Dinosaur Jr
I’m seeing Dinosaur this week. They’re the opening band on the Weezer nostalgia tour. I’ve seen them lots of times in many settings, but never in an arena. In fact, I’ve never been to an arena rock show. When I was growing up, arena rock was very uncool. Most of the bands I liked loudly denigrated that kind of presentation. In fact, Mike Watt, who I will surely write about in the future, intended to name the Minutemen, the Minute Men, which was a joke about the experience of going to see a band, and the performers are so far away that they are tiny, minute men. D. Boon changed it to “Minutemen,” and the Minutemen changed us all.
But now, as an old man who is the target demographic for these nostalgia tours, I’m happy that Weezer, the Flaming Lips, and Dinosaur are getting this opportunity to play to tens of thousands of people a night. Lou from Dino has been talking on his podcast about how it’s a real childhood dream come true for Weezer frontman, Rivers Cuomo.
So, if you’ve been needing an on-ramp into the world of Dinosaur Jr. I’m here for you. Dinosaur was one of the first bands I ever liked. I’ve written about how TMBG were a revelation to me. Almost immediately after falling in love with Brooklyn’s Johns, some friends in my junior high years helped me connect with music that at that time was called “alternative” in way that felt meaningful. As we all know, the music (and other stuff) gets to you in those years gets in deep. Dinosaur, and in particular, the Where You Been album got me—though strangely I didn’t include any tracks from it on this intro playlist.
Here’s a rundown of the tracks and more Dino commentary resides beyond the paywall.
1. Almost Ready – This is an idiosyncratic pick; it’s the first track of the first reunion album, Beyond. Here’s the thing: I think this is the single best record in their catalog. As much as I love lo-fi, this is not a band that benefits from that approach to recording, and some of the early records suffer from a mismatch between the aesthetic and the production. This one gets it exactly right, and the songs on the album are stellar.
2. Just Like Heaven – This is a Cure cover, and has been a staple of the band’s set for a long time. They included it on their second album. It was pretty unusual for a band at that time and place to include a cover of a contemporary popular band on their album, but Dino did. This points to one of the things that makes Dinosaur special. They are unabashedly eclectic in their musical taste, drawing from all over the place—including the popular music that the press would have you believe is anathema to the indie rocker. This is a live version; the song is often a set closer for them. I included the live one to give you a sense of what the band is like live. It’s just three folks, but they’re putting out a lot of sound.
3. Freak Scene – A classic Dino song. After loving this song for decades, it finally hit me that the lyrics are almost certainly about Lou. It’s really sweet to me how these guys who can’t talk about their feelings are drawn to each other because of a shared love of music, and they keep writing songs about each other. In fact, I’ve heard Lou say that all of his Dino songs (he usually pens/sings a song or two per album) are about being in Dinosaur Jr. (Weirdly, as much as I love Lou’s work, his Dinosaur songs never really do it for me.)
4. The Wagon – This is a post-Lou Dinosaur song in the era when the band essentially became a J solo act. It’s a great one, and is a live favorite.
5. This Is All I Came to Do – Another one from the Beyond album. I think this is another Dinosaur song about Dinosaur. It’s essentially J saying, I don’t understand what all the fuss is about, I’m just trying to play these songs. Not true, but I get the sentiment. Also, a fun fact about the band is that they have been at it so long that the reunion albums that resulted from the band reforming to celebrate the reissue of their initial albums are themselves being reissued. They’ve been at it that long!
6. Feel the Pain – I’m really including this one out a sense of obligation. This was the band’s biggest hit. It’s a great song. I think I’ve just heard it enough for this lifetime.
Collage: Oldie But Goodie
This one was done sometime between moving to Asheville and the pandemic, so that’s between 2016 and 2020. In that period I was not doing a ton of visual stuff. I did one painting (that found a permanent home in the landfill) and a few collages. This is probably the collage I’m happiest with from that time. This one incorporates some crayon doodles that I cut out and glued in, as well as some ink on the found images. I really like the bird with outstretched wings. I have another of that same image, and I haven’t used it yet, but I like how the bird is both open-hearted but also kind of blocking and holding things in. My collage production has continued to be pretty high coming off the task of creating 200 for the album release. I have more than 100 banked and I’m going pretty strong still.
Subscriber Collage: Arch Amanuensis
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