i knew when i saw all the posts but hoped i was wrong...
the worst news. devastated.
― stirmonster, Sunday, 6 November 2022 19:02 (one year ago) link
Such terrible news, I hadn't heard about her diagnosis. What a voice and a presence on stage. RIP.
― NoTimeBeforeTime, Sunday, 6 November 2022 19:06 (one year ago) link
Ah shit no. Thanks for your post UMS. What a band.
― Shard-borne Beatles with their drowsy hums (Chinaski), Sunday, 6 November 2022 19:15 (one year ago) link
Such incredibly sad news, <3 to you all. I was never really a full-on fan, but I cherish the albums I cherish and admired the fearlessness of how they moved in whatever direction they wanted. The thing I always loved most about them was hearing their voices together—I'm listening to "Two Step" right now and it's devastating
― rob, Sunday, 6 November 2022 19:17 (one year ago) link
I was talking with my husband about it— they really changed the direction of my life. I saw them on my 18th birthday when I was visiting the college I ended up going to, and I still remember just being absolutely blown away by their music. They were one of the reasons I made the decision I did re: school, if I’m being honest— I’d never heard anything like them before, and I figured if they were playing there, then a lot of other amazing music was coming through, too, probably.So many memories: of listening to “Trust” on headphones while riding miles and miles through cornfields on my bicycle. Being depressed and high on painkillers and blasting “Curtain Hits the Cast” on repeat. Driving around on snowy days listening to all the rarities. Seeing them on this past tour in March and breaking into tears when they started “Two-Step.”My favorite band, always.
― poppin' debussy (the table is the table), Sunday, 6 November 2022 19:30 (one year ago) link
Nothing to add to the great posts by ums and pgwp, Low have always been one of those rare bands who avoided the traditional descent into creative obsolescence. I saw them in the mid-90s supporting Come in London at a shitty rock dive venue, the more the audience talked over them the quieter they played, which was a victory of sorts. RIP Mimi and good thoughts to everyone who knew them and/or their music.
― zeuhl's forgotten man (Matt #2), Sunday, 6 November 2022 19:34 (one year ago) link
This is devastating news :(
― flamboyant goon tie included, Sunday, 6 November 2022 19:57 (one year ago) link
:(((
― micah, Sunday, 6 November 2022 20:00 (one year ago) link
Alan once said Mimi singing his words was like breathing life into a corpse, which is a bit of an unfortunate turn of phrase at this point but I think speaks for how much she brought to their creative partnership. An unimaginable loss.
― "Spaghetti" Thompson (Pheeel), Sunday, 6 November 2022 20:05 (one year ago) link
I've met alan a number of times and played a few shows with him/retribution gospel choir, he's a sweetheart and I hope he will be ok through all of this.
― akm, Sunday, 6 November 2022 20:30 (one year ago) link
Heartbreaking news, i had no idea Mimi was sick and find that hard to reconcile with the incredibly beautiful, intense and just plain long show i saw them play in Brighton just six months ago. They had then, as ever, the most magical, haunting chemistry.
― cw, Sunday, 6 November 2022 21:18 (one year ago) link
― poppin' debussy (the table is the table), Sunday, 6 November 2022 21:21 (one year ago) link
Awful news. What a legacy she created, right up to the very end.
― Tim F, Sunday, 6 November 2022 21:34 (one year ago) link
it wasn't hard to see this coming but i really hoped it wouldn't, absolutely devastating news
they were really as good as bands get, a nearly-unmatched creative output and it feels especially tragic when they were still reaching new peaks. mimi's presence was incomparable
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5Enxzh-O9Y
all the love in the world to alan
― ufo, Sunday, 6 November 2022 21:51 (one year ago) link
yes, if hugs over the internet worked I would send them
― StanM, Sunday, 6 November 2022 23:11 (one year ago) link
This one hurts
― ✖✖✖ (Moka), Sunday, 6 November 2022 23:32 (one year ago) link
Shocking to hear this, even though I feared it was coming. A devastating loss, RIP
― Vinnie, Sunday, 6 November 2022 23:48 (one year ago) link
Spent the day listening through the Low discography while raking leaves and trying to keep it together
The genius of Alan and Mimi’s partnership can’t really be overstated
My personal connection with this music aside this is just an enormous loss for music as a whole
Thanks ums and pgwp and table for your posts today
― flamboyant goon tie included, Sunday, 6 November 2022 23:59 (one year ago) link
Truly gutted
― raven, Monday, 7 November 2022 00:18 (one year ago) link
Brutally tragic. A band and musician who expanded how I think about music.
