When You're Gone

In 1989 a Byrds tribute album called Time Between was released. There were a flurry of these tribute albums, indie and leftfield rock 'n' roll bands recording covers of Neil Young, The Byrds, the Velvet Underground and Jimi Hendrix songs, with mixed results. The Neil Young tribute album, The Bridge, is uniformly superb- the others less so, but still, each one has its moments. On Time Between Dinosaur Jr stepped up and covered The Byrds I'll Feel A Whole Lot Better.

I'll Feel A Whole Lot Better

J Mascis' drawl and guitar playing were tailor made for some Byrds action, taking the song at double speed and the backing vox/ lead vox interplay sounds wonderfully half arsed, like the trio just stumbled out of bed, switched on their amps and played. 

The 1965 original, a Gene Clark song, is out of this world, the Rickenbacker jangle, harmonies and element of doubt in the chorus line, 'probably', putting it right near the pinnacle of Byrds songs and any songs from 1965. Incredibly, I'll Feel A Whole Lot Better was a B-side (to All I Really Want To Do). And equally incredibly, it is sixty years old next June. 

I'll Feel A Whole Lot Better

Nineteen

Today is my daughter Eliza's nineteenth birthday. She'll be spending it in Liverpool where there's a week of partying going on, end of  the first year university partying and birthday partying. I spent my nineteenth birthday in Liverpool too, back in May 1989 so there's funny circular/ history repeating itself thing going on for us. With everything that we've gone through since the end of last year, the fact that she's gone back to university and made a success of it is incredible in itself- we're very proud of her (obviously) and how she's dealt with things since Isaac died. Happy birthday Eliza, have a blast and hopefully you won't be too hungover when we arrive to take you out for tea tonight. 

One of our songs is Halo by Beyonce. Our shared vocal take on it, usually when in the car with us switching lead and backing vox effortlessly and intuitively, is probably the definitive version of the song. Unfortunately it remains unrecorded so here's the original from I Am... Sasha Fierce in 2008 instead. 

Halo

Back in May 1989 Dinosaur Jr had just released their cover version of The Cure's Just Like Heaven. Last year they released a live album, Emptiness At The Sinclair, recorded in Boston. The version of Just Like Heaven on it is a blistering, sonic assault, J Mascis' guitar and wah wah pedals feeling the heat while drawls his way through one of Robert Smiths' finest moments. 

Just Like Heaven (Live At The Sinclair)

I Ran Away

Dinosaur Jr have come back to do what they always do- J Mascis' sleepy drawled vocal, a guitar sound patented in 1987 and largely unchanged since, lacerated with gnarly solo thrown in partway through to rip a hole in the song, this time a song called I Ran Away. The album Sweep It Into Space comes out on Friday and promises more of the same as they've always done and in a world where things change under your feet on a daily basis maybe that's not such  a bad thing. 

Lou Barlow gets a song as a single too, the gorgeous indie- ache of Garden. Lou going back to basics and back to the land. 

I Guess I'll Crawl

In 1987 Dinosaur Jr released their second album, a definitive set of songs called You're Living All Over Me. Over at a website called Classic Album Sundays my friend Ian says 'If ever you encounter someone telling you that Dinosaur Jr’s best album is something other than 1987’s You’re Living All Over Me, be assured that they don’t know what they’re talking about. There was a blinding light and a parting of the clouds when this one arrived. It is one of the high watermarks of post-hardcore underground American indie rock.' 

You're Living All over Me is a definite step on from the punk of the early and mid 80s, taking rock's past (the 60s and 70s) and speeding it up, making it looser and messier and adding the assault of hardcore. The singing was something else too, a different approach, none of the certainty and bark of the punk singers- J Mascis drawled over the top of his group's perfect blend of noise and melody. Album opener Little Fury Things hits hard as soon as the needle finds the groove, a salvo of drums and then wah wah guitar riding over the sludgy noise, some screaming, and then suddenly everything snapping into clarity at thirty seconds.

Little Fury Things

At the end of the decade Dinosaur Jr signed to a major and released The Wagon (they'd already put it out with Sub Pop in 1990). The Wagon was the opener on Green Mind, their first without bassist Lou Barlow. The Wagon is a blast, a shockwave sent straight up your spine, pummelling guitar and drums and J sounding like he just got out of bad and stumbled to the mic. 

The Wagon

You Were Putting Me On

I found this clip recently and it made me smile, Teenage Fanclub back in 1995 or '96 playing live on The White Room, covering The Byrds 1965 B-side (B-side!) I'll Feel A Whole Lot Better, if push comes to shove my favourite Byrds song.



There's nothing wrong with this clip at all- Teenage Fanclub in 1995, a band in love with music and the sheer joy of playing, Norman and Gerry sharing the vocals, a group who could out jangle anyone, totally Byrdsy. There's some frantic tambourine rattling too from roadie Guitar George.

I'l Feel A Whole Lot Better opens with that wonderful chiming Rickenbacker riff by Jim McGuinn and then lifts off, with all the harmonies, the uncertainty of the lyric- 'Ill probably feel a whole lot better when you're gone'-  and that rocket fuel rhythm section, a perfect slice mid 60s folk rock, all over and done with in two minutes and thirty two seconds. I'll Feel A Whole Lot Better was written and sung by Gene Clark and released as the flipside to Mr Tambourine Man, their first self- written song that sold in its millions.

I'll Feel A Whole Lot Better

In 1989 Dinosaur Jr covered the song, released on a Byrds tribute album called Time Between, an album that also had covers by the likes of the Mock Turtles, Thin White Rope, Miracle Legion, Robyn Hitchcock and The Chills. J Mascis, Lou and Murph go at it fast, ragged and in one take. Gene Clark said this is his favourite cover of the song and I can't disagree with that. I don't have a copy of this anymore- I owned the album once but have no idea where it is now. If anyone has an mp3 of this version I'd be more than happy to take a copy off your hands.

A Good Friday

Today is Good Friday. Many people will get today off work and Monday is a bank holiday so that means a four day weekend for most. I'm not back in work until Tuesday. I've got a ticket for Weatherall and Johnston's A Love From Outer Space night at The Refuge tonight. All good.

Here are two good songs, one from The Woodentops and their Hypno Beat Live album, recorded in Los Angeles in 1986 and released in 1987, and the other from Dinosaur Jr and their 2016 album Give A Glimpse Of What Yer Not, J Mascis, Lou Barlow and Murph showing that re-unions can work.

Good Thing (Live)

