There are a small number of artists/bands who I regret never having seen live. Low are one of them. The thing is, I didn't really start paying attention to them until they had released their last album and embarked on their last tour. Also, of course, drummer/singer Mimi Parker, wife of guitarist/singer Alan Sparhawk, wound up dying within a year or two. Kinda sad.
My feeling is that they should have been bigger considering how good they were. On the other hand, they were strange enough so that in another sense they should have been even more obscure.
2 comments:
Wikipedia had some interesting bits about Low, a band I'd never even heard of - yes, I'm definitely out of it these days. I'm sorry you never got to see them perform; the last band we discovered that had already retired was Oingo Boingo.
I understand Low deliberately played very quietly, amusingly enough they'd turn down the volume if the audience appeared to not be listening. They were well described as subtle - some bands have quiet sections just so they can crank up the volume but they aren't like that. It was a shame that Mimi died so young.
They are weird and the later stuff is almost like anti-music - too much distortion for my taste. At the same time I liked the few songs I was able to listen to from their earlier albums: Sunflower on the Things we Lost in the Fire and The Weight of Water from Secret Name. Their slower than slow version of The Little Drummer Boy had lovely harmonies.
Ah yes, Oingo Boingo seem to have been split since 1995, after forming in 1979. Hopefully that gave Danny Elfman and the boys enough time to do everything they wanted to do. They did make their share of good music in that time.
I once read something by Neil Gaiman where he said that Clive Barker had told him that if you want to get people's attention you should speak softer instead of louder. At least early in their career Low seem to have followed the same principle. And yes, Mimi's death was kind of a shock. You often don't know what's going on with people.
Over the years I've developed a taste for twitchy music, so the distortion doesn't bother me so much as interest me. At the same time the more (superficially at least) placid stuff is what first made their reputation, and there's a reason for that.
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