Dinosaur Jr.

Dinosaur Jr.
At "Where The Action Is", Stockholm, June 2008
At "Where The Action Is", Stockholm, June 2008
Background information
Origin Amherst, Massachusetts, USA
Genre(s) Alternative rock
Indie rock
Noise rock
Years active 1984–1997, 2005–present
Label(s) Homestead
SST
Blanco y Negro/Sire
Merge
Fat Possum
PIAS Recordings
Associated acts Sebadoh
Deep Wound
J Mascis and the Fog
Witch
Folk Implosion
Website Official website
Members
J Mascis
Lou Barlow
Murph
Former members
Mike Johnson
George Berz

Dinosaur Jr. is an American alternative rock band formed in Amherst, Massachusetts in 1984. Originally named Dinosaur prior to legal issues, the band disbanded in 1997 until reuniting in 2005. Guitarist J Mascis, bassist Lou Barlow and drummer Murph were the band's founding members; however, Mascis has been the group's sole continual member.

Their distinct sound, characterized by high gain, extensive use of feedback and distortion, and frontman J Mascis's melodic guitar solos, were influential in the alternative rock movement of the 1990s, which is exemplified by the success of acknowledged fans Nirvana.

Contents

History

Formation

Mascis and Barlow had previously played together in a hardcore punk band called Deep Wound, which formed in 1982 while the pair were attending high school in Amherst, Massachusetts. After high school, they began exploring slower yet still aggressive music such as Black Sabbath, The Replacements, and Neil Young. Mascis' college friend Gerard Cosloy introduced him to bands like Dream Syndicate, which Mascis in turn showed to Barlow. Barlow explained, "We loved speed metal...and we loved wimpy-jangly stuff".[1]

Deep Wound broke up in mid-1984. Cosloy had dropped out of the University of Massachusetts Amherst to focus on running his independent record label, Homestead Records, and promised Mascis that if he were to make a record he would release it. Mascis wrote a number of songs by himself and showed them to Barlow, whom he offered the bassist position. While Barlow had played guitar in Deep Wound, he accepted as he was impressed by the material Mascis was creating. Barlow said the songs "were fucking brilliant...They were so far beyond. I was still into two-chord songs and basic stuff like 'I'm so sad.' While I was really into my own little tragedy, J was operating in this whole other panorama." Mascis enlisted vocalist Charlie Nakajima, also formerly of Deep Wound, and drummer Emmett Patrick Murphy, otherwise known as Murph, to complete the band. Mascis explained the concept behind the group as "ear-bleeding country."[2]

The band was initially named Mogo, and played their first show on University of Massachusetts Amherst campus in the first week of September 1984. Nakajima went into an anti-cop rant during the performance, and Mascis was so appalled by his behavior at the show that he disbanded the group the next day. A few days later Mascis called Barlow and Murph to form a new band without telling Nakajima; "I was kind of too wimpy to kick him out, exactly," Mascis later admitted, and explained, "Communicating with people has been a constant problem in the band." The trio named themselves Dinosaur, and Mascis took over lead vocal duties.[3]

Dinosaur and You're Living All Over Me

Mascis took Cosloy up on his offer to release an album and Dinosaur recorded their debut album for $500 at a home studio in the woods outside Northampton, Massachusetts.[4] Their debut album, Dinosaur was released in 1985. The album sold about 1,500 copies in its first year and was largely ignored by the majority of the music press.[5] After the record's release, Dinosaur would often drive to New York City to perform shows. At one of their shows, the New York-based alternative rock band Sonic Youth was at first unimpressed by the first Dinosaur performance they saw, but after watching them play several months later, approached the band declaring themselves as fans.[6] The band was bewildered by Sonic Youth's praise; Barlow recalled, "We're like, 'What? How could the coolest band in the world like us?'"[7] Sonic Youth invited Dinosaur to join them on tour in the American Northeast and northern Midwest in September 1986.

Dinosaur recorded much of their second album You're Living All Over Me with Sonic Youth engineer Wharton Tiers in New York. During the recording process, tension emerged between Mascis and Murph because Mascis had very specific ideas for the drum parts. Barlow recalled, "J controlled Murph's every drumbeat...And Murph could not handle that. Murph wanted to kill J for the longest time."[8] Gerard Cosloy was excited by the completed album, but was devastated when Mascis told him the band was going to release it on SST Records. Mascis was reluctant to sign a two-album deal with Homestead, but Cosloy felt betrayed; Cosloy said, "There was no way I couldn't take it personally."[9] After the album's completion Mascis moved to New York, leaving the rest of the band feeling alienated.[10]

You're Living All Over Me was released in 1987; early copies of the record in the Boston area were packaged with the Weed Forestin' tape, the first release by Barlow's side project Sebadoh. Immediately following its release, supergroup The Dinosaurs (featuring ex-members of Country Joe and the Fish, Quicksilver Messenger Service, Hot Tuna, Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane) sued them over the use of the name, prompting the addition of "Jr".

