Brief Murph interview…
ae.tbo.com
Dinosaur Jr. Back From Extinction
By Curtis Ross of The Tampa Tribune
Published: June 29, 2005
The recent announcement that Roger Waters would rejoin Pink Floyd for the upcoming Live 8 charity concerts likely shocked everyone except Dinosaur Jr. fans.
They know if that famously fractious ’80s trio can reunite, anything is possible.
Waters and his former Pink Floyd band mates have had little good to say about each other since Waters’ departure in 1983. Dinosaur Jr.’s J. Mascis and Lou Barlow never had much to say at all.
The worst of it, drummer Patrick “Murph� Murphy says by telephone from the band’s home base of Amherst, Mass., was “driving six or eight hours with no one talking.�
Murph wound up being “the mediator, the point guy for them to communicate with each other. It frazzled me.�
The passive-aggressive tension occasionally spilled over into onstage violence before Barlow was ousted from the band in 1989.
Mascis, who dominated the band creatively, continued Dinosaur Jr. even after Murph left following a stint on Lollapalooza in 1993.
Mascis dropped the name in 1997, recording afterward as J. Mascis and the Fog.
Barlow recorded with a number of outfits, including Sebadoh and The Folk Implosion. Murph joined The Lemonheads and did studio work. A reunion seemed the least likely of possibilities.
So Murph, understandably, was “pretty blown away� when he got the call from Mascis proposing an original-lineup tour.
Murph says he doesn’t know who initiated the idea but knows it couldn’t have happened if Mascis hadn’t wanted it.
“J had always talked about re-releasing the first three records when he got control back,� Murph says.
Those albums â€â€