Sub Pop

Alongside Pavement’s Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain and Guided By Voices’ Bee Thousand, Sebadoh’s Bakesale was the final component of the great indie rock trifecta of 1994—a transitional year for a subgenre still coming to terms with being dragged into the national spotlight kicking and screaming in the wake of Nirvana’s runaway success and the record industry’s insatiable desire to capitalize on lucrative trends.

However, some acts who were otherwise lo-fi and experimental by nature did actually shoot for some kind of semblance of formidable exposure amidst the FM denizens of the alternative nation. And with their fifth album and second Sub Pop release, the trio of Lou Barlow, Jason Lowenstein and then-new drummer Bob Fay staved off the four-track crudeness of such early whirlwinds as The Freed Man, Sebadoh III and Smash Your Head On The Punk Rock for something more direct and to the point. It was a change of tune triggered by the departure of original member and second guitarist Eric Gaffney, whose propensity for making a sloppy, noisy racket oftentimes overshadowed Barlow’s stony heartfelt sentiments.

With Gaffney out of the picture, Bakesale placed Lou in the power position to shape Sebadoh in the way he saw fit. And this LP found him taking things back to the calmer, more pop-based moments of the Sentridoh handle he recorded under during his days moonlighting as a bedroom solo act in the midst of his first run as a member of Dinosaur Jr., albeit on a slightly grander, more clarified scale. The album also served as a showcase for Lowenstein, a member of the group since 1989, to flex his skills as a proper creative force within the faction as well, and proved to be a much stronger songwriting foil for Lou than Gaffney, as his scrappier songs like “Shit Soup” and “Drama Mine” fit so much nicer alongside Lou’s more melodically driven tracks like “License to Confuse,” “Not A Friend” and the trio’s minor radio hit “Rebound” without a hitch.

This deluxe edition of Bakesale adds a bonus CD consisting of 25 superfluous tracks culled from various EPs and B-sides from the era, as well as a cache of four-track and acoustic demos that features some amazing, stripped-down performances of key LP tracks like “Magnet’s Coil” and “Mystery Man” as well as tunes that wouldn’t appear until Harmacy in 1996 like “On Fire” and “Perfect Way”. There are also more than a few ganja-inspired noise jams included as well that might not be for everyone, but certainly offers a complete overview of this most essential entry in the history of one of the great underground bands of the 1990s.