Icon: Dinosaur Jr.
If things had gone differently, J. Mascis might be a death metal god. Mascis’s early ’80s hardcore band, Deep Wound, recorded only one demo and one 7-inch single, but they were so fast, so bracingly violent, that they’ve become holy objects among fans of extreme metal. Instead, Mascis found a guitar, formed Dinosaur Jr., discovered he was a natural tunesmith; he brought old-school virtuosity into punk and helped create what we now call indie. Not bad for a sleepily diffident guy often best remembered for adding the resigned shrug to rock’s arsenal of stage moves. In an era when underground rock often seemed like part geek show and part anger management retreat, Dino Jr. offered an “in” for sensitive kids, six-string obsessives, and others excluded from the cooler-than-thou party.
Dino Jr. was only a true “band” for only their first three albums. (Even if you explore no further, the second and third are all-time classics that belong in any indie fan’s library.) And as “they” continued to release good-to-great albums over the next decade, and with Mascis taking on a Prince-like, one-man-band role in the studio, it was easy to assume the band had been a solo project all along. (Ask any Dino Jr. fan to name the first thing that comes to mind about the band and they’ll probably mention Mascis’s infamous guitar solos). But listening to Mascis’s actual solo albums, it’s clear there was something special about Dinosaur Jr., especially when three outcasts were attempting to make a unified racket and unexpectedly succeeding. Which is why it’s been great to see the original trio take to the stage and the recording studio once again in the 21st century, recording albums that may or may not be future classics but, nonetheless, put lie to the assumption that getting older means you have to turn the amps down.
No Rules
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The Dinosaur Jr. tour stories captured in Michael Azzerad's Our Band Could Be Your Life are enough to leave you cringing as you turn the pages, and they climax with one of the ugliest passive-aggressive breakups in rock history, with Barlow leaving to both A.) form Sebadoh and B.) nurse a likely deserved grudge against Mascis that wouldn't heal for another decade-plus. Murph soldiered on for a while longer and, winnowed to a duo, Dino Jr. took two years to record and release 1991's Green Mind. It's an album that's either, depending on who you ask, the full-flowering of Mascis's gifts or the first sign of the smoothing out that would lead to greater success and diminishing aesthetic returns. When Green Mind was released, "indie" captured both a sound and a type, rather than just a socio-economic context in which bands operated: smart kids alienated by both pop hits and punk ugliness, instead taking bits they liked from both. Dinosaur Jr. was happy to oblige. Gone was the rusty nail-gun noise that made Mascis a deity to U.K. shoegazers, and his solos had yet to take on the epic, one-man-Skynyrd dimensions that would define Dino's major label days. Instead he was writing unashamed indie pop songs ("The Wagon") and hard rock pumped full of teen-friendly angst ("Puke and Cry," the title still one of the best self-summaries of a band's appeal), a combination that was quickly becoming mighty profitable for quite a few bands.
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Dino Jr. mostly resembled an album-oriented band, owing to the fact that a surprising number of their LPs can be listened to front-to-back. But over the last 25 years, the band's also released more than a dozen singles, maxi-singles, EPs and album teasers, where shorter running times underlined Dino's pop instincts, hitching always memorable b-sides to radio-library staples. 1991's Whatever's Cool With Me is probably the best, and certainly the longest, coupling two shorter EPs from the Green Mind era into a mini-album that stands tall alongside the band's full-lengths. Along with two live tracks, whose slightly dim recording can't smother the savagery Dino Jr. could bring to a club, b-sides like "Not You Again" pack more "I'm a loser, you're a loser, and that's okay" hooks into 2:27 than most alt-rock bands managed in entire careers, while "Pebbles and Weeds" out-grunges a lot of grunge. Two years, the band would release the sprawling Where You Been?, complete with string section and undisguised classic rock aspirations, which reads like their true entering-the-big-time statement well after they were first courted by multi-national corporations. But even as their ambitions grew in scale, with ears beyond the college radio ghetto eluding them, Dino Jr. remained committed to that indie staple, the tight double-a-side format, as vinyl briefly withered, CD singles became a pricey joke, and the MP3 was a long way off.
