Dinosaur Jr: live, Middle East Downstairs, Cambridge, MA, 10/3/09 (Boston Phoenix)

On Saturday night, J Mascis and Co. took the stage with unassuming glory, and after taking their sweet time dorking around with their instruments, Mascis resolved the unformed chaos of their initial soundcheck with a plaintive little piffle of a riff. The band dropped out, Mascis approached the mic, we were suddenly struck with the oddity that is “Bulbs of Passion.”

“Bulbs” is a strange song to use as a set-opener: it’s from their 1985 self-titled debut, and, at first listen, bears few of the sonic watermarks of Dino’s catalog. But as the song kicked in, and Mascis hit the distortion pedal, letting loose chunky shards of power chord bliss, it was clear that songs like this were what made a young Dino stick out so severely in the world of mid-‘80s hardcore. There’s the juxtaposition of quiet introspective verses with thunderingly punishing choruses; and more importantly, there’s the endless soloing, a trait of Dino’s music that would eventually make Mascis a guitar god to a generation of rock fans that didn’t think that they even wanted one.

Dinosaur Jr. recordings are dense, layered affairs, with piled on vocals and guitar squalls that create a rich thicket, teeming with sounds mixing in and out; which means that live, the band is always going to come off as extra unpolished, extra unhinged. If you go to a Dinosaur Jr. show to see Mascis indulge in the multilayered vocals that adorn the albums, you may be sorely disappointed. In fact, in a live setting his vocals often come across as a perfunctory chore that must be accomplished in fulfillment of the song—partly because he’s a reclusive frontman who doesn’t seize the mic and use his singing role to connect with the audience, but mostly because in a live setting, every Dinosaur Jr. song is rejiggered to be nothing more than an excuse to get to the soloing already.

So let’s talk about the solos: Tonight, as with any previous time I’ve seen Dinosaur Jr. and/or Mascis solo, the solos were exquisite and exquisitely drawn out. Every song hits a point where Mascis kicks it into overdrive and just rips; the band then duly pummels those moments into oblivion and you never want them to stop. A run-through of new tune “I Don’t Wanna Go There” (off of this spring’s Farm) was a perfect example: The song itself is a downer, a mid-tempo vortex of ennui and bad feelings ground through a relatively uninspired main riff; but live, the song soars as the band tossed its script out the window and just bludgeoned the song into the floor with an abandon that was beautiful to witness, borderline lusty.

Which is why, by the way, it’s so beautiful to see and hear Lou Barlow back on bass. Sure, it’s nice that he and J reconciled their issues and whatnot; but more importantly, Barlow’s approach to bass, his baleful wandering around the riff and the melody, ever searching for alternate paths on their periphery, is what always gave the original trio’s work its distinctive edge. It’s like seeing them at their peak—and when Dino are at their peak, it’s just three guys surrounded by their own mad noise, blazing their own little world into being. And you’re glad to be in it.

Dinosaur Jr (Boston Phoenix, 9/29/09)

“Can you hear me? This is getting super loud.”

I’m speaking with Dinosaur Jr. drummer Patrick “Murph” Murphy — well, notspeaking with him so much as waiting for the noise to subside as he sits in the back room of Berlin’s Astra club waiting for the opening band to finish their soundcheck. There’s something appropriate about the interruption, though — for better and sometimes for worse, Murph and the rest of Dinosaur Jr. have allowed the sheer noise of rock to do the talking.

The brainchild of Joseph “J” Mascis, Dinosaur Jr. rose from the ashes of Amherst hardcore weirdos Deep Wound. When Mascis switched from the oompa-loompa martial constraints of punk drumming to the blitzkrieg roar of his Jazzmaster, he dragged fellow Deep Wounder Lou Barlow into the bass chair and recruited Murph from fellow hardcore outfit All White Jury. Despite their tangled roots in hardcore, Dinosaur Jr. were destined to forge their own road, thanks not only to the mopy drawl of Mascis’s new batch of tunes (inspired in part by his Cure and Wipers records) but also by his dictum to his new bandmates that this outfit was going to be loud.

“There’s a certain power and intensity when you’re hitting drums,” says Murph. “When J switched to guitar, he wanted to feel that same power, and the only way he could do that was to be, like, super loud and play at an incredibly high volume. Lou and I were just like, ‘Yeah, that makes sense.’ “

Totally. During the band’s initial three-album, four-year run, Dinosaur scorched earth with their violently tuneful rock gorgeousness, a sound that was equal parts noisy squall, chugging riffola, and lush melancholy. Their second album, 1987′s You’re Living All over Me (SST), is one of the most fully realized rock visions ever put to wax, an effortless mix of distorto buzz with overt nods to then-über-uncool classic rock. Mascis had committed the ultimate punk-rock sin: bringing back the guitar solo and using sheer volume to fuse it to the post-hardcore wasteland of late ’80s rock. He also perfected a delivery that doomed him to be forever described as “laconic,” his laid-back croak — part Nick Cave and part Skynyrd — providing the perfect foil for the tumult behind him.

But though Mascis’s near-catatonic demeanor gave the band an alluring mystique, his stonewalling stoicism also revealed his need for tight control of the music. As Dinosaur’s knotted arrangements moved farther from three-chord punk, Mascis pushed his bandmates to maintain his vision.

“There were drum parts that I just couldn’t play,” says Murph. “Working with J has always been kind of like being in school — there’s a lot of learning involved. In the beginning, it was really intimidating and really frustrating, because J was super-critical, especially of the drums, so I always felt like I was under the gun.”

