Dinosaur Jr.: Brilliant or crap?

New album is EXCELLENT

j shredded over "rockin in the free world" at last night's pearl jam show at fenway. magical.

I really like the new one and I've never really bothered with them before, where's best to go next?

Like I get the sense that his voice has improved with age? I've found some of the vocal straining actively offputting in the past.

You're Living All Over Me is their best album overall, messy and psychedelic and wonderful. Where You Been probably the best of their major label era - the most anthems, the most guitar solo-age. But they've really never made a duff album AFAICT.

^^^ Both good suggestions, giving both 'extremes' of the per-reunion output. Otherwise, 'Beyond' (the first reunion record) is probably the most similar to the latest, and also has better tunes.

I meant "pre-reunion output", obvs.

Matt DC, if you like this one, you'll probably like the rest of their post-reunion output. Farm is sort of an outlier because it's jammier, with songs that stretch beyond the 8-minute mark, but the band is in top form and J's guitar work is incredible.

Not a single weak track on YLAOM. Even "Lose." That song's ridiculous, it's basically 4 completely different cathartic bridges/choruses tied together, but it doesn't get any attention because it's a short little thing near the end of the album.

I never had a problem with Mascis' drawl, it's got the ability to slow down space-time just like his guitar, but liking or not liking a singer is just one of those things you can't really argue.

New album cover:

http://ak1.ostkcdn.com/images/products/6704058/bmmg/ent/Dino-Dan-Twas-A-Dinosaur-DVD-L843501004623.JPG

LOu Barlow just posted a link to a piece he wrote about POledo the tape collage etc track from You're Living All Over Me on Facebook. He also linked to this bandcamp page showing the various parts of teh construction of the track.
https://sentridoh.bandcamp.com/album/child-of-the-apocalypse

Dinosaur Jr are going to be recreating the You're Living All Over Me lp live including for the first time the 2 Lou Barlow tracks.

Second time, saw them do it in 2012 for the 25th ann'y

"We have done the full LP live once or twice but I merely played the songs on ukulele and bypassed the noise-scapes. This time I’m going to attempt the full breadth of the piece using a sample-pedal and prepared tracks."
quote from the post

So yeah not first time they played the track but first time he's tried to recreate the track to sound something like the lp version.

They are one of my all time favourite bands, a classic beyond any doubt. Hearing "where you been" when I was 16 was such a change from the boring thrash metal and grunge by numbers I listened to back then. Maybe there last few albums weren't so great, but "bug" and "you're living all over me" don't seemed to have aged that much, bands still try to copy "freakscene" today. And, I'd also agree that "Take a run at the sun" shows how cool J MAscis is. Poison are a classic band too, by the way! Oh and given a choice between Sebadoh and Dinosaur Jr, I'm sorry Lou but J wins!

― jel, Thursday, March 1, 2001 7:00 PM (sixteen years ago)

<3 jel

CONTROVERSIAL OPINION:

j mascis' voice is more ~90s~ than any and all yarling

was just jamming this, sounds awesome: https://www.themckenzietapes.com/tapes/2018/1/16/dinosaur-jr-at-maxwells-1-17-1991
i still remember at age 11 or 12 and being mainly into classic rock and hearing my older brother blast "green mind" from his room and thinking whoa I gotta get into this!

i DJed the Dino show last night at the bar around the corner. So much fun. Capacity: 99 people. It was the perfect amount of loud actually. I thought it might be sickening. But it was human loud. Sounded fucking incredible. Such an amazing set. And I rocked the crowd with aplomb and with the aid of Pabst between sets. (PG Six and J's brother's band the opening acts)

https://scontent.fbed1-2.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/29314474_10156731921192137_7093616316959546475_n.jpg?oh=3a45fd30001af9f5025b140afaa75ed9&oe=5B301129

https://scontent.fbed1-2.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/29313767_10156731926872137_4594862773486262192_n.jpg?_nc_cat=0&oh=b795985fbf4b5592faea81c7a29d2373&oe=5B2D19CA

Right on! This was my shot of the monolith from orbit last year.