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By 1993, when crappy bar bands everywhere decided to "go alternative" in hopes of getting signed, everything had changed for a band like Dinosaur Jr. It would have been easy for Mascis to streamline his sound if not to tighten up his singing and ride the gravy train straight to a future episode of MTV's Cribs. Instead he released an album that displayed an awesomely uncool ambition, full of moody, mid-tempo love songs with near-orchestral arrangements, and driven by the kind of stadium-flattening melodic solos that made Tom Scholz and Neal Schon very rich men. But true to Mascis's roots, if Where You Been had the grandeur of arena rock, it was still aimed at punks nursing broken hearts in strip mall parking lots. "What Else is New" merged the bouncy slacker romanticism of Dino's best work with weepy strings that would have warmed Dianne Warren's cheese-loving heart. But thankfully Mascis never forgot the essential silliness at the heart of the anthem-writing impulse. His wobbly, castrato-grade high notes on "Start Choppin'" are among the alt-rock era's funniest (musical) moments. (And please note: they were intentionally funny, a rare thing in those days.) If Where You Been's '70s-sized scale was too unruly to make it a hit in the dumbed-down context of Collective Soul, it's aged better than 90 percent of big-biz rock albums released in the year the Cobain copycats and godawful post-Vedder balladeers took over the world.
![Green Mind [Digital Version] [with Bonus Tracks] album cover](http://images.emusic.com/music/images/album/118/378/11837823/300x300.jpg)
![Where You Been [Digital Version] [with Bonus Track] album cover](http://images.emusic.com/music/images/album/118/378/11837816/300x300.jpg)
Like Punk (Kinda) Never Happened
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Alternative rock turned many oddballs into overnight celebrities. But even after signing to a major label, hooking up with first-rank video directors and steadily streamlining their sound, Dinosaur Jr. couldn't seem to catch a break. Mascis's anti-charisma made him a star among a certain kind of introvert, but it was never going to land him a red carpet interview at the Video Music Awards. 1996's Without a Sound, released at the height of alt-rock's rewrite of pop culture, had a minor hit with "Feel the Pain." The promo clip, with Mascis's as the goofiest golf pro this side of Tim Conway's Dorf, was an instant classic. But the song itself was too, well, Dinosaur Jr. for those looking for mall-punk bubblegum. Mascis's mumble-moans "I feel the pain of everyone, and then I feel nothing" before unleashing one of his best riffs since Green Mind. In the era of Green Day and No Doubt, and if you weren't already down with the band's anthemic sad-sack-isms, the combination was probably just confusing. Still, Without a Sound is one of those mid '90s quasi-mainstream rock albums due for its eventual critical reassessment. "Yeah, Right" finds Mascis' finally realizing that, without Barlow there to add color, female backup harmonies made a nice contrast to his gravelly delivery. And "Grab It" is the kind of speedy and unpretentious blend of hard rock and pop-punk that the decade could have used more of.
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Perhaps by 1997 Mascis realized he could pretty much do what he pleased. He'd found himself enshrined in the underground pantheon, and if platinum success wasn't forthcoming, well, so what? He'd built the kind of cult that could fill concert venues for decades. The result of this perverse freedom was Hand It Over, the weakest Dinosaur Jr. studio album but also in some ways the most interesting. For the first time since Dinosaur, Mascis indulged his love of multiple genres, and wrote music that was both complex and nakedly tender for the first time in his career: "Never Bought It" features a winsome little flute melody that Mascis doesn't even try to smother in feedback. Which isn't to say Hand It Over is a noise-free zone. But even when Mascis goes loud and heavy, the album's rarely ugly, instead favoring pastoral sound-washes and ringing harmonies. It's hard to say why Mascis put the Dinosaur Jr. name in mothballs for nearly 10 years after Hand It Over. The album hardly bombed, and you still saw Dino's signature cartoon character T-shirts everywhere in the late '90s. But nonetheless, Mascis shifted to releasing albums with his own name front-and-center, and Dino Jr. seemed to be one of those bands claimed by the entropy of the late alt-rock days, until an unexpected reconciliation took place in 2005.
