Murph, Mascis and Barlow
Dinosaur Jr. is an
Alternative Rock band from Amherst, Massachusetts that started in
1984, with the following members:
- J Mascis, guitars, lead vocals, drums, various other instruments
- Lou Barlow, bass and backing vocals
- Murph, drummer.
They've experienced some lineup instability - Barlow was kicked out in 1989 and Murph in 1991, reducing the band to "J Mascis + other dudes". Mascis eventually retired the name in 1997, but the original lineup got back together in 2005 and has recorded two more albums.
Influenced by
hardcore punk,
metal,
classic rock and
alt rock, they tend to veer all over the musical spectrum, both in genre and on
Mohs Scale of Rock and Metal Hardness.
Discography:
- Dinosaur (1985)
- You're Living All Over Me (1987)
- Bug (1988)
- Green Mind (1991)
- Where You Been (1993)
- Without a Sound (1994)
- Hand It Over (1997)
- Beyond (2007)
- Farm (2009)
- I Bet On Sky (2012)
This band provides examples of:
- Air Guitar: One of the leading causes amongst indie rock fans.
- Bizarre and Improbable Golf Game: In the video for "Feel The Pain".
- Careful With That Axe: "Don't" (see below), "Little Fury Things"
- Chorus-Only Song: After a manner of speaking. "Don't" consists of five and a half minutes of noise rock and Lou Barlow screaming, "Why don't you like me?!" until he coughed up blood.
- Control Freak: Mascis in The Eighties, to the point that he forced Murph to play the drum parts he created himself and limited Barlow's contributions (You're Living All Over Me had only two of his songs, which got to reduced to one song with vocals on Bug).
- Though it seems like this is at least partially due to Barlow's perception of Mascis; later interviews show Mascis had the unspoken expectation that Barlow would contribute more, whereas Barlow felt that Mascis was the band and channeled all of his songwriting into Sebadoh.
- Dating What Daddy Hates: The video for "Watch The Corners" features a deadbeat supermarket clerk.
- Epic Instrumental Opener: "The Lung".
- Epic Rocking: "Plans", "Said the People", "I Don't Wanna Go There" and "Alone". Basically, the album Farm. Although "Alone" is actually on Hand It Over.
- Fake-Out Fade-Out: On "Don't". Kind of.
- I Am the Band: On Mascis' part, which basically caused the breakup of the original group.
- Indecipherable Lyrics
- Inherited Illiteracy Title: "Raisans".
- Living Emotional Crutch: "The Post"
She's my post to lean on, And I just cut her down.
- Loud of War: Their standard practice in live shows.
- Lyrical Dissonance: A trademark of J Mascis. The band is well known for singing slacker lyrics while rocking faces off.
- Melody: Especially since the original lineup reunited, they've taken a turn for the melodic.
- Memetic Hair: J Mascis would look very strange without the Rapunzel Hair.
- Metal Scream: Lou Barlow is surprisingly good at this. See "Just Like Heaven" and "Don't" (as previously noted, he coughed blood after they recorded it).
- Multiple Demographic Appeal: Grungy alt-rock angsty indie band with some metalhead fans.
- Neoclassical Punk Zydeco Rockabilly: Indie hardcore metal classic noise rock.
- New Sound Album: To some extent, the albums after 1989, when Lou Barlow got fired.
- No Ending: The band's cover of "Just Like Heaven" simply stops before the song gets to the final chorus.
- Non Appearing Title: "Lightning Bulb" and "Raisans".
- Perishing Alt Rock Voice
- Precision F-Strike: "Freak Scene":
Don't let me fuck up will you, cos when I need a friend it's still you.
- Rock Trio
- Self-Titled Album: Dinosaur, before they were forced to change their name.
- Start My Own: After Barlow was fired from the band, he formed the influential indie rock band Sebadoh.
- Spoken Word In Music: "Raisans" has a strange bridge where the music gets softer and a lo-fi sample of unintelligible moaning comes in - the only part that can be made out clearly is "You're killin' me. You're killin' me. You're killin' me". Supposedly Lou Barlow was working in a mental hospital at the time, and had surreptitiously recorded one of the patients.
- Surprisingly Gentle Song: "Pond Song"
is a jangly R.E.M. style track.- "Poledo" would be this were it not for several creepy, abrupt sound-collage sections: Aside from that, it's a quiet, acoustic-based song with Lou Barlow on lead vocals. It sounds a lot like Lou Barlow's solo acoustic project Sentridoh - and since Barlow performed it all himself, it effectively is a Sentridoh song that ended up on a Dinosaur Jr. album.
- Unplugged Version: Though credited to J Mascis, Martin + Me could count as an unplugged album for the band - it's a mix of Dinosaur Jr songs and Cover Versions played live by J alone, backing himself with an acoustic guitar *.
- What Could Have Been: Riot Grrl bassist Donna Dresch joined the group on tour briefly after Barlow left but didn't stay.
- Writing Around Trademarks: They were originally called Dinosaur, but got sued by a supergroup called The Dinosaurs and added a "Jr." to the title.
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