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Thanks, Hatchetface.
Sounds like an organ, cool. Is he using a delay with the Pog2?
Is the keyboard sounding loop on Almost Fare (live) also a guitar?
I’ve been watching the WOW Hall videos posted by Phishbeard (thanks for posting these!) and had a couple of gear questions:
Does anyone know what pedal/setting J is using on Don’t Pretend You Didn’t Know (the jam toward the end, and I guess on the studio recording as well) to get that warble effect?
On Almost Fare played at the WOW hall show, are the keyboards on a loop pedal?
Also, on the album, is Murph playing timbales on I Know It Oh So Well?
Hard to believe someone jacked J’s guitar and got it out of the WOW hall without someone seeing, as it’s a tiny shoebox of a hall wIth a well lit foyer. People without tickets hang on the steps of the side exit and listen from outside, so they’d have seen something as well. Hopefully the band will file a report with the Eugene PD, put ads on Craigslist, and around town. I used to volunteer at the WOW hall (not court ordered); it’s a great venue; seems like they should compensate the band for the theft since their lack of security (and/or untrustworthy staff) contributed to its disappearance.
Dinosaur Jr
Fillmore Auditorium San Francisco 10/10/12See It On Your Side
Repulsion
Little Fury Things
Rude
What Was That
The Lung
Watch the Corners
Don’t Pretend You Didn’t Know
Feel the Pain
Tarpit
Start Choppin’
Freak Scene
Training Ground
Gargoyle
E:
Out There
Just Like HeavenThe best, intensest, loudest, insanest opening band I ever saw was Nirvana opening for Sonic Youth at the Warfield in 1990. This bill was not like that. Shearwater were kinda meh. It sounded to me like the singer was trying to sing like Paul Weller. Not as much synthesizer as I thought there’d be from the clip posted here; some of their synth bubbles reminded me a little of Sky Cries Mary, and overall their sound was pretty mild and repetitive. We got to the Fillmore midway through their set, fine with me. They had 3 guitars at times, played okay, very earnest, not much happening, though the crowd seemed somewhat into it; maybe their fans showed up.
I liked hearing the new songs the greatest. Watch the Corners was crazed, sped up. See It On Your Side to open was colossal, perfect, big.
J seems to’ve shifted the lyrics to “Please explain like I don’t have a brain.” Ha.
Murph is unbelievable, a total athlete, played incredibly hard and fast, huge and great.
The crowd was bumpin, the Fillmore wasn’t sold out but very full, especially for a midweek show, maybe half people in their 20s and half 30s and 40s. Lots of people dancing, blowing clouds (lots of mota, incense, and something gross like burning hair or bark or something, wtf), most everyone was getting down, some literally. There was a tall young guy near us who faceplanted hard, got up, looked a little serious as he stood still for a minute, then took a few steps toward the exit and ate the hardwood floor again. The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom, and sometimes to the hospital; hope he’s okay.
There were occasional sound issues, mic problems for Lou, but in all the sound was good from where we were, and they played a killer great show. Lou played great and engaged in perverse, provoking banter, incl. encouraging and engaging the troll up front who was criticizing the crowd for not dancing, which morphed into a brief East vs West coast debate, ho hum, bring it down to where some can relate.
During his set at Hardly Strictly Bluegrass last year Thurston Moore said something about there not being any East Coast-West Coast hate and I was like, yeah, hopefully not, because that would be a huge waste of your brainwaves and time. Life’s short and big. Who cares.
The title of the new album, I Bet On Sky, touches on this, sort of. In the words of one of my teachers:
“Chi defeat Jing. Empty agile defeat solid and firm. No shape defeats having shape. Forget me defeat focus me. Internal defeat external. Heaven defeat earth. Body mass in the sky defeat body weight on earth.” Word.
Speaking of which, J’s wah on Just Like Heaven wailed bigtime, lots of different tones and sounds throughout the show, really great.
Really raging, intense, expansive, huge show last night. My ears are destroyed and I’m envious of everyone who gets to see them at the WOW Hall and anywhere else on this tour. They’re blazing, have fun.
Right on, marcoco, I agree.
I realize the personal conflicts are part of the story and of some interest somehow, but the topic has been flogged so many times in so many articles, it just doesn’t seem a necessary angle at this point.
This was such an artful piece, so well written and well constructed, it’s just regrettable that the author went there. David Bevan did detail their conflicts with greater sensitivity and insight than any other piece on the band, but still, not something I’m real interested in reading about.
Are their personal quarrels and differences what define them as a band?
Is it what makes them a great band?
Or are they just a great band?
Is there something interesting about intense music coming out of intense conflict, yeah, okay, sure. Next.
Every article and book about Dinosaur Jr goes into such depth about the tensions between Lou and J, the breakup, the animosity, but who cares about that past personal stuff when the music is so amazing right now. Stop programming people to care about that crap, is all I’m saying.
It’s like reading Walden in an English class and instead of talking about the ideas and perspective of the book, everyone starts in with:
“Why’d he hate people so much.”