Everyone Loves What You Do (And You Still Can’t Catch a Break)
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By the time of 2009's Farm, Dinosaur Jr., the original trio, had been a working band again for nearly four years after Mascis and Barlow had taken baby steps toward prying the hatchets from each other's foreheads and burying them. The first fruit of this reunion, 2007's Beyond, was a serviceable enough we're-still-here declaration of intent in a decade when reunions are so wearyingly common. But on stage, the trio had lost no time at all, spookily so, as if they'd been removed from frozen storage a few pounds heavier and a few hairs lighter. This internal combustion finally made its way onto Farm, which was one of the year's loudest and hook-heaviest albums, regardless of the ages of the participants. Barlow gets a few turns at the mic, even if his voice still lacks Mascis' quirk and personality, the charming cracked notes and post-pubescent longing that hasn't aged a day. Dino's brand of hard rock bubblegum may no longer be the height of indie fashion, but old fans and potential new ones are damned lucky to have them back, on the evidence.
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The best of the post-millennial spate of '80s alt-rock reunions Mission of Burma, the Pixies and now Dinosaur Jr. all hail from Massachusetts. Now, the Bay State is a fine and rocking place, but those bands succeeded not because of geography but because they embody one of rock's eternal verities: it's all about chemistry. When a particular group of musicians makes an incredible sound that no other combination of people can quite duplicate, that's a great band. And it's why, 19 years after their last album together, the superlative Bug, Lou Barlow, J. Mascis and Murph not only sound just like Dinosaur Jr. , they sound great. Mascis, the Tyrannosaurus Rex of the band, is a notorious perfectionist just listen to the masterly layered guitar arrangements here and no way was this album going to suck. But what's surprising is the energy and even joy that courses through this record like intravenous java, powering addictive songs liberally slathered with the velvety huzz that only extreme amplification can provide. But anyone of Dinosaur's generation looking for some insight into life and love at the dawn of middle age won't find what they're looking for here just as the music harks back to the band's halcyon days, the words also find Mascis mired in the same self-effacing goo as he was back when Bush 41 was president. Even the album cover is pure vintage SST. Then again, who cares? Beyond rocks like a see-saw in a nor'easter. The drums are played very hard and impatiently, as if by a man late for a train, amplifier settings stand on the glowing orange precipice of meltdown, and the bass is a buzzing blur. Then there's Mascis's voice: somewhere between a croon, a croak, and a yawn, submerged in the distorted swirl. In other words, it's just like old times. That may also make it sound dated, but by this point Dinosaur Jr is classic rock, and like the best bands, they've staked out a sound big enough to wander around in for quite a long time. Opener "Almost Ready" is not just a rousng Sasquatch hootenanny, it's a wormhole straight to the spirit of '88; it seems like they included the cellphone ring right at the end (2:50) just to remind us what year it really is. It's vintage Dinosaur, not just for the "ear-bleeding country" sound that the band made into a groan heard 'round the world, but in Mascis's forlorn drawl, forever declaring disorientation and inadequacy. Yes, even though you're in your 40s you can still not have the faintest clue. But that's just the obligatory kick-start opener, the "Start Me Up" of Beyond Mascis is savvy enough to save one of the best numbers for the second spot: "Crumble" steps into a swirling shoegazer bridge, with warping guitars pealing out gorgeous chords, just glorious, with Mascis typically throwing himself at the feet of his lover: "I got lost inside a lie," he whines. "With a smile you made it die." "Pick Me Up" mashes up Neil Young and Black Sabbath, a stark schematic of Dinosaur's component parts that gets obliterated by an utterly sublime passage as Mascis croons in duet with a wraith-like guitar melody that will make your hair stand on end, followed by a triumphal three-minute solo, like Leslie West fronting a pissed-off Crazy Horse. Three songs in, it's readily apparent that these guys are on fire, bashing out the songs with a gleeful disregard for finesse, stomping through the material like, well, like a dinosaur and, whether impelled by pride