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Living All Over Again

Shaggy, slacker and strident, Dinosaur Jr’s legacy is their nonchalant and unique summation of so many sources and strains of rock and roll…and the fact that they did it loud. No 1980s three-piece (sorry, Violent Femmes and the Police) changed rock the way the way Dinosaur did, readying the waters for Nirvana and the explosion of music from the underground that would soon surge upward.

J. Mascis and Lou Barlow bonded as the pair toiled at the heart of the straight-edge hardcore band Deep Wound in and around Amherst, Massachusetts in the early 1980s; Mascis sat at the drum stool while Barlow played guitar. Following the dissolution of Deep Wound, Mascis showed Barlow the songs he’d been working on. Mascis proved to be something of guitar savant, something he’d long hid, and his songs, fueled by rock classicism married to pop hooks, proved a complete 180-degree turn from the rigid dogma of the hardcore punk in which the pair had long invested. Barlow was in awe of Mascis’ songs, which were light years beyond Deep Wound’s simple, three-chord punk. The pair hooked up with Greenwich, Connecticut transplant and self-proclaimed “hippie punk” drummer Emmett Patrick “Murph” Murphy III and, following a brief stint in which they called themselves Mogo, Dinosaur was born.

The trio crashed in with a 1985 self-titled debut issued on Homestead Records. Scene doyens Sonic Youth became fans and took Dinosaur on tour. 1987’s You’re Living All Over Me followed on de rigueur punk label SST, and it was nothing less than a smashterpiece: a five-star construction of pop genius conveyed against a wall of noise that was a testament to Dinosaur’s power and prowess. The same year the band was sued by a similarly named act (and literally virtually extinct rock species), the Dinosaurs. They became Dinosaur Jr.

By 1989 the band issued Bug, and Barlow, who had been recording at home under the moniker Sebadoh and largely fallen out with both Mascis and Murph, was soon ousted. Mascis had moved to New York City and essentially was a one-man band with Murph drumming a meager three tracks on 1991’s major label jump to Sire, Green Mind; the solitary Mascis was left gladly to play all instruments. Though it lacked the group’s power, Green Mind was still muscular slack rock uberwork, bearing Mascis’ powerful songcraft and blasting guitar with songs like the infectiously overloaded “The Wagon.”

By 1993, the Lollapalooza tour had become a cultural phenomenon and many of the bands at the forefront of what was being tagged the “alternative rock” movement flew the Dinosaur Jr flag, acknowledging the band’s influence. Dinosaur Jr’s imprint was most noticeable in the pop keen, power and dynamics of Seattle’s Nirvana. That year the band’s fifth full-length, Where You Been, was of the moment while remaining true to the Dinosaur ideal.

Where You Been yielded a radio and video hit in “Start Choppin.” The following year’s Without a Sound further cemented the band’s place in the zeitgeist, hitting at burgeoning alternative radio with “Feel the Pain,” which also boasted the memorable, Spike Jones-directed “golfing” clip.

Mascis plodded away sans Murph, whom he’d fired in 1994. 1997 was the last we’d heard from Dinosaur Jr with a final album for Sire, Hand It Over. By that point, the long-gone Barlow had found success with Sebadoh. Mascis retreated to Massachusetts, occasionally releasing projects as J. Mascis and the Fog.

2005 proved a benchmark year in the history of Dinosaur Jr. Mascis, Murph and Barlow reconnected for a series of shows. It was the first time that Mascis and Barlow had played together in almost 15 years. 2005 also saw Dinosaur’s revered back catalog get the reissue and overhaul treatment, with beloved indie imprint Merge bringing back the SST albums. And by 2006 Rhino had begun to re-release the Sire albums.

While it’s been almost a decade since Hand It Over, the last album to bear the Dinosaur Jr name, and closing in on 20 years since the original lineup’s swansong, Bug, a new album by the reunited original lineup is in the offing along with a live DVD that documents J., Lou and Murph doing what they do best…and doing it loud.