"Post-Punk Pantheon" article

[built_to_spill]

http://thephoenix.com/article_ektid43530.aspx

Excerpt:

Dinosaur Jr., You’re Living All Over Me (SST, 1987)
The fences surrounding the insular musical playground that nurtured nascent punk and hardcore were being trampled by record execs and scenesters eager to join in. An irritable, misanthropic J Mascis was having none of it, and the title of his Dinosaur Jr.’s second album says all this and more: leave me alone. I can’t handle your encroaching reality. Back the fuck off.

He couldn’t make them go away, but he’d do his best to defend his fortress of solitude with the one weapon he had: his guitar. In the process, he emerged as one of the first true post-punk guitar heroes. His comrades, bassist Lou Barlow and drummer Murph, were well enough schooled in hardcore’s muscular attack to hold their own. That gave Mascis the freedom to stretch out in ways no post-punk rocker had ever imagined, bringing the avant-noise of Sonic Youth together with Neil Young’s penchant for layering big, burly, open-chord distortion over arrestingly fragile melodies. (The marriage would be consummated when Young took Sonic Youth on tour just a few years later.)

In his own way, Mascis spoke for an entire marginalized generation by alluding to his scars and not quite articulating his mixed emotions. “I’ll be grazing by your window/Please come pat me on the head/I just want to find out what you’re nice to me for,â€

[King Tubby]

"Even with bassist Greg Norton’s completely un-ironic Freddie Mercury mustache, none of the members looked like rock idols, especially frontman/singer/guitarist Bob Mould, whose regular-Joe traits immediately distinguished him from the era’s glammed-up norm. Double chin? Check. Receding hairline? Check. Social awkwardness? Um, yeah — check."

Hahahahahahaha

God, I miss the Huskers…..

[ovaldisc]

That was a very nice article for him to write. Thanks for posting it.

In the year punk broke, that is great when Bob Mould asked J what he wanted.

[Author]

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