Fourteen years after they'd first emerged from the backwoods of Amherst, Massachusetts, blasting out a new blueprint for underground rock, Dinosaur Jr was shut down by its own laconic frontman, J Mascis. Hand It Over, Dinosaur Jr's last album (and seventh in-studio recording), might have been a blistering reaffirmation of just why they'd had such a shattering impact on the preceding decade. However, in the words of Mascis himself, the band had "just kinda run its course."
By then, of course, Dinosaur Jr had already turned Mascis into an iconic figure. His uncompromising manifesto of brute volume and snaking guitar histrionics had already revolutionized the musical landscape of the early '90s. It was Mascis who introduced the U.S. hardcore scene to guitar solos, and it was Mascis who, alongside the Pixies, laid the foundations from which grunge was later to blossom.
Along the way, Mascis became an unlikely figure of hero worship. Sonic Youth legendarily immortalized him on its 1988 hit single "Teen Age Riot," while four years later, he was co-opted by British noisemakers when he was invited on the Rollercoaster tour (1992) with the Jesus & Mary Chain, Blur, and My Bloody Valentine. Even now, his influence is still discernible in the wired fuzz of countless imitators. J himself remains at a loss to explain why.
"I was, y'know, ripping off other people," he confesses. "I never thought what I was doing was very innovative, I was just trying to make something that I wanted to listen to."
It's an ideal he's adhering to even now. As soon as the dust settled on Dinosaur Jr, Mascis realized he just wanted to "make another record and see what happens." He dutifully retreated to his house in Amherst, and from October 1998 to June 1999, J set about constructing a new album at Bob's Place, the basement studio named after his dog.
J is hazy about the details, but we do know that the album, More Light, features vocal contributions from Guided By Voices' Bob Pollard. J sent him the tapes and Pollard recorded vocals to three tracks ("Same Day," "All the Girls," and "I'm Not Fine"). My Bloody Valentine's Kevin Shields also lent his musical talents and contributed vocals and percussion to "Does The Kiss Fit," played guitar on "Ground Me to You," "All The Girls," and the tambourine on More Light's lead single, "Where'd You Go."
Shields spent seven weeks holed up with Mascis and engineer Andy Wilkinson. J can't remember precisely what they did, but he does recall that Bob's Place kind of freaked them out. "Yeah, I don't know how they liked being held prisoner in the woods," he laughs. "We had to go to New York every weekΓÇöback to civilization. Where I live isn't really remote, but a lot of people can't handle itΓÇöespecially if they're used to living in the city."
J says More Light is inspired by "the same groups as always" (by which he means the Stooges, Traffic, the Zombies, and "pretty much all punk and hardcore"), but which sounds fresher than anything he's done for years. From the moment "Same Day" blasts from the speakers in a daze of reverberating feedback, it's a record that re-establishes Mascis's reputation for intense volume and pure melody. It's also the first album that he's released with his new band, the FogΓÇöa name that came from "nowhere in particular" and which he thought "sounded cool." At the moment, it's also a band with no one in it.
"Yeah, it's still mysterious," he confesses. "It's not quite nailed down yetΓÇöI should probably try to get that together soon. I'll let you know."
While those finer details are being ironed out, Mascis is also keeping himself busy with some other projects. He just finished work on another Alison Anders movie called Things Behind the Sun. In the movie, J plays the drummer of a band, along with one of the Go-Gos' brothers and the two McDonald Brothers from Redd Kross. He also made an appearance recently with the Saturday Night Live house band (the show was hosted by Christopher Walken) and performed the old Dinosaur Jr tune "Out There" from 1993's Where You Been. (The performance presumably offered welcome respite from the show's other musical guest, Christina Aguilera.)
Aside from all that, J's still improving Bob's Place, and contemplating the space-time continuum.
So just settle back with More Light. It's here that you'll find what's really going on, swamped in fuzzed-out power chords and zigzagging guitar solos, showcasing J Mascis is at his most eloquent.
