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… at least there is a nice pic to look at
J Mascis solo acoustic show: Bikini Club, Barcelona 12-01-2002
http://www.riff-fanzine.com
I sent it through a translation tool, although the results aren’t perfect (like always), here’s the Altavista translation:
J Mascis
Bikini (Barcelona), 01.December.2002[img]http://www.riff-fanzine.com/concerts/fotos/jmascis_01.jpg[/img]
Bittersweet performance of J Mascis in Bikini. Ex leade of Dinosaur Jr, one of the groups reference in the explosion of the alternative rock at the end of the 80 in the USA, appeared solo in Barcelona to offer an acoustic show in a completely empty scene. The congregated public, over 100 people, was with a repertoire based on the subjects of J Mascis And The Fog, the present band of Mascis, next to some rescued subjects of the song book of Dinosaur Jr. Mascis counted only on a guitar and a very basic pedal that per moments made echoes or turned its acoustic guitar a distortion storm that Mascis tamed with masters. He was indeed that, one of his single ones, big and intense, the best ovation took at night.
In spite of all the ambient rather cold era, and Mascis was not either in charge to heat it with his somewhat distant character. In addition, I do not know what it happens lately in Bikini, but people seem to be scared to approach the scene, as if the venerable Mascis went to escupir to them… [:?: FC] His performance, under those circumstances (as soon as a guitar and its voice, and certainly repetitive songs of folk rock), became releases for the hour and quarter that lasted. Perhaps Mascis was conscious of it and decided to settle the show with single bis, the magnificent The Wagon of Dinosaur Jr, and to leave Bikini with a brief greeting to the public. Until the next one.
[ Text: Badly & Rin/Photo: Nekén ]
Another review and some more pics of the same show:
J Mascis solo acoustic show: Bikini Club, Barcelona Dec-01-2002[img]http://www.muzikalia.com/conciertos/portada/jmascis.jpg[/img] [img]http://www.muzikalia.com/conciertos/minijmascis1.jpg[/img] [img]http://www.muzikalia.com/conciertos/minijmascis2.jpg[/img]
the translation:
The passage of J. Mascis+The Fog by Barcelona, leaves a new example that this dinosaur of the American independent rock is one of the most authentic persons on the musical planet. And everything without doing anyhing of the other world, simply to mount a pair of pedals of effects and a sampler, taking hold themselves to a guitar and, per moments, until pounding it. Thus it is the performance of Mascis in his presentation of his last disc, as thus it were his passage by the Sound Spring, with a similar answer: Not many people to see one of the most important writers and interpreters of those songs in which the important thing is not the masters in the performance of the emotion that is transmitted. Those that values that difference it could verify.
To the estimated time they appeared greñas, now grey-haired, and the enormous glasses that freak shines lately accompnied by a black acoustic guitar. Almost before seating the first agreed ones they took to the assistants towards the scene to be able to appreciate better each detail and the proximity helped to create an own atmosphere like in a concert of classic music [:shock: FC].
The first song out of ‘Free so free’ dedicated them to present several of the cuts of his last work, that also he is more of the simultaneously rough songs edondas and that fill all his discs. When it seemed that solely the subjects of J. Mascis+the Fog were going to form the repertoire of the performance and that the guitarist-poet had forgotten the past, they began to sound the agreed ones of some of the classic ones of the gilded time of the indie , when Dinosaur Jr. it was an institution among the fans of the pop rock and the little commercial one.
In addition, a Mascis that to those heights already had gained the public, offered us one of the little versions like they appear in his discography, ‘Just Like Heaven’ of The Cure .
Without a doubt of premeditaded form, the repertoire was looking for territories that allowed Mascis to go there where it feels to taste like few. I sample of rif of guitar and its repetition freed to him of the agreed ones of support to send itself with I throw to those eter to us single of guitar that drags to you and they twist to you until the debilitation. Subjects like the melancholic ‘Every Body Lets me down’ they were changing to the aporreos and single distortions of guitar by slower, next also to a bold, improper sinfonismo of an acoustic instrument like which it uses.
