Dinosaur Jr - S/T

With last years Dinosaur Jr reissues, I was given the chance to trade in my beat up, poorly copied cassette versions of "Bug" and "You're Living All Over Me" that I've had since I was about thirteen for always charming, clear sounding digitial recordings. Despite most Jr obsessive's general distaste for the first album, I decided to shell out an extra £10 and try it out for myself. After a fairly pathetic amount of research done using the ever misleading internet, I learned that this was released under the band name "Dinosaur" before some other band by the same name threatened them with legal action, and thus the "Jr" was born. Whilst "Dinosaur" never really reaches the heights of "Little Furry Things", "Poledo" or "Freak Scene", there is still a very strong charm to the proceedings. "Bulbs Of Passion" and "The Leper" would happily sit on the two critically acclaimed Jr releases. As much as I detest the word, "underrated" was constantly appearing in my head when thinking this album over. Also, given my usual appreciation of the charm of a band just finding their feet that will go on to great things, I think there's a fair bit to be enjoyed about this album.

I was present at the Reading festival (or Carling Weekend if I want to promote a pretty gross beer) last year and on the main stage about half way down the bill, below dull hack rock such as Razorlight and Kings Of Leon, were Dinosaur Jr. I remember having to leave all of my friends who were at the festival with me, due to them all wanting to see The Dwarves and Capdown on a smaller stage and after Dino's performance, I wish I'd stayed. Watching Mascis plow through all those huge gems with all the entusiasm of the guy who serves me at Woolworths every day was a pretty painful experience. As I was right at the front of the crowd, I remember my face breifly appearing on that huge screne a number of festivals have so people at the back can actually see what the band are doing. It's great having twenty thousand people seeing how pissed off you are. But after a few months of moping and the retelling of how dull the experience was, I remembered something I was told when first getting in to the band. "J Mascis, is a fuckin' slacker and probably couldn't care less what anyone thinks". Me trying to chastise someone for being a slacker would be like Jim Davidson or Larry The Cable Guy telling someone off for not being funny. From one born burnout to another, that indifference to the audience now makes pretty good sense. There's also a fair bit of truth to the slacker reputation in this album. All the singing sounds pretty effortless and any time a solo or piece of guitar wizardry somes up, you could swear that someone had just said to Mascis "yo, dude, time for the fancy guitar bit", to which he'd reply "Ah fuck, alright, whatever".

Dinosaur Jr - Bulbs Of Passion
Dinosaur Jr - The Leper
Dinosaur Jr - Pointless

expired

Buy the Dinosaur Jr reissues at Amazon