We sat in the car waiting for the light at Red River and Eighth and watched pedestrians saunter in front of us including a man engaged in some serious butt-scratching. Just a regular looking dude with long hair and thick glasses caught in one of those moments when you forget the world exists around you, funny because we’ve all been caught in that moment.
I guess you just reach a point in life when you’re comfortable and too old to care that you’re standing on a street corner scratching your bum. It was a perfect way to start the evening.
We were downtown to see Dinosaur Jr at Stubbs BBQ. They’re one of those bands that I’ve always loved from back in the days of the ‘80s underground, before Nirvana broke, before anyone thought any of these bands would ever be played on the radio, back when alternative actually meant alternative to the mainstream. They came from that scene that was my musical home during that time.
Dinosaur Jr emerged from the hardcore and punk clubs, but along with bands like Sonic Youth and the Pixies weren’t exactly playing three chords and anger hardcore. They just shared a scene. Dinosaur Jr, however, offered something different. I guess it was melody.
At the heart of the feedback and noise stood a truly gifted shredding guitarist named J Mascis who frequently gets referred to as an indy rock Neil Young. I don’t know enough about Neil Young to comment on that, but it’s what They say. Still, despite the ferocious volume and soaring intensity of their music, it’s always sounded kind of lazy to me, kind of like punk for slackers.
I have all the CDs and still enjoying cranking the stereo to listen to them, but I never got to see Dinosaur Jr back in the day so it seemed like a cool idea to check them out on this reunion tour.
They were fun to see live. They were ungodly loud (seven full amplifier stacks for a three-piece band in a small venue, f’chrissakes!), Mascis can still shred, his solos were properly unpolished and lazy yet still amazing. His croaky voice is still endearing as he mumbles his nerdy stoner lyrics (it was never about the words with this band), and everything was just thunderous glorious noise and…
Well, it was also Thursday night. There was no place to sit. Drinking doesn’t hold as much charm as it once did. Canned beer in a club is a rip-off. A dinner of fish and chips in a Sixth Street pub was starting to make me drowsy.
We left with a shrug half-way through the set. Upon reflection it seems a fitting tribute to this band. Don’t get me wrong, I still love the music – then or now, there’s no band quite like them – and the show was good, but not enough to trump a desire to go home, play with the hounds, and go to bed.
Damn, getting older is so not punk. Still, I suppose it’s appropriate that the show that made us feel our age was Dinosaur Jr. Something about them makes being lazy and uncool seem okay.
We lumbered home, our hipness extinct, but not really caring. Kind of like that butt-scratcher on the corner outside Stubbs, who was incidentally none other than J Mascis.
James Brush is a teacher and writer who lives in Austin, TX. He tries to get outside as much as possible.
That was kind of my experience when I saw OAR at Stubbs last spring. Standing around listening to a loud band with a drink in hand is just not my thing anymore. At that particular show, I also felt like the oldest person there, by far.
[…] Dinosaur Jr fits right in with SY and Pavement for brilliant guitar weirdness. I finally got to see them last year. […]