or the promise of filthy lucre, hellbent on making some of the best music of their very elliptical career. Barlow has had so much success with his band Sebadoh that he's kind of become the indie rock version of Paul McCartney, the guy who was in a band before Wings. But although Barlow has made a name for himself as a sensitive singer-songwriter type, he can also strap on a bass, put his head down and kick out the freakin' jams. Sadly, perhaps revealingly, he's mixed quite low on the album you can only really hear his bass on the songs he wrote. Barlow weighs in with "Back to Your Heart," a powerful, sing-along, overamped folk dirge that packs nearly as much barely repressed rage as his other contribution, the foreboding "Lightning Bulb." Another winner is "This Is All I Came to Do," wherein Mascis confesses "Look, I've nothing left/ It's downhill as you can tell," but the sing-along chorus is a blaze of glory replete with heroic guitar filigrees exactly the kind of emotional rollercoaster Mascis is croaking about. The similarly country-esque "We're Not Alone" shows a gentler side the old Dinosaur never could have tapped into; still, Mascis can't resist tearing off a lengthy, flashy solo. Same with the Velvetsy "I Got Lost," in which Murph drops the merciless bashing and plays a mantric tom-tom pattern while Mascis pines in a Neil-like falsetto; it's not the strongest song of the bunch but in the midst of the torrential downpour of distortion and volume all around it, it's affecting. It's a wonder they didn't call the album Debaser as ever, Mascis is forever begging forgiveness, declaring himself unworthy, lost and lonely, finding respite only in a lover's apparently bottomless indulgence. And as ever, the lyrics about troubled relationships could just as easily apply to the relationships within the band itself, adding an additional frisson of drama to the music. But as self-effacing as the lyrics are, the music is anything but: take, for instance, "It's Me" with its irresistibly swaggering, bad-ass riff and Tony Iommi-esque solo. Mascis is the last guitar hero virtually every song has a lengthy six-string aria, Mascis slicing through the teeming changes with yet another wild, careening, and yet surely meticulously plotted solo. Like the best Dinosaur music, Beyond celebrates the link between self-doubt and self-indulgence, and in so doing, alchemizes angst into joy. This lineup exploded in 1989, after the band's internecine warfare, a psychological bloodbath of post-adolescent neurosis, began to explode into actual physical violence. For a long time, those guys really, really couldn't stand each other. (Take it from me, I wrote the book.) But Barlow, Mascis and Murph had the maturity to realize that that was a long time ago, when they were not yet fully formed. For whatever reasons, whether personal or financial, they buried the hatchet so they could once again make beautiful music together. Would that we could all do the same. Mike Azzerad
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Sebadoh made its Sub Pop debut with Smash Your Head on the Punk Rock, which collects the highlights of the import compilations Rockin' the Forest and Sebadoh vs. Helmet. Lou Barlow's contributions are the gems here, especially the transcendent "Brand New Love," which first appeared in acoustic form on Weed Forestin' (and was later punked up by Superchunk); almost as good are "Vampire" and "Good Things," while an apt and poignant cover of David Crosby's "Everybody's Been Burned" underscores the emotional frailty which binds all of Barlow's work.
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Sebadoh's great subject was tricky interpersonal dynamics, and their records usually seemed like they were half collective acrobat act, half power struggle; even on a musical level, they were the rare '90s indie-rock band as interested in Joni Mitchell as in Black Sabbath. In the mid-period incarnation that produced this 1994 wonder, guitarist Lou Barlow mostly fired off the snappy, self-reflective pop songs (his most passionate song here, "Skull," is about getting high), and bassist Jason Loewenstein specialized in the fuming rockers. But the Bakesale-era Sebadoh was subject to no rules except constant reinvention and self-contradiction — there are three different drummers here, one of whom (Bob Fay) wrote and sang "Temptation Tide" with his Unconvinced bandmate Anne Slinn. The album's sequence rolls out like a great, bizarre mix tape from a tightly wound romantic who's not sure if he wants to spend the rest of his life with you, never see you again, or just, you know, hang out and smoke a bowl.
