J Mascis On His 13 Favourite Records
 

why does it list him as a "shoegaze guitar demon"? Has he ever done anything that's shoegaze?...

wasn't expecting Eater

he gazes at his shoes, apparently

good list

I liked that Wipers and Birthday Party disc....

what a great comment in the freak scene video.

"If Sonic Youth is Nirvana's cool, responsible, artsy older brother with a cute asian girlfriend, then Dinosaur Jr would be the best friend you had in high school that was constantly stoned and read weird-ass comic books, but offered useful insights relating to society and politics.

Then, he'd pass out on your couch and piss on it. (Not necessarily in that order.)"

There was a thing where he named his favourite guitarists in the listings magazine of one of the broadsheets last Saturday. It wasn't the Guardian. Must've been the Telegraph or the Times. Oh, or the Independent, I suppose.

Anyway, I can't remember the details, and I didn't pinch the magazine from the cafe where I was having my lunch, so that's all the info I have for you.

:o
:o
:o

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yq3mKEJsltI

Here's J talking about some of those bands/records he listed in the Quietus article. Man, listening to that guy talk just lulls me into a peaceful nap.

Hahaha.

I was reading an old issue of FLUX Magzine -- anyone remember that? It lasted from 1995-1997. It had comics (mostly SPAWN and Batman), music (mostly death metal and .. uh .. Marilyn Manson..), video games (the issues I had focused a lot on BATTLE ARENA TOSHINDEN, WIPEOUT, and... THE VIRTUAL BOY?!), tv (Simpsons, X-Files), and other shit. It was basically this "cool" magazine that they only made 7 issues of, every 3 months a new issue came out and each one was about 100 pages, and they said they were a zine, but it was a MAGAzine, not a FANzine; FANzines are what are usually called "zines".

Anyway, there was an article in issue 4 or 5 about Dinosaur Jr and the reviewer said -- in an otherwise extremely positive review "this guy is a guitar GOD, but he needs to stop singing. Cuz I can't get through an album without wanting to fall asleep! I reccomend buying this CD. But do some amphetamines to stay awake to hear its BRILLIANCE!" or something.

And then the next, like, 15 reviews were for Napalm Death, Cryptopsy, Anal Cunt, and shit.

Just kinda weird.

(another weird thing about the magazine is that the format for it changed completely with each issue, there was no consistency to the layout; the letters section in issue 1 -- issue 1, again -- had like 500 letters, while the final issue only had 1 letter.. odd... and they reviewed video games with ratings of a dog fucking a tree, and a dog pissing on the game. That was their way of rating shit. I guess, really, it makes more sense than Pitchfork "THIS ALBUM IS A 7.2. I ORIGINALLY THOUGHT IT DESERVED A 7.4.")

Anyway...

many quote him as being an influence on the genre. Somewhat of a predecessor to it. I don't hear the "shoegaze" in his music myself, but no doubt things starting changing after those early Dinosaur tours in the way of shoegaze bands poppin' up. Coincidence? Really, no way of knowing for sure.

They were a big influence but they were sort of filtered through the Valentines who were themselves more proto shoegazers than the thing itself. By the time it'd gotten round to bands like Slowdive, Ride, Chapterhouse, etc, the Dinosaur influence was pretty faint. A kind of musical Chinese whispers.

Didn't they also do a tour with bands that were called shoegaze by the NME in 1991 or something?

See, I thought Jesus and Mary Chain were more what you were describing than Dino was, demon. Maybe both were. They certainly came before most of that stuff, 1982 I think (Dino came two years later if I'm not mistaken, so both bands were kinda doing their thing, whih undoubtedly inspired bands doing the big-loud-walls-of-guitar-with-pop-hooks thing; I think, in the case of stuff like Ride and Slowdive, it's good to look at, say, Cocteau Twins as an unspoken influence)?

...Shoegaze, as a production template, was always cooler to me, than most of the actual "shoegaze bands". I actually think shoegaze started as sort of a derogatory term -- kinda boring music, with bands staring at their shoes and shit. Kinda like the aforementioned Mary Chain with their backs turned to the audience, looking down and makng loads of (hopefully) blissful noise.

But yeah, lots of great bands like Swirlies (who made DEFINITE shoegaze songs, like "Pancake", but most of their stuff was a bit too complex and clean -- they sounded like Polvo and even Sebadoh on certain songs) and Girls Against Boys (love their huge sound on certain songs, with all the bass stuff -- can you believe they had 3 basses playing completely different things on certain songs? Even the usual 2-bass/1-guitar/1-organ setup sounded huge! And... "well excuse me. JUST EXCUSE ME. i'm just.. not.. on it right now. no i'm not on THIS right now. i'm . not . on . drugs . rightnow. i just wannaknow what yer liiiiiiiike... and I hope you don't have a good time. HEY! i forget EVERYTHING. everytime." ... brilliant) and lots and lots of other bands kinda took that "many guitars making a thick wall of sound" and did something awesome with it. Gotta love when bands sound HUGE; it doesnt' work for every band but yeah. You know who sounded really good, and really really big? HELMET. Strap It On is such a great record. You got your layers and layers of guitar and bass, playing the exact same thing, in this THICK staccato style. Start-stop-start-stop. DUNDUDUN.. STOP. DUN. STOP. DUNDUN.. STOP. DUN. STOP. And the drums had no real fills or anything fancy, they played perfectly in time with the strings. Great band, kinda overlooked in a certain way, since they're mostly associated with.. uh.. KoRn..!?

Anyway..

for fun here's swirlies- pancake

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1M3DIX9f78

what a sawng

I think Ride played their instruments in ways that My Bloody Valentine or Swervedriver could only dream of. Their records are produced MUCH better than most of the bands called shoegaze at one point or the other too.

Only that Swervedriver wrote way better songs than members of Ride and MBV could combined.

And ah yes, the Swirlies. What a fantastic band.

~Jeremy~

I can't get into The Swirlies (just like Deerhoof and Polvo, two other bands often mentioned here).

Blonder Tongue Audio Baton is a masterpiece -- way better than Deerhoof (who I think have never made a consistently great record, all their records are FILLED with filler) and Polvo (Today's Active Lifestyles is good though).

SWERVEDRIVER is an amazing band. It really doesn't get better than SON OF MUSTANG FORD. Every song on Raise is a masterpiece; way more talented than Ride (obviously more talented than MBV; MBV's songs were simple as hell, often downright boring.. interesting production notwithstanding).

Slowdive is my favorite band mentioned on this thread though.

Always loved this one from Ride: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BV--eYGPQJ8

They did the revolver tour in 92 with the Mary Chain and the Valentines (and Blur!) and I'm sure they must've played before that with bands who'd later be described as 'shoegaze'.


Yeah, it's difficult. I've always thought it was Dinosaur that set the ball rolling but it's impossible to discount the Mary Chain's influence. I would say, though, that I think Dinosaur had a bigger influence on the Valentines than the Mary Chain did. Although the degree to which Shoegaze can be reduced to the influence of the Valentines is another question.


I thought it was because of the amount of pedals they used. Either way it was definitely used in a derogatory way. It was a term made up by either the Melody Maker, NME or Sounds. I remember one called them shoegazers and another referred to them as 'the scene that celebrates itself' because their gigs were always filled almost exclusively with members of other bands. I'd be amazed if any of those bands made any money from live shows, considering the guest lists for them must've looked like the yellow pages.