my story

[FogLight]

Hi-

This bulletin board idea seems pretty cool, and I noticed no one has tried it yet, so here goes…..

In high school my favorite bands were The Doors and the Mamas and the Papas. No I’m not kidding. I only listened to oldies. The popular rock bands my friends listened to at the time were Poison, Winger, Metallica, etc. and they didn’t impress me too much, so I didn’t listen. Right as I was graduating, Pearl Jam and Nirvana became really popular so I checked out the whole Seattle thing and "alternative rock".

I discovered Sonic Youth and other recent bands (bands that actually still existed) and bought a few of their CD’s, and their video "1991: The Year Punk Broke". Well there are 2 Dinosaur Jr. songs on the album, "Freak Scene" and "the Wagon". I was really impressed because they combined loud, kick-ass guitar sounds with catchy, almost danceable beats. This whole process took a few years, this is about 5 years after high school now.

So I picked up "Bug" and after a few listens it instantly became one of my favorite CD’s. THis is about the same time "Hand it Over" came out. So I’m a pretty young Dinosaur Jr. fan I guess, they’ve been my favorite band for about 5 years. Within a few months I suddenly had all the Dinosaur Jr. cd’s, listened to them non-stop, and proclaimed it as my favorite band. That was 1997. I’ll always remember 1997 with fondness because it was a really fun year of my life and two of my all-time favorite albums came out that year, "Hand it Over", and "Contemplating the Engine Room" by MIke Watt. That year at one of those lame award shows (was it the Grammys?) Bob Dylan won the album of the year award. I thought it was lame and sad that thousands of people out there are giving album of the year to a guy who’s been around forever and they’ve probably had never heard of Dinosaur Jr. or Mike Watt.

I’ve been listening to DInosaur Jr. non-stop for the last 5 years. I’m not exaggerating here, it’s probably over a couple hours a day on average. I have over a hundred mp3’s on my computer that I listen to at work and I have the cd’s at home. My roomates and friends over the years have been exposed to a lot of Dinosaur Jr. One summer my buddy Pete and I worked together, and I had 6 Dinosaur Jr. albums dubbed onto 3 cassettes, and we would listen to those cassettes all the time – he had never heard Dinosaur Jr. before. Well I knew he was getting exposed to a lot of Dinosaur Jr. when "What Else is New" was playing and we were singing along and he knew the end of the line and I didn’t!

A dream of mine came true in February when I met J for the first time, it was very cool. I guess my next dream would be to play guitar with J. Maybe the Fog needs a rhythm guitarist, ha ha.

To me, J’s guitar solo’s are what rock and roll is all about. I would love to kick back and listen to J play a guitar solo that lasted all day long. His music says a lot to me in both the lyrics and the sound. J has a rep for being a quiet dude who doesn’t talk much, but if you listen to his solo’s it sounds like he’s saying quite a bit. He can send a lot of emotion through the guitar, it’s amazing. His music has meant a lot to me and if I had never listened to Dinosaur Jr. I would be a different person. I don’t know how different I would be, but I know I’d be different.

I hope J keeps making albums and touring until he’s 100 years old.

-FogLight

[Shade]

OK, Well here’s my story. I’m 28, I’m a girl and I live in LA. I work full time in animation production and I am writing my first screenplay. I’m from Pensylvania and moved to LA 4 years ago after graduating from Temple University. Anyhow, during high school and my first year of college, I worked in a record store where my coworkers and I were major music snobs. We went and saw shows all the time and bought cd after cd with every weekly paycheck. This was about 1992. My favorite bands at the time were The Jesus and Mary Chain, Buffalo Tom, Fugazi the Cure and a few others. My coworker Gregg, brought in "Green Mind" and played it a few times. He would imitate J saying "get me a bucket" which always made me laugh and I instantly fell in love with that album. Plus I was a huge Cure fan and J had covered "Just Like Heaven."

Then in college, when I used to partake in drug use from time to time (nothing gnarly mind you, just normal young adult experimentation). I was ‘shroomin with my roommates one night and we were listening to "Where you Been." Anyway, I was getting all faded and getting all sensitive from the song "Not the Same" and I started saying out loud, "Wow, this guy really misses her…he’s so heartbroken…awwh, he wants to hear that story again!" Needless to say I loved that album too and when I saw Dinosaur Jr. for the first time in 1994 at the Trocadero in Philly, I was blown away.

Now, years later, I am a part of the working society and hoping that if writing goes well, that I can buy my way out of the 9 to 5 crowd…actually in Hollywood it’s more like 9 to 7. I go hiking alot and out with my friends dancing and to bars once in a while. With it being 10 years later from the day I discovered J, I still love his music! Now that I’m older and not as much a music snob as I used to be, I buy into popular stuff too. Especially hip hop, which is embarressing to admit. But some of my favorite bands to date, (aside from J and the popular shit) are Modest Mouse, The Sundays, Buffalo Tom, The Roots and some Sebadoh. Sorry J! But Lou’s got some good songs. I’m in fact, almost too fanatical about J though. I talk about him all the time. It’s pretty funny. I guess it’s because his guitar solos and lyrics make me all emotional. I’ve seen him twice electric and twice acoustic and tomorrow night I’m going to see him again at the El Rey. Yipeeee! I cannot wait.

That’s all for now. I hope you have a nice day and thanks for letting me write my story since I’m at work and would rather do anything than actually do my work! [img]images/smiles/icon_wink.gif[/img]

[repulsion69]

I was 13 when I first heard Dinosaur jr. I bought Waynes world 2 sound track because I was into aerosmith at the time and listened to the cd. It sucked the whole lot, except for one song. Out there by Dinosaur jr. It was the best sounding song I’d ever heard. None of my friends were into Dino. They were all into shit and didn’t appreciate what I liked. In school I was into Dino sonic youth the cure smashing pumpkins jesus and mary chain etc. I slowly got myself most of the dino records but still do not have the first album. If it wasn’t for dino I probably wouldn’t had heard of a lot of bands eg. My bloody valentine.
And finally got to see j in March. It’s the best gig I ever saw. He’s been a big influence on me J Mascis, especially with guitar playing. I’m 19 now and still don’t know what the hell I’m gonna do with my life but I’l always listen to Dinasaur jr cause they changed my life.

[Coztoad]

Hello everbody I cant exacly remember what age I was when I first heard Dinosaur Jr but I can honestly say it changed my life I remember the first time I heard of them was on the year that punk broke I had bought the video because I saw that Nirvana and sonic youth were playing on it soon to realise that Dinosaur Jr were also on there. I remember it being about 3 days when I made my way into cashmart ( a second hand store with cds ) and came across Dinosaur Jr Where You Been it was only 7 dollars and although I had only heard about 2 of thier songs on the year that punk broke I decided what the hell.

I now am 17 years of age and own every single Dinosaur Jr album and listen to them everyday

….Riley….

[Author]

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