salem!

You can listen to more conversations between Lou and Adelle Barlow about music, art, family and Massachusetts on any podcast service or directly on the Weirder Together network. Check out the Barlow Family General Store for art, knitwear, music, and tour information.