Bug and Barlow's Departure

Dinosaur Jr had a major breakthrough in the United Kingdom with their debut single for Blast First, "Freak Scene" in 1988,[11] a version with censored lyrics being issued for radio consumption. It reached #4 in the UK independent chart, staying on the chart for 12 weeks.[12] The band's third album Bug followed shortly afterwards, reaching #1 on the UK independent chart and spending 38 weeks in the chart.[12] The band's first UK singles chart placing came in 1989 with their cover of The Cure's "Just Like Heaven".

Tension between Mascis and Barlow began interfering with the band's productivity, and in 1989, after touring in support of Bug, Barlow was kicked out of the band. Barlow now focused all of his attention on the former side-project Sebadoh. "The Freed Pig", the opening track on 1991's Sebadoh III, documents Barlow's frustration with Mascis and his poor treatment within the band.

Major label years

Murph continued to tour with Dinosaur into the early 1990s, but starting with the major-label debut Green Mind (1991), Mascis (who had started out as a drummer) began to record albums almost entirely on his own. For their later years, Mascis was supported on tour and infrequently on record by George Berz on drums and Mike Johnson on bass.

In 1992 the band was part of the "Rollercoaster" tour, a package tour based on the successful Lollapolooza festival, which featured The Jesus and Mary Chain, My Bloody Valentine and Blur. 1993 saw the band's commercial success peak with the single "Start Choppin'" reaching the top 20 in the UK, and the album that followed, Where You Been, reaching the UK top 10 and the US top 50. The opening track, "Out There", had an accompanying video and was aired on MTV for a short time, as the show 120 Minutes was still popular as a late-night "alternative" video show.

The commercial success continued with 1994's Without a Sound, which placed well in both the US and UK album charts. After 1997's Hand It Over, Mascis finally retired the Dinosaur Jr name. In 1999, he released the first of two solo albums under the name J Mascis and the Fog.

2005 reunion and onward

The beginnings of a Mascis/Barlow détente started in the mid-90s when Mascis began showing up at Sebadoh shows. "I think he was kind of aware of how much shit I was talking about him, but I don't think he really ever pursued any of it. One of the things that really triggered this, for me to finally just go, "Hey, you know, maybe this could work," is when I realized that maybe J wasn't really holding any kind of grudge against me because he didn't like me. I was thinking, maybe he just didn't realize what he had done, or maybe he wasn't really aware of how much he'd actually hurt me. And when I started to realize that, he kind of became more human to me," [13] Barlow noted in a 2005 interview.

Then, in 2002, the two would share the stage for two shows in London, with Barlow singing I Wanna Be Your Dog along with Mascis, Ron Asheton, Scott Asheton and Mike Watt, who had been performing Stooges songs as "Asheton, Asheton, Mascis and Watt" [14].

Mascis regained the master rights to the band's first three albums from SST in 2004, and arranged for their reissue on Merge early 2005. Later that year, he and Barlow shared the stage at benefit show for autism at Smith College organized by Barlow's mother in Northhampton, MA and played togther as Deep Wound after Mascis and Sebadoh had completed their respective sets [15].

Following the reissues in 2005, Mascis, Barlow and Murph finally reunited to play on the Late Late Show on April 15, 2005 and in June that year, they kicked off a tour of Europe. While performing in New York City in 2006, much of the band's equipment was stolen while stored outside their hotel and has not yet been recovered.[16] The band members were later among the curators of 2006's All Tomorrow's Parties festival.

In 2007, the original members of Dinosaur Jr released Beyond on Fat Possum Records, their first album of new material as a trio since Bug in 1988. It was met with critical acclaim, rating an 8.4 from Pitchfork [17] and garnering positive reviews from the music press as a whole. It was considered somewhat of a sonic paradox in that even though it featured the original members who produced "two records so drenched in noise they still sound like aural assaults decades after their original release," sonically it resembled the major label releases of the 1990s in both production values and stylistic range [18]. The album went on to good commercial success, debuting on the Billboard 200 at number 69 its opening week.

As of November 24, 2008, the band was working on a new album in Mascis' home studio.[19]

Musical style

Dinosaur Jr is considered to be an alternative rock band; however the band's musical style, compared to its underground contemporaries in the 1980s, differed in several ways. This included the influence of classic rock on the band's music, their use of feedback, extreme volume and the loud-quiet dynamic, and frontman Mascis' droning vocals. Gerald Cosloy, head of Homestead Records, summarised the band's music: "It was its own bizarre hybrid...It wasn't exactly pop, it wasn't exactly punk rock — it was completely its own thing".[20]

Mascis listened to classic rock artists such as The Beatles, Rolling Stones and The Beach Boys, elements of which were incorporated into Dinosaur Jr's sound.[21] Dinosaur Jr's members also combined elements of hardcore punk and noise rock in their songs, which often featured a large amount of feedback, distortion and extreme volume.[22] When the master tape of You're Living All Over Me arrived at SST, the label's production manager noticed the level on the tape was so high it was distorting; however, Mascis confirmed it was the way he wanted the album to sound.[23] To accentuate their use of volume, the band employed and popularised the quiet-loud change of dynamic in many of its songs, a technique that would be later popularised by the Pixies, Nirvana and alternative rock in general during the 1990s.