The immolation of that initial line-up is by now the stuff of legend. After touring 1989′s Bug(SST), Mascis told Barlow Dinosaur Jr. were breaking up, only to re-form the band without Barlow, who then used his home-recording side project Sebadoh to direct thinly veiled jabs toward his old bandmate. The rise of alt-rock in the early ’90s made both Mascis’s Dinosaur Jr. (who were now on Sire) and Barlow’s Sebadoh (on Sub Pop) major-label household names. Which in some ways only served to elevate Dinosaur’s internal squabbles into public drama.

At the same time, Barlow was proving himself an adept songsmith in his own right while Mascis was leading Dinosaur Jr. even farther from his punk roots — 1991′s Green Mind(1991) and Where You Been (1993, both Sire/Reprise) saw him broadening the band’s sound into the realms of country and folk, with timpani and other symphonic touches melding into a dense forest of layered production that would become his trademark sound.

By 2005, Barlow and Mascis had buried the hatchet, and with Murph back in the fold (he had quit in ’94), Dinosaur Jr.’s original line-up reconvened. “It’s not like we had to recapture anything,” says Murph. “Within playing for 20 minutes, we could just sense the energy.” The two albums already under their belts prove the reunion is no fluke — this rare second chance is to be taken seriously. “When I left the band,” Murph continues, “there was a certain amount of freedom, but I always missed the power that I never could achieve with anyone else. And Lou had the same sense, we both wished we could feel the power and intensity that surged through this band again.”

This year’s Farm (Jagjaguwar) finds Mascis loosening his grip more than on any previous Dinosaur LP — not only in the inclusion of wistful Barlow warhorses like “Your Weather” and “Imagination Blind,” but in the way Barlow’s bass and vocals and Murph’s fill-heavy attacks are woven into the arrangement of every tune. It’s as though he had finally found the perfect way to tie their musical contribution into his vision.

Right before the opening band start checking again — and before our connection is saturated in pure noise — Murph leaves me with a final assurance: “Now we’re happier people, and playing is so much more enjoyable. Maybe because we’re on more equal footing now, but whatever it is, that first kernel of energy we had is still there. It just feels natural.”

DINOSAUR JR. LOU BARLOW  & THE MISSINGMEN | Middle East downstairs, 472 Mass Ave, Cambridge | October 2 and 3 at 9 pm | 18 | $25 | 617.864.EAST orwww.mideastclub.com

Dinosaur Jr: Three ill-fated trios (Boston Phoenix, 9/29/09)

I have a theory that musical trios are as cursed as any non-musical threesome. Alliances of two against one and ego imbalances are inevitable. Dinosaur Jr. were able to reconcile, but here are three archetypical power trios who just couldn’t keep it together.

CREAM [1966-1968] | Cream were three immense egoists who found a way out of dealing with one another by turning up the volume and loosening up the pop song. The result was, as they say, sheer heaviosity: the amps multiplied, the decibels climbed, and the song lengths crept into the 20-minute range while the audience watched each band member ignore the other two entirely. Their output may sound quaint today, but noise-mongering trios everywhere owe a debt of gratitude to the massive egos of Jack, Ginger, and Eric.

THE POLICE [1977-1984] | Sting, Stewart, and Andy upped Cream’s ante in terms of being three self-centered assholes turning internal issues into #1 hits. Amid the punk class of ’77, they stuck out as overachieving jazzbos secretly longing to write chart toppers while smuggling reggae undercurrents into the overground. But beneath the veneer of success was a deep unease, as Copeland’s unwillingness to be controlled clashed with Sting’s not-so-secret wish to go solo – which, as we know all too well, he did.

MCLUSKY [1996-2005] | What rock trio have deconstructed the rock-band mythology as deftly as Cardiff’s Mclusky? The bitterness and resentment that seep out of sneerfests like “Collagen Rock” and “To Hell with Good Intentions” made 2002′s Mclusky Do Dallas (Too Pure) a Rosetta Stone for deciphering the modern rock unit. A disagreement after having their shit stolen during a 2004 US tour led to the perma-defriending of singer/guitarist Andy “Falco” Falkous and bassist Jonathan Chapple, leaving sad fans with nothing to do but read between the lines of “Fuck This Band.”

Dinosaur Jr: Farm (Boston Phoenix, 7/14/09)

The much ballyhoo’d resurrection of the original Dino lineup a few years ago — with bassist/crybaby Lou Barlow and laconic-to-the-point-of-sometimes-seeming-retarded-or-maybe-dead frontman J Mascis burying the axe — saw the faithful turn ecstatic at the dropping of ’07′s Beyond. But, see, here’s the deal: for anyone who has followed Mascis all along, that record and this new one are in many ways indistinguishable from anything he’s done since 1991′s post-Barlow Green Mind. Meaning that if you go into Farm looking for the anguish and tumult of, say, 1987′s fuzzy and murky masterpiece You’re Living All Over Me, what you will instead find is a well-recorded batch of relatively mid-tempo tunes packed with bitchin’ solos, gnarly riffs, wistful vocals, and ambiguous lyrical platitudes.

Mascis’s unique talents have ossified into a signature, so discerning any difference between this set of tunes and, say, his solo albums of the early oughts or latter-day Dinosaur Jr. albums is tough work. If, to you, that means more awesome Mascis crunchwork, then be psyched, because this record slays, the rocking is sloppy-yet-tight, and nothing on here would sound like a drag if tossed into a setlist amongst older classics.

If, however, you were expecting to be magically whisked away to the late ’80s (the SST years), then you probably won’t appreciate the snarlingly raw riffage and radly masterful arpeggios of, say, “Over It,” or the shockingly metal chugging fit tossed in at the halfway point of epic stunner “I Don’t Wanna Go There.” And you’ll definitely get hung up on the bouncy almost-funkiness of a tune like “See You” and box your ears in horror.