[:?: well, the last sentences sound friendly, but I didn’t get all of their sense…; FC].Finally a fast goodbye put the end to the concert, of around an hour and a quarter, in which Mascis is pleasant to loose rein to its or their odd habits, but also to its challenges and their weaknesses. If all music took control of the same honesty and transparency?
ok, here’s another Spanish review:
http://www.nube9.net
J Mascis solo acoustic in Madrid at the "Moby Dick" Club, Nov. 27th 2002Here’s my Altavista based translation attempt (don’t blame me for anything, my Spanish = 0
well, I like the description – from skepticism to devotion – although I don’t get all of it)[img]http://www.nube9.net/ironskies/img/reviews/jmascis_madrid_0212.jpg[/img]
I’ll make it clear from the start that I’ve been a big fan of Dinosaur Jr, or, what is the same, of J Mascis, they were one of the first groups that impressed me deeply when I was 15 years old. His way to touch the guitar was unique, he created incredible sounds, the voice reflected a sincere apathy and the tunes were often twisted.
When Mascis started solo I wasn’t such a fan anymore, throughout the years, other things have remained in my head, although I’ll always continue to listen to his records, the idea of a solo artist didn’t attract me (although we are not deceived, since Lou Barlow went away, Mascis composed everything in Dinosaur Jr). The case is that his first disc ‘More Light’ passed me and I liked it, but sincerely a long time ago it oÃa and nor did not decide to me him [what
; FC].About the idea to see Mascis (no matter how much it hurts me to say it), for me he was nothing special, like I’m going to see a band by curiosity, not with true desire. With these antecedents I will tell you that I remained hypnotized of the show.
The curtain of Moby Dick rose and Mascis appeared, with a timid and sluggish gesture of a greeting he stammered to us and began to play. He played smoothly, in fact it seemed in the beginning that he wasn’t even using amplifying, he began with one of the songs of his new disc, soon followed with an old one, following all the parameters of an acoustic performance until the first surprise in the third song came on that night.
From the first notes, my ears immediately identified something very familiar, it was Freak Scene (he was touching it thirdly) and I immediately began to ask how that song would sound in hearing aid, but that was when Mascis removed the first letter from the sleeve, and carefully stepped on a hidden pedal under his feet and there began a noisy sound more animal than I have ever seen leaving an acoustic guitar (all paralyzed of the distortion and the volume), sounded much more noisy than any song of any of his discs, and then soon again his calm voice.
And so was the rest of the concert, putting in the melodious parts with the single distortions of guitar how only he knows to do. The discs reflect the feeling very well that are suggested by the songs (by something he produced), undergoes each song, is as if it was repressed singing and it was relieved with the single ones, for that reason sometimes the guitarists replace the voice, is as if it was only possible to be expressed of that form, are an exorcism form, that untie frustration, apathy, isolation… are explosions of emotion to all volume.
When it seemed that nothing could stop my enthusiasm anymore, Mascis removed the second letter from his sleeve when he began to intone: show me show me show me how you do that trick… The last thing that I could imagine is that he continued with playing ‘Just Like Heaven’ of The Cure, incredible. In order to finish before the encore he played one of my favorite songs, ‘Alone’, in a way that peculiarly reminded again of the Cure, until the guitar untied, of course.
Good, I feel that my description has been very complicated, but the occasion deserved it. An unforgettable concert.
Brown Manel
Photo: Brown ManelHere’s an interview in Portuguese (out of November 2002):
http://T4RsYy2KiBwC:jornal.publico.pt
Tried to get its sense with Google translation – although my Portuguese is exactly equal zero
Maybe Empty Canvas could explain some of the things which still look weird
* * * * *
"Indie" Dinosaur, Friday, 29 of November of 2002
by Tiago Light PeterHe is the father of the legendary Dinosaur Jr and one of the best kept secrets of the North American "indie" music. Ladies and gentlemen, here he is: J. Mascis, a man of few words and an idol of a generation, on the days of his stay in Portugal with concerts in Lisbon and Gaia. And with a new album for the way.
It is a difficult task, almost impossible, to imagine a drier and more impenetrable hero than J. Mascis, former-wood-for-all-the-workmanship of the legendary Dinosaur Jr and perpetual survivor of the independent rock "made in the US of A". His chronic incommunicability made school in any anecdotes that if someone of the musical press tries to interview who doesn’t pass him exactly of this, an attempt.
Mascis makes so long pauses that we almost forgot the question at the end of the sentence and his answers don’t have more than four, five words, counting on obligatory "dude" final (anything as "meu", in Portuguese). "I go to touch music of all my albums, dude. From Dinosaur Jr to The Fog", Mascis, 37 years, talks about the facts, when we ask him, as there are going to be two shows, the reason that brings him to Portugal for the first time, on 29th and 30th, in the Paradise Garage in Lisbon and the Hard Club of New Village of Gaia. "It will be a simple thing, dude. Only me and my guitar in palco". [palco
FC]Already now, who is J. Mascis, dude? Freak Scene. 10 years ago, at a time when Bush senior made the last accounts to the allied victory on Iraq, one single question moved the spirit of the American adolescents: to know who was the father of grunge. They accepted appositive and candidates did not lack, from Sonic Youth to the Replacements, from the Pixies to Nirvana.