https://scontent-ort2-2.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/17353519_1911307172436961_4491324615395026685_n.jpg?oh=1da72778d6e930c6c6e9405ba9be7c2e&oe=5B349560

does the vomit doll have a name? i was and remain a decent a Dino Jr fan but not obsessive enough to know the name of that doll.
it reminds me of the enormous baby from The Kingdom

sounds like a fun night too.

awesome scott :)

this is solid

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMa-JuMfLzA

i can't say that i have been a superfan thru the years. i really liked the song "repulsion" in the 80s but i didn't buy the first two records. one of the reasons i bought Bug when it came out was because i really loved the album cover. i bought the just like heaven 12-inch. but didn't follow them or sebadoh at all in the 90s. the first time i really ever heard sebadoh was when my brother was opening for them at the troc in philly and i got to dance on stage dressed as a witch. i did see dinosaur at the height of grungemania in a skating rink in connecticut and it was one of the most cavernous things i have ever heard. that would have been them touring green mind.

my kid, rufus, got to be there last night too. he loves J.

this was just ridiculously fun the other night. gloriously loud. nothing but neil all night.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2RcNI2pL88

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5dyVLtVVHG8

that's amazing

seriously!

The first time I ever heard of NY's On The Beach was J lamenting about its unavailability on CD in an issue of Melody Maker circa 92

have they been touring with an extra guitarist?

no, dino is just the trio. this was a one night only thing with matt valentine and john moloney and adam from sore eros and a guy on bass from....i can't remember what bands. he roadies for dino. he was great.

this is from the dino show at the local bar this year. also a wonderful night.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2UuYbgZtzI

seeing J. with two other good guitarists was so cool though. such a great sound live.

yeah, J does a lot of overdubs in the reunion-era songs, so sometimes the long solo sections can sound slightly thin live. perhaps they've figured it out in the years since I saw them last.

BTW I saw Dino play six months ago and the guitar tech guy played some guitar during the gig. He didn't come out from over behind Lou's amps, but you could still see he to the side a bit. He faced the front from what I remember, it didn't look like they were hiding him, just he didn't leave his roadie area

actually this explains it better
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D79DSyg8eyg

i think they do double drums with john moloney during the wagon too sometimes. he roadies for them as well.

when dino played at the bar beforehand i was scared that j's stacks would kill me but they totally made it the perfect kind of loud for that show. there was a lot of family there. they didn't want to liquify anyone. still plenty loud though!

Saw them last night, and they sounded great.

Literally knew only one song of theirs before yesterday, from a mixtape someone made me long ago. But now I've been listening to that song (not played last night) over and over.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-2o-qQk_EU

Ha I was reading your comment PaulTMA and thinking of that gig as evidence, and then I saw you posted the vid which I'm pretty sure I'm in

def saw them at Maxwells ('88?) when they didn't have the "Jr"

Their cover of just like heaven slays

Absolutely Ross, love the random cut too

Yeah!

I consumed an awful lot of US indie rock as a schoolkid at the turn of the nineties and I'm increasingly thinking D.Jr stand up better than anything else I bought at the time. I didn't anticipate this. I largely tuned out after Where You Been, but the overwhelming bulk of their output to that point is good-to-great. Even Green Mind is at least 60% decent. I'm very gradually absorbing the post-reunion records...

I mean they put out a lot of stuff, and for a few albums were getting increasingly better then j/they kinda fizzled out no?

I loved Bug and YLAOM the most but 'lost track' of them when the re-recorded The Wagon wasn't as good as the Sub-Pop single. I guess they have made some other good albums.

J Mascis And The Fog (with Ron Asheton) live was better than any Dinosaur Jr. gig I'd seen.

Well I mean yeah. It’s fuckin Ron Asheton.

I’ve seen Dino Jr maybe like three times and it was always good. Friend of mine said he saw them once and J would hit THAT pedal and things went into totally painful/nauseating levels of tone and volume. Didn’t experience that for better or worse.

Are there many better “reunion” albums than Beyond?

I think the most recent one is really, really great.

https://pitchfork.com/news/a-25-year-old-dinosaur-jr-song-is-a-hit-in-japan-nobody-knows-why/

good for the Dinos, time to book Budokan

That’s really weird

Does anyone from Pitchfork post here? It's the background music for the credits of "Gachinko Fight Club" on TBS.

I think you could email them that