“I heard Thoreau was gay.”
“He was living on Emerson’s land. He couldn’t have done it without sponging off other people. Therefore, his ideas are invalid.”
“I read that he used to go hang out at the Concord pub; he didn’t live out in the woods the whole time.”
This is all petty distraction from what Thoreau created, from his art, from what he was saying. Let’s look at what he did do, like write these amazing extended metaphors that spiral out for miles and are developed like a musical theme, culminating with an explosion of truth in the reader’s mind. Like his trying to wake up a slumbering humanity. His ability to see, to pay attention, and to have an independent viewpoint. His development of the concept of forest succession. His respect for doing nothing, his love of nature. His work to end slavery. His ability to incorporate Eastern thought into the Western tradition of literature. There’s so much that he did do, so brilliantly and uniquely well, but people focus on the trivial stuff.
No attention to the gesture of reaching out with his perspective, of holding out a hand to humanity at all.
Journalists and writers do the same thing with Stanley Kubrick. “He was afraid to fly.” “He wore a motorcycle helmet when he drove his car.” “He was an asshole.” “He was a misanthrope.” “Did you see how he talked to Shelley Duvall?”
There’s a shallow side of the pool and a deep side of the pool. The author of the Spin article does a full gainer into the deep end, but then swam over to the shallow end and flopped around for a while. ‘S okay. First place anyway.
Clearly there’s melancholy, discouragement, loneliness, conflict, etc. in Dinosaur Jr’s lyrics/music but there’s also the gesture of putting it out there, of working in a group context, extending the self towards others, of creating something huge and ultimately uplifting for humanity, converting that pain and awareness to something real and heavy through sheer talent, will, and discipline. They’re making art, and doing so collaboratively, which is fraught with difficulty even among easygoing types, and then you have one person asserting control because they have a vision and a plan, so yes, there’s some conflict. Next topic.
What else could be discussed? Just about anything would be more interesting than the infighting, is all I’m saying.
Still and all, an awesome piece. Thanks for posting it, Jeremiah!
I also thought it was a fantastic article, really intelligent in style and content, lots of great writing. I had to look up two words in the dictionary.
@King Tubby, I’d say it was the best piece I’ve read on Dinosaur Jr as well, though I think its focus on their past interpersonal issues was unnecessary. I don’t want to read about it. J, Lou, and Murph aren’t the only bandmates who’ve quarreled; infighting seems more the norm than the exception among bands, especially among extreme talents. What does it have to do with the music, especially at this point?
I liked the use of comments/anecdotes from Will Oldham, Kevin Shields, etc., made it a bit of an oral history as well as a current snapshot. Weird that Violet Clark is mentioned at the end; she used to be my neighbor as well.
Overall, this Spin article is about the most respectful, thoughtful, and appreciative piece on the band ever, a great read. Dinosaur Jr gets a killer writeup in a major music magazine on the heels of releasing a great album, right on for them.
@cooldad–I’m interested in the responses people have to this album and the reasons they give for liking/not liking it. I thought your review was great, just had some differences around a couple things you wrote. Thanks for your reply. I don’t know if the songs are more “accessible” or just slightly less aggressive. I tend to prefer yincredible over yangtastic (i.e. don’t need the music to be a perpetual hard-on), so I’m fine with the varied sounds and moods on this album.
I like the pitching metaphor. A lot of people complain about the similarity between songs on this album and earlier releases. Isn’t this true of all music? Calling the songs rehashes doesn’t seem right; they’re quoting themselves, sampling their own subconscious. Folk process and all.
Some negative reviews were expressed before the album was released, which suggests people based their impressions on the mp3s, which is a little like drinking a milkshake through a coffee stirrer. David Lynch once said something about people watching his movies on their phones haven’t really seen his movies; same thing with shortened formats like mp3s, not very satisfying and nowhere near enough sound/signal to go by.
I think it’s awesome that people have shifting opinions on I Bet on Sky, that folks have said it’s grown on them. To me that’s a strength, of both the album and the listener. With music, the unfolding of the songs is part of the pleasure. I’m generally not interested in movies or music that I understand fully the first time around.Play/watch the hell out of it is my motto.
For me, the album passes several tests:
Does listening to the album at sunset while driving over the Richmond-San Rafael bridge as the sun drops behind Mt Tamalpais make crossing a bridge a mystical experience? Check.
Do some of the songs make me want to break shit? Yes.
Does playing with the fader while listening to the cd in the car make tedious traffic fun? Sure.
Do I want to listen to a 10 minute loop of J’s insistent single note solo in What Was That? Yes I do. True story.
Do the luscious layers of sound initiate autonomous sensory meridian response sequence? You know they do.
Is the tone of the guitars and bass perfect overall, and does the guitar still sound like ripping cloth here and there? Indeed.
Does watching a cop stride over to harass transients at a bus stop as Watch the Corners’ opening Uh-Oh riffs chug away make the cinematic quality of the album clearer? Yes.
Etc.
