Tim Barnes - Lost Words

Tim Barnes is a storied drummer, engineer and producer whose CV encompasses collaborations with a serious who’s-who of late 20th and early 21st century music. Most well known as one of the two drummers (alongside Glenn Kotche) on Jim O’Rourke’s seminal late 90s and early 2000s recordings, Tim has recorded, performed and collaborated Tony Conrad, Faust, Alan Licht, PG Six, Silver Jews, Sonic Youth, Stereolab, The Tower Recordings, Ken Vandermark, Wilco, John Zorn and countless other artists working at the forward edge of improvised and experimental music. For many years he was the proprietor of the boutique Quakebasket label, which documented much of this music, as well as reissuing seminal works by Angus MacLise, the original drummer for the Velvet Underground. Now, the Quakebasket imprint has been revived to issue music Tim has recorded over the last several years with collaborators from throughout his music career.

In 2021, Tim was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s at the age of 54, and he and his family went public with this immediately. The response from Tim’s network of friends and musical peers was overwhelming, but the lingering shutdown meant only remote and long-distance interactions were possible. Beginning in late 2021, a large body of recordings coordinated and assembled by Tim’s longtime friend Ken (Bundy) Brown, with whom Tim had worked in the past as a member of the group Pullman, early pioneers of the new Americana movement in the indie scene of the late 90s.