But the most clarified vision of all had probably Thurston Moore, visionary of the alternative visionaries, in the authentic manual of how to survive "indie" that is his video-project "1991: The Year Punk Broke", where the leader of Sonic Youth announces the arrival of Mascis to the table in a small dirty lunch in some European festival: "He is ‘the’ man".
Mascis may very well be the father of grunge – but he’ll be, with certainty, the first one to refuse the heading, therefore "I never felt the nothing to me on, dude" -, but his delivery and devotion to the cause speak for itself. More of the one than none another one, it is his "poster boy", his expensive half, "guitar hero" that there was a reason to seem "cool" in a time where simply it they were not, the likeable and off type that impersonatied as few the attitude "that if he sandpapers" of a generation.
[:?: sorry, didn’t get that 100%, although I could guess what it means, FC].He sang it in "Freak scene", the song that opens the album "Bug", of 1988 ("You’re Living All Over Me ", of 87, "Green Mind", of 91, and "Where You Been", of 93, is the other founding moments of the workmanship of Dinosaur Jr), in a height where the Sonic Youth already had restored a "Teenage riot" and Nirvana prepared to spread the sweat in an atmosphere with odor "spirit".
"This already goes there, dude", says Mascis, as also the times go there where he practised to skate in regimen half-professional in the Upper West Side de Nova Iorque. "Nostalgia? No, dude, nothing of this. The only thing that is of interest for me is the present".
Before it comes the remaining portion of history, counted and recounted times without account: Kurt Cobain has committed suicide, Bill Clinton assumed the reins of the power and of the new American economic miracle and Dinosaur Jr they got lost in the way.
Lou Barlow, perpetual number two of the band, shortened way to establish the Sebadoh and Mascis made what any one would make in his situation: spoon the parrots of the past and to sign an album in proper name, the acoustic "Martin + Me" (1996), one fiasco as all, but rigorously all, the last album of Dinosaur Jr.
J. Mascis quit them for finding his way through the fog, surrouning himself with influential people like Robert Pollard of Guided By Voices, Kevin Shields of My Bloody Valentine and the former-Minutemen Mike Watt, that had arrived to integrate his band of support, the Fog, in the album of the new incarnation of the guitarist, "More Light".
"You know something, dude? I only continue to make music because it is the only thing that I know to do. Because the industry never was so badly than today, the people there don’t even simulate to be interested in what we’re doing. It’s brutal, dude". in free fall. They had passed 10 years, Mascis changed skate for the golf (he says that he is the first one to make figas so that Tiger Woods fails the next hole) and now who is Bush son makes to sound the tambores of a war without winners.
"the here ‘ tá black thing, dude, ‘ tá are of control" [:?: FC ] says Mascis, making the parallel with the politics that was already in game when to be "indie" still was a state of spirit. "About the height we did not think very about politics, mine, only wanted to express us the best way that we could. But now, politics is a bigger thing. In America he walks all crazy one with Bush. All people hate him, the guy can’t be taken seriously".
Mascis has a new album with the Fog, the spotless "Free So Free", full of an urgency, richness and depth capable to rival with best of Dinossaur Jr, fundindo the estilhaçada voice and the countrificado tone of Neil Young with the illuminated dissonância of the Sonic Youth. They run to buy it and is guaranteed that they are not gone to repent, this if J. Mascis, the perpetual anti-hero, not to try to dissuade them for the way.
Intentions? "the songs just come along, dude. Hum… It’s difficult to say… dude, I don’t think very much about what I’m doing". Inspirations? "I limit myself to wait that the songs come along to me. Hum… I wait and they come". [:mrgreen: FC]
Is it true that the heading of the album was inspired by his new passion, the free fall, as it is said in the biography? "It is a great lie, dude. It was invented by the guy who wrote it ".
And is it also a lie that he gained a new creative impetus after having the chance to play with Ron and Scott Asheton of the Stooges in the recent show on the festival All Tomorrow’s Parties in Los Angeles? "This part is true". And what do you think of it? "Amused". Only this? "It was excellent to play with Ron, he is one of my heroes".
E is here that in we give account to them of that the effort is demasiadamente inglório to continue for much more time. "You know more that, dude? Already record store would be good for seeing it nalguma for sale." [:? FC]
J Mascis + The Fog: Free So Free
7/10 Virgin, distri. EMI-vc
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