Dinosaur Jr.

Amherst

Lou Barlow and Scott Helland started a hardcore band, Deep Wound, at high school in Westfield, Massachusetts, in 1982; Joseph Mascis, a dentist's son from Amherst, answered their ad as a drummer. When it broke up in 1984 Mascis formed a new band called Mogo, which played one show on the UMass campus that September and ended with the singer ranting at the police. Mascis broke it up the next day and, a few days later, started a trio with Barlow on bass and the drummer Emmett Murphy, known as Murph, without telling the singer. He moved from drums to guitar, and they called themselves Dinosaur.

Their first album came out on Homestead in 1985, recorded for about five hundred dollars and selling some fifteen hundred copies in a year. Sonic Youth became fans and took them on tour in 1986. In 1987 they moved to SST and made You're Living All Over Me, and a San Francisco band of 1960s veterans called Dinosaurs sued over the name. They added Jr.

The SST records

You're Living All Over Me, recorded with Wharton Tiers in New York, set Mascis's melodic, half-mumbled songs against walls of distorted guitar and feedback at extraordinary volume; Pitchfork later said it found the sweet spot between Black Sabbath and the Buzzcocks. Kevin Shields cited it as an influence on My Bloody Valentine. Bug (1988), led by the single Freak Scene, topped the British indie chart, but the band was falling apart; Barlow said Mascis seemed sick of him and Murph. After the Bug tour in 1989 Barlow was pushed out, and he put his energy into Sebadoh, whose song The Freed Pig is about Mascis. Mascis's reply, years later, was that Lou had to vent.

The major-label years

Dinosaur Jr. signed to Sire in 1990. On Green Mind (1991) Mascis played most of the drums himself. They toured with Nirvana, Jane's Addiction and My Bloody Valentine, appeared in the film 1991: The Year Punk Broke, and Kurt Cobain had at one point suggested Mascis join Nirvana. With Mike Johnson on bass and Murph back on drums, Where You Been (1993) felt, Mascis said, like being a band for the first time in six years; it went top ten in Britain, Start Choppin became their biggest American alternative hit, and they played Lollapalooza. Murph left after that tour.

Mascis made Without a Sound (1994) largely alone after both his parents had died, writing many of the songs while laid up with pneumonia; Feel the Pain, with Spike Jonze's urban-golf video, was their highest-charting single. Hand It Over (1997) was barely promoted, and after a poorly attended tour Mascis retired the name.

The reunion

In 2005 Mascis won back the masters of the first three albums, Merge reissued them, and the original trio reunited, with a first show at Spaceland in Los Angeles that April; Mascis said Barlow apologized, which he appreciated. The reunion has outlasted the original band. Beyond (2007), Farm (2009), their highest American chart placing, I Bet on Sky (2012), Give a Glimpse of What Yer Not (2016), Sweep It Into Space (2021) and There Near (2026) have all been well received, and they tour every year. Philipp Reichenheim's documentary Freakscene: The Story of Dinosaur Jr. appeared in 2021.

On stage

They are famous for feedback, distortion and sheer volume. setlist.fm logs over sixteen hundred shows; Freak Scene and Feel the Pain are the most played songs, followed by their cover of the Cure's Just Like Heaven. They recorded four BBC sessions between 1988 and 1992, played Bug in full on a 2011 tour, played You're Living All Over Me in full at All Tomorrow's Parties, and did an NPR Tiny Desk home concert in an empty theater in Turners Falls in 2021.