Similar to Mascis's guitar work, Barlow's bass lines, with its alternating heavily distorted, fast chords and pulverizing lows, draw heavily from both his hardcore past and is influenced by bassists such as Lemmy from Motörhead and Johnny Ramone. "Johnny Ramone is my hero. I wanted to make that rhythmic chugging sound like he got playing guitar with the Ramones. And, I found that I got a bigger sound by strumming farther up the neck."[24][25]

Mascis's vocals are another distinctive feature of Dinosaur Jr's music. He attributed his "whiny low-key drawl", the opposite of the hardcore punk "bark",[20] to artists such as John Fogerty and Mick Jagger.[26] His style also resembled Neil Young's, but Mascis disputed this, and later commented: "That got annoying, being compared all the time".[27] His drawl epitomised the band's slacker ethos and relaxed attitude; author Michael Azerrad said "even Mascis seemed removed from the feelings he was conveying in the music".[28]

Discography

Main article: Dinosaur Jr discography

Studio albums

See also

References

Notes

  1. ↑ Azerrad (2001), p. 350
  2. ↑ Azerrad (2001), p. 351
  3. ↑ Azerrad (2001), p. 352
  4. ↑ Azerrad (2001), p. 353
  5. ↑ Azerrad (2001), p. 354
  6. ↑ Azerrad (2001), p. 354-355
  7. ↑ Azerrad (2001), p. 355
  8. ↑ Azerrad (2001), p. 356
  9. ↑ Azerrad (2001), p. 357
  10. ↑ Azerrad (2001), p. 358-59
  11. ↑ Strong, Martin C. (2002), "The Great Rock Discography, 6th edn.", Canongate, ISBN 1-84195-312-1
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 Lazell, Barry: "Indie Hits 1980-1989", 1997, Cherry Red Books, ISBN 0-9517206-9-4
  13. ↑ Hawthorne, Marc. "Onion AV Club Interview". The Onion. Retrieved on 2008-04-15.
  14. ↑ Empire, Kitty. "Hell For Leather". The Observer. Retrieved on 2008-04-15.
  15. ↑ Anderman, Joan. "Dinosaur Jr. is happy to be no longer extinct". Boston Globe. Retrieved on 2008-04-14.
  16. ↑ "Dinosaur Jrs gear stolen mid-tour". NME. Retrieved on 2008-04-14.
  17. ↑ Baron, Zach. "Dinosaur Jr. - Beyond". Pitchfork Media. Retrieved on 2008-04-14.
  18. ↑ Erlewine, Stephen Thomas. "Dinosaur Jr. - Beyond". Allmusic.com. Retrieved on 2008-04-14.
  19. ↑ Thompson, Paul. "J. Mascis Gives Solo Album Digital Release for Charity". Pitchfork Media. Retrieved on 2008-11-24.
  20. ↑ 20.0 20.1 Azerrad, 2001. p. 353
  21. ↑ Azerrad, 2001. p. 348
  22. ↑ Azerrad, 2001. p. 347
  23. ↑ Azerrad, 2001. p. 361
  24. ↑ Olwell, Greg. "Lou Barlow Jurassic Rock". Bassplayer.com. Retrieved on 2008-04-15.
  25. ↑ Bergrand, Adrian. "Bulbs, Bugs and Little Fury Things: Revisiting Dinosaur Jr.". Staticmultimedia.com. Retrieved on 2008-04-15.
  26. ↑ Azerrad, 2001. p. 353-4
  27. ↑ Azerrad, 2001. p. 354
  28. ↑ Azerrad, 2001. p. 346

External links

Dinosaur Jr.
J Mascis · Lou Barlow · Murph
Mike Johnson · George Berz
Studio albums
Dinosaur · You're Living All Over Me · Bug · Green Mind · Where You Been · Without a Sound · Hand It Over · Beyond
Singles
"Repulsion" · "Little Fury Things" · "Freak Scene" · "Just Like Heaven" · "The Wagon" · Whatever's Cool With Me · "Get Me" · "Start Choppin" · "Out There" · "Feel the Pain" · "I Don't Think So" · "Take a Run at the Sun" · "I'm Insane"
Related
Deep Wound · Sebadoh · J Mascis and the Fog · Witch · Folk Implosion