Celebrating J Mascis on his 59th birthday. —Ed.
Over the course of his long shambolic career, J. Mascis of Dinosaur Jr. has made an ethos of endearing sloppiness and a virtue of emotional confusion while producing an unending slurry of unhinged guitar noise, best summed up by the title of the song “Sludgefest.” With his inimitable stoner slur and drawl and chaotic guitar solos (best heard on 2021’s Live at the Middle East, where he really lets rip), Mascis took the anarchic sound of Neil Young and Crazy Horse to its logical extreme, and the results are a ferocious molten metal divorced from the realm of heavy metal itself by Mascis’ twisted indie-folk impulses.
Dinosaur Jr. blew minds and speakers with the triumvirate of 1987’s You’re Living All Over Me, 1988’s Bug, and 1991’s Green Mind, all of which are bong-fracturing, pot haze classics guaranteed to stone your ears into blazed and confused beatitude. They should be sold at dispensaries, not record stores, and the same goes for 1991 curio as compilation Fossils.
What you’re basically getting are the first three 7″ SST singles the band released after adding the Jr. to their name, highlights of which include a cover of the Cure’s “Just Like Heaven,” band high-water mark “Freak Scene,” and a very happy-making cover of Peter Frampton’s “Show Me the Way.” In short Fossils is as indispensable as bliss unless you’re some kind of Peter Frampton hater, in which case I can only assume you’re a joyless snob whose fondest wish in life is to become besties with Nick Cave. How utterly horrid.
“Little Fury Things” comes out of the gate in an explosion of guitar noise accompanied by some screaming (gratis, I think, Sonic Youth’s Lee Renaldo, not that I care) before telling itself to calm down and proceeding to play nice. Mascis sings about being smashed by a rabbit, goes emo for a moment because someone’s lying about him and people are believing it and it makes him mad, then in comes a civil by J. standards guitar solo accompanied by one very groovy tambourine. But the solo that follows shortly thereafter is anything but polite, all nasty fuzz and feedback–let it out J., let it out, you’ll feel better.
“In a Jar”—which like “Little Fury Things” appears on You’re Living All Over Me—is a much lighter and almost jaunty ditty and opens with Mascis thinking he’s a befuddled pet cow or something (“I’ll be grazing by your window/Please, come pat me on the head/I just want to find out what you’re nice to me for”). The song has an almost folksy feel and plays indie nice until Mascis’ always-on-the-verge-of-a-fit 1963 sunburst Fender Jazzmaster (or maybe it’s a 1958 Telecaster, the story varies) comes raging in knocking things over because it doesn’t want to be in jar, goddamnit.
“Show Me the Way” is all exploding wah-wah guitar and Mascis singing like he’s allergic to being in tune—sounds about as concerned with his vocal presentation as Neil Young does on “Mellow My Mind,” he does. “I want you, day after daaaayyyy, uh!” he sings, just before the song kinda just mumbles its way out the studio door. Great cover, would make Peter proud, or maybe not, probably didn’t make him much in royalties, that’s for sure.
Next up is the ultimo perfecto “Freak Scene,” which is the lead track on Bug and just as great an anthem of its times as Pavement’s “Range Life.” It has a really catchy melody and you can dance to it and it boasts some truly magnificent power chords, but the best part is where Mascis, in an emotional dither, sings “It’s so fucked I can’t believe it/If there’s a way I wish we’d see it” after which his axe goes Lizzie Borden and runs around chopping off heads until it gets tired and Mascis sings, a capella, “Sometimes I don’t thrill you/Sometimes I think I’ll kill you/Just don’t let me fuck up will you/’Cause when I need a friend it’s still you.”
“Keep the Glove” is a quieter number and keeps it ambitions low (which I suppose you could say about all of Mascis’ songs, he’s a slacker after all) before the guitar comes in sounding all chiming and majestic. I’ve never heard anything like it from him before or after but it sure is super. I’ve searched the internet to find out how he does it but no luck, I’m hoping a reader can clue me in.
“Just Like Heaven” may be the most indispensable cover of an indispensable song ever. You’ll want to listen to one or the other depending on whether you’re in the mood for a tidy but bouncy heaven with hosannas resounding or one with lots of cool noise and Muppets (see the Dino Jr. video), and I wish I knew Robert’s trick (“The one that makes me scream, she said/The one that makes me laugh, she said/Threw her arms around my neck”) because if I did I’d have to keep the ladies off me with mosquito netting.
“Throw Down” is a pleasant enough 45-second throwaway that has Mascis singing “I don’t wanna/Cramp the way in which you live” like he’s channeling England Dan and John Ford Coley’s “I’d Really Love to See You Tonight,” while closer “Chunks” is a cover of a song by Boston straightedge goons Last Rights. It opens with lots of fuzz and feedback and is pretty damn hardcore itself, with Lou Barlow barking out his allegiance to the Beantown crew while Mascis slashes away like it’s 1981 again and you’ll be lucky if the don’t drink don’t fuck thugs in the audience don’t crush the life out of you in a pig pile. It and “Throw Down” take Fossils out on a less than brilliant note, and it’s the album’s only shortcoming.
You can call Dinosaur Jr a one-trick pony and you’d be right, but the one trick they know is every bit as effective as the one Robert Smith uses to drive the ladies crazy, so who cares? If your tastes run towards emotional discombobulation set to homely howdy-do melodies and a gone berserk guitar with more fuzz on it than the cheeks of one million teenaged Black Sabbath fans, they’re your band. I saw them live once and they were without a decibel’s doubt the loudest band I’ve ever heard, and I was wearing earplugs for the first and only time ever. I remember thinking, “This may be the last thing I ever hear besides a loud continual ringing noise that will drive me mad. Turn it up!”
GRADED ON A CURVE:
A-
