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Thanks to Hangover, I picked up this issue the other day …
J Mascis talks to Keith Cameron:
How were things for Dinosaur at the outset?
‘Reeally bad. We had no fans. And we got banned from all the clubs for being too loud. I remember a soundman throwing a bottle at me while we were playing. He’d had enough. The volume was purely for my own amusement.
I wasn’t considering the audience, because we didn’t really have one! It was kinda lonely.’So what was the motivation?
‘Exactly. That’s what we would ask ourselves! We had nothing better to do, really. We weren’t, like, particularly friends or anything. It was weird. I don’t know what was going on. We wouldn’t hang out or anything. But somehow we just kept going.’
Surely there were moments of elation now and again?
‘Not really. Elation?! Haha! It was generally the most miserable time in my life. Equal to going to college.’
How did it end?
I didn’t really talk to Lou for the last six months. He had a Sebadoh record out and he’d got a girlfriend, and he’d changed a lot. He talked a lot now, which he never did before. You could tell he wanted to do his own songs but he felt Dinosaur would ruin his songs, the way we played them. So he wasn’t contributing anything. He would just play. You could tell he wouldn’t quit, but he didn’t wanna do it any more. He would rather torture us and still be in the band. One day we decided to kick him out, and Murph had to talk ‘cos I wasn’t talking to him! So it was sorta unsuccessful. We thought we’d kicked him out, but I realised he just thought we were breaking up. It was resolved within a day, yet still somehow he used that for a lot of rage in his life, or to fuel his life in music. But I’ve heard from people he’s a lot more mellow now. He’s finally taking responsibility for his lashing out at me for 15 years.
I was like the big brother he didn’t have. I’d torture him mentally, ‘cos my brother did that to me. It definitely gone (sic) too far on occasion!’With the song Don’t, you wrote those lyrics (‘Why don’t you like me?’) but then got Lou to sing them. Now is that torture?
‘(Laughs) But I mean, he sang it, so… I can’t take all the blame! You never know. There’s so many despicable people who make great records.’
btw anthony … there’s 2 pics in there … one full page pic which i’ve seen somewhere before … j’s in focus in the foreground + the other 2 guys are out of focus in the background. they’re all standing in front is this really tall corrugated metal fencing which is stained. + j’s wearing some HUGE bug sunglasses, this crazy black/grey/white ‘distressed’ demin jacket, loads of beads, + a black and red cardigan !! … The caption says it was taken in 1988.
The other pic (on the following page) is much smaller. I’ve never seen this one before. It’s the three guys again w/J in the middle … It’s black and white … Murph’s standing in front of a window + J’s wearing his Deep Wound sweater (jumper for those brits out there!
) which I’ve seen pics of before.I wonder if he still has that sweater. Although I’m sure he’s outgrown in by now!
Thanks for posting that!!!
Fingers crossed we get our album back soon & someone can scan & post those pics…
I think that’s the most talking I’ve ever heard of J doing in an interview. I’m having a hard time believing it was really him answering those questions
ok … here’s a thumbnail (well, almost
) of the large mojo pic : [img]http://www.spacejunk.org/updates/2005/update_dinosaurjrreforms.jpg[/img]which can be found here : http://www.spacejunk.org/update.php?ID=175″>http://www.spacejunk.org/update.php?ID=175
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