― glenn mcdonald, Monday, 7 November 2022 00:46 (one year ago) link
pgwp's great post made something occur to me, even early, and even that they were only slightly older than the kids in the audience, they always seemed like a band of adults
― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Monday, 7 November 2022 01:07 (one year ago) link
Yeah, there's a truth there. Realizing they were only a couple of years older than me seems a bit weird to think about when it came to the night they crashed at my place as I mention above. I didn't think they were massively older, but there was a gentle gravitas.
― Ned Raggett, Monday, 7 November 2022 01:10 (one year ago) link
Alan once said Mimi singing his words was like breathing life into a corpse, which is a bit of an unfortunate turn of phrase at this point but I think speaks for how much she brought to their creative partnership. An unimaginable loss.― "Spaghetti" Thompson (Pheeel), Sunday, 6 November 2022 20:05 (yesterday) link
― "Spaghetti" Thompson (Pheeel), Sunday, 6 November 2022 20:05 (yesterday) link
her vocals were the angelic balance to their songs. devastated for the family's loss.
recommend the Optimimi version of "Hatchet" for some sweetness.
― Western® with Bacon Flavor, Monday, 7 November 2022 01:35 (one year ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVapgSxZcow
― ufo, Monday, 7 November 2022 08:04 (one year ago) link
"we'll call it starfire, who will know?"
</3
The real trick of Low—the thing that sets them apart from every other band who has tried to exist within the genre they helped to create—was that Alan and Mimi had a closeness that could not be replicated by others. Every mundane detail of their whole lives was imbued in their songs. All the unsaid experiences and feelings that lay under their words and music elevated their songs to a profound level. This was the magical ingredient, their lifelong love and shared moments going all the way back to their childhoods—that freed them from every aesthetic constraint they applied to their music. The beauty of low was not their pace or their volume but their beauty and their deep understanding of each other. It transcends everything.
― sctttnnnt (pgwp), Sunday, 6 November 2022 18:43 (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink
otm
― maelin, Monday, 7 November 2022 10:23 (one year ago) link
Presumably Low cannot now continue in any form but I hope Sparhawk finds it within himself to make new music one day. How did their collaboration as songwriters work? The credits just read Low, but who tended to write most of the lyrics and music?
― lord of the rongs (anagram), Monday, 7 November 2022 14:29 (one year ago) link
Alan's had a few side-projects, so I imagine he will/must keep working. But I can't imagine him ever revisiting Low again. Which is incredible to even think about.
― Josh in Chicago, Monday, 7 November 2022 14:36 (one year ago) link
He's been doing his Tired Eyes Neil Young tribute band, well it's more Rich Mattson's (a local guy from the Glenrustles) band but they do it together
I actually have a ticket to see Derecho, the band he's been doing with a couple local musicians and his son Cyrus, on December 1. I expect it probably won't happen but who knows? It's more of a funky, danceable thing, very 70s r&b
feels like Black Eyed Snakes never really breaks up just comes and goes, I know they did some shows a couple summers ago
don't know the status of Retribution Gospel Choir but that felt way less casual than the others and I wonder if that's just done
― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Monday, 7 November 2022 14:45 (one year ago) link
He was also in a Velvet Underground tribute band at some point in the not-too-distant past.
― lord of the rongs (anagram), Monday, 7 November 2022 14:58 (one year ago) link
I was reading an interview someone clipped on twitter yesterday which basically said Mimi helped Alan rein it in and not go too far overboard. I do think we will still continue to get great music from him and at the same time it will never approximate Low again.
― sctttnnnt (pgwp), Monday, 7 November 2022 15:40 (one year ago) link
Tragic, awful news. Ugh.
― Indexed, Monday, 7 November 2022 16:02 (one year ago) link
Audio's a little muddy here, but nice tribute from Robert Plant.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SawQl67koxo
― a man often referred to in the news media as the Duke of Saxony (tipsy mothra), Monday, 7 November 2022 16:13 (one year ago) link
i love plant and krauss's versions of those two low songs, lovely. plant is such a class act, someone who just really loves music.
― akm, Monday, 7 November 2022 16:15 (one year ago) link
You know you've made an incredible impact when Robert Plant pauses the show to pay tribute to you.
― Josh in Chicago, Monday, 7 November 2022 16:16 (one year ago) link
i really wish i had gone to that robert plant show, which was about a minute's walk from my house, but sadly my finger is patently very off the plant pulse as i didn't know it was on.
have been listening to low all day.
