Dinosaur Jr. were largely responsible for returning lead guitar to indie rock and, along with their peers
the Pixies, they injected late-'80s alternative rock with monumental levels of pure guitar noise. As the group's career progressed, they broke into three distinctive acts: the indie years of the original trio, a '90s spent on major labels where the band was mostly a solo vehicle for
J Mascis' songwriting and guitar wizardry, and a surprisingly strong reunion of the original lineup beginning in 2006. Each phase produced distinctively monumental work, from the noisy squall of 1987's SST-released
You're Living All Over Me to the insular slacker rock of 1991's
Green Mind to the distortion-drenched pop of 2009's
Farm.
Mascis (born
Joseph D. Mascis; guitar, vocal) formed
Dinosaur Jr. in Amherst, Massachusetts after his hardcore punk band Deep Wound broke up in 1984. Hooking up with fellow high school student
Lou Barlow (bass),
Mascis initially played drums in
Dinosaur, but shortly afterward, former
All White Jury drummer
Murph (born
Emmett "Patrick" Murphy) joined the group and
Mascis moved to guitar. Over the next year the group developed a local following, and in 1985 the trio released its debut album,
Dinosaur, on the Homestead label. The record and the group's crushingly loud concerts developed a cult following over the next year. By the end of 1986, a hippie rock group called
Dinosaur -- featuring former members of
Jefferson Airplane and
Country Joe & the Fish -- sued the band, which changed its name to
Dinosaur Jr. In 1987,
Dinosaur Jr. signed to
Black Flag's indie label SST and released
You're Living All Over Me, which became an underground sensation, with groups like
Sonic Youth championing
Mascis' wild, feedback-heavy guitar. Early in 1988 they released the seminal single "Freak Scene," a song that captured the feeling and tone of the emerging American post-punk underground. "Freak Scene" became a college radio hit, and it led the way for their acclaimed 1988 album, Bug. Although the band's popularity continued to grow, tensions were developing between
Mascis and
Barlow, who rarely talked to each other. In 1989,
Mascis told
Barlow that the group was breaking up; the following day, he "re-formed"
Dinosaur Jr. without
Barlow, who went on to form
Sebadoh.
Without
Barlow,
Dinosaur Jr. relied on a rotating array of guest bassists, including
Don Fleming and
the Screaming Trees' Van Connor. In 1989, the group had an underground hit with its non-LP cover of
the Cure's "Just Like Heaven." The following year, they signed with Sire Records. After "Just Like Heaven,"
Mascis remained quiet for several years as he produced acts like
Buffalo Tom and collaborated with friends like
Sonic Youth and
Fleming's
Velvet Monkeys.
Green Mind,
Dinosaur's 1991 major-label debut, was recorded almost entirely alone by
Mascis, and its varied, eclectic sound was received poorly in many alternative rock circles. Before the
Green Mind tour, former Snakepit member
Mike Johnson became the group's full-time bassist. On the subsequent tour,
Dinosaur Jr. were supported by
Nirvana, whose success with
Nevermind soon overshadowed
Dinosaur's.
Instead of capitalizing on the commercial breakthrough of alternative rock,
Dinosaur released an EP,
Whatever's Cool with Me, in early 1992 and disappeared to record their next album. Released early in 1993,
Where You Been benefited greatly from the commercial breakthrough of alternative rock, and many of the articles surrounding the album's release hailed
Mascis as an alternative godfather. It became the first
Dinosaur album to chart, peaking at number 50, and it generated the modern rock hit "Start Choppin." That summer, the group played on the third Lollapalooza tour.
Mascis recorded the band's next album without
Murph, who unceremoniously left the band; he later joined
the Lemonheads.
Dinosaur Jr. released
Without a Sound in 1994 to mixed reviews, but the album was a moderate hit, thanks to the MTV and modern rock hit "Feel the Pain." In the fall of 1995,
Mascis launched his first solo acoustic tour, which was captured on his first official solo album,
Martin & Me, released in the spring of 1996.
After contributing several
Brian Wilson-styled songs to Alison Anders' 1996 film Grace of My Heart -- he also made an appearance in the movie --
Mascis completed
Dinosaur's next album on his own, leaving
Johnson to his solo career. Upon its spring 1997 release,
Hand It Over was hailed as
Mascis' best album in years, although it failed to generate a significant hit. By the late '90s,
Mascis decided to break up
Dinosaur Jr. and launch a solo career, resulting in the release of More Light in 2000 (under the name of J Mascis + the Fog, a group that also featured former
Minutemen bassist
Mike Watt). The new group's ensuing tour was cut short in June of 2001, however, when its tour bus was involved in a serious accident in Sweden, resulting in
Mascis cracking two vertebrae. In the wake of their breakup, a pair of postmortem
Dinosaur Jr. collections saw the light of day in the early 21st century: 2000's live-in-the-studio BBC Sessions and 2001's Ear-Bleeding Country: The Best Of. In addition, the history of
Dinosaur Jr.'s original lineup was documented in
Michael Azerrad's excellent 2001 book of '80s alt-rock pioneers, Our Band Could Be Your Life.
In 2005
Dinosaur Jr.'s first three albums were reissued on Merge, and
Mascis announced that the original band would be reuniting for a short tour. A year later,
Green Mind and
Where You Been were reissued by Sire with bonus tracks, while Rhino released J Mascis Live at CBGB's, a recording of an acoustic gig from 1993. To coincide with the 2006 reissues, the reunited band began a worldwide tour and announced plans to work on material for a new album, which surfaced in 2007 in the form of
Beyond. The reunion stuck, and the original lineup of
Dinosaur Jr. eventually released
Farm in 2009, followed by
I Bet on Sky in 2012. The members of
Dinosaur Jr. spent the next four years pursuing solo projects --
J Mascis released
Tied to a Star in 2014,
Lou Barlow released
Brace the Wave in 2015 -- and the group then returned in the summer of 2016 with
Give a Glimpse of What Yer Not. The band's third phase outlasted the first two, with the reunited
Dinosaur Jr. establishing consistent cycles of touring and recording. The band began work on twelfth studio album
Sweep It Into Space in 2019, but both recording and release plans were complicated by the COVID-19 pandemic. The album featured contributions from
Kurt Vile in the form of production input and auxiliary instrumental performances.
Sweep It Into Space was released in April of 2021. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine & Greg Prato