“Let the despairing race of men know that there is in Nature no sign of decay–but universal uninterrupted vigor.”–HDT
@cooldad–Nice review, well written, interesting.
Re. loneliness being a consistent theme in Dinosaur Jr’s lyrics, while this is maybe true, if the songs were just about loneliness or moping about feeling alone I probably wouldn’t listen to them.
Loneliness/being alone is on the table, but it’s also just an aspect of being an individual, and the music itself pushes through any loneliness.
There’s a huge gulf of supralinguistic strangeness in Dinosaur Jr’s music and you have to play it loud to get that strangeness. You note in your review that the album sounds “commercial;” does it still sound commercial if you play it LOUD?
To me it sounds brilliant: awesome tone, lush layers, killer tunes. I’m not sure what people mean by it sounding pop, faxed in, cheesy, rehashed, or having broad commercial appeal; not hearing that. Maybe some fans’ expectations are too high? Maybe try lowering your standards (or playing the actual album/cd?); you’ll enjoy more. I’d like I Bet on Sky even better if it was longer and had more extended soloing like in See It On Your Side, or included a 20 minute cover of Mother Sky, but that’s about it for caviling over here. Stick a Toe In, Pierce the Morning Rain, What Was That, all incredibly great songs. I’m with Tonas re. awesomeness of Now the Fall and Ricochet.
I was reading/listening to a Jack Casady interview with No Treble the other day and he said some interesting things about tone, weaving soloing into the song, and the bass being there to support the song, not just to play what the bassist wants to play, and it seems that, for any ambivalence he’s expressed about playing in Dinosaur Jr, Lou’s bass sounds fantastic here (as does Murph’s drumming) and really shines in service of these songs.
My friend heard the album on Rollins’ radio show the other night and described the album as “stunningly good.” The mp3s were alright, but the cd sounds incomparably better on an actual stereo. I can’t play the vinyl (black, not marbled) that came with the bundle because the hole doesn’t fit on my turntable’s spindle. The hole’s too small; maybe it’s a Region 2 LP… My husband said something about screwed sprue; I’ll try filing and/or drilling it.
Henry Rollins gives an enthusiastic review FYF fest (and I Bet on Sky) here:
http://blogs.laweekly.com/westcoastsound/2012/09/henry_rollins_the_column_livin.php
Empire2, I’d like to read your thoughts on I Bet on Sky; retype if you have a chance/inclination.
I’d say give it a few more listens (maybe with headphones), Javro and Tonas.
I’m around the 38th parallel and I felt a little sad when I first listened to song clips of the album on amazon but the full songs (even just mp3s played over laptop speakers) are sounding great to me. I love Farm and Beyond, and this album, while not as immediately shattering/shredding as some earlier albums, has a real lot going on. It’s subtle, interesting. I agree with Tom; these songs will sound even better/heavier live.
The bass on Stick a Toe In It knocks me out. Lou’s playing in general on this album sounds really great, as does Murph’s drumming. The lyrics are entirely too much.
There’s less guitar than I’d expect/desire; what’s there is pretty killer. Not much wah until six songs in and then maximal wah on I Know It Oh So Well–yay.Don’t Pretend You Didn’t Know is luscious, beautifully recorded. The vocals/harmonies on this album are kind of amazing. The keyboards and Mellotron are ultra pretty, sweet, psychedelic, weirdly emotional.
Speaking of Recognition, I thought it sounded like a Foreigner tune at first but then the song shifts to greatness midway through; London Calling, Rhiannon come to mind a bit; driving, melting goodness.
See It On Your Side is huge and rules.
I, too, bet on sky. Five stars, and a couple of moons 🙂
thanks also to Empire2 for the spam folder suggestion, where I found my download link as well. I had to work last night so couldn’t give the songs a proper listening but what little I did hear I loved.
Obsequio– it wasn’t clear to me either the first time I watched it, so I was psyched my kid noticed the blurriness there, as the dad/jealous boyfriend ambiguity is part of the storyline. My kid came home from school feeling stupid after having difficulty understanding a Robert Frost poem in her 8th grade English class, so I told her about how poems are compressed, precise language, and like a good movie or video, what’s there is condensed and intentional, that you just have to interpret/unpack what’s there.
I played her the Watch the Corners video and asked her what she thought of the scene where the dad is making his model airplanes while his daughter picks at her dinner and she said she didn’t know. I asked, ‘Well, who builds model airplanes?’ and she said, “A kid.” I asked what’s that say about the dad and she said, ‘He’s like a big kid.’ I’m like, right, now go do that with Frost’s “Bereft.”
Empire2, are they really all American rejects? I thought they’re all pretty sympathetic characters, but maybe that’s because I like mayonnaise. 🙂 It’s family life, first jobs, LA palm trees and concrete, teen angst, bad boys, rocknroll, good times, bad times, you know I’ve had my share, etc. Tim Heidecker is great in this.
If you want to look at a video of blacknuss while listening to a song, check this out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VsYa9iFcyss
The bass part at the beginning reminds me a bit of the guitar intro in Almost Fare.