― stirmonster, Monday, 7 November 2022 16:29 (one year ago) link
― Josh in Chicago, Monday, November 7, 2022 10:16 AM (thirteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink
was thinking the same thingPlant is definitely the coolest of the old classic rock dudes
― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Monday, 7 November 2022 16:31 (one year ago) link
Friends. Your love is perfect and overwhelming. Spread it. Thank you.Funeral will be this Thursday likely at 1 pm at the LDS church in Duluth. All are welcome and we indeed invite you. Peace and love. Equal rights and justice, too, but peace and love through and through.— LOW (@lowtheband) November 7, 2022
― Josh in Chicago, Monday, 7 November 2022 16:37 (one year ago) link
xpost So he is and remains. The standard I always use is that most of his peers seemed to just reference each others' work or their increasingly distant youthful inspirations when it came to the 'so what are you listening to these days' questions in interviews in the 80s and 90s and Plant was always talking about Arabic singers or Swans or This Mortal Coil or obscure rockabilly or something else again.
So that tribute doesn't surprise me. He knows from quality.
― Ned Raggett, Monday, 7 November 2022 18:51 (one year ago) link
And of course he recorded those two Low songs a few albums back, too.
― Josh in Chicago, Monday, 7 November 2022 19:03 (one year ago) link
Yup
― Ned Raggett, Monday, 7 November 2022 19:11 (one year ago) link
Maybe Krauss plays them with him live these days, but I thought Patty Griffin sang on the studio versions of those Low covers.
― a superficial sheeb of intelligence (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Monday, 7 November 2022 19:17 (one year ago) link
I think that's right. It was the Band of Joy album, right?
― Josh in Chicago, Monday, 7 November 2022 19:23 (one year ago) link
from zak sally
https://www.instagram.com/p/CkoTOy5PAs2/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link
― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Monday, 7 November 2022 19:29 (one year ago) link
xpost - yeah, that was the one!
― a superficial sheeb of intelligence (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Monday, 7 November 2022 20:21 (one year ago) link
another thing I'll say about Alan and Mimi: I don't know either of them (I've interacted with Alan a bit in person and online and via email), but I know a lot of people who do, and it says something that, as people who have worked in what is a basically thankless industry for almost 30 years, with plenty of opportunity and justification to beef with others, that Alan and Mimi are universally loved. Quite a few years ago when Eitzel was going to go on tour with them he expressed some hesitation given that he was still in his cups at the time, didn't know them, was a little worried about hitting the road with Mormons; I introduced him to a friend of mine who had toured with them to assuage those concerns. Right now I don't know that I can think of a single other group in my circle of friends and acquaintances about whom no one has a grievance.
― akm, Monday, 7 November 2022 20:25 (one year ago) link
They seemed to draw great strength from their faith without even remotely pushing it on anybody else, or even necessarily promoting it. That's a rare thing.
― Josh in Chicago, Monday, 7 November 2022 20:41 (one year ago) link
Well said:
https://slate.com/culture/2022/11/mimi-parker-of-low-dies-how-the-drummer-worked-with-husband-alan-sparhawk-to-make-art.html
― Ned Raggett, Monday, 7 November 2022 21:18 (one year ago) link
The tour that Eitzel did with them was, I think, the first tour on which I saw them, the show that altered my life and perceptions of music.
― poppin' debussy (the table is the table), Monday, 7 November 2022 21:31 (one year ago) link
― Josh in Chicago, Monday, November 7, 2022 8:41 PM (forty-three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink
i know this isn't the right time for this, but you know what? this cult nearly killed me, so i'll just point out there is a lot wrong with this kind of sentiment and it does real damage to people. silence and complicity kills, and it is picking a side. i have a lot of sympathy for what was by all accounts an honest grappling with the religion, but i don't think they were able to make the right choice in the end, and that to me is really tragic. i won't go into why it invalidates the band's work for me as it feels entirely too personal to defend, it just is what it is.
anyway, a sad loss and my condolences to fans and loved ones.
― ꙮ (map), Monday, 7 November 2022 21:33 (one year ago) link
I don't know what to say other than its heartbreaking, can't believe she's gone. For someone that didn't even necessarily think of herself as a drummer, she was so iconic and influential. I thought about her all the time when I needed to play minimally and try and really get to the heart of the music.
I got to see them a number of times but the most memorable was probably in 2014 at a tiny barn venue in Spring Green, WI. They seemed a little off balance playing a space that intimate at that point in their career but it was amazing to see, I especially remember Nothing But Heart and Mimi singing the Rihanna cover. I got to talk to her for a little while afterwards and of course she was kind.
I can't go back and listen to it now but this interview is worth hearing if you haven't: https://www.thetrapset.net/128-mimi-parker-low/
― change display name (Jordan), Monday, 7 November 2022 21:36 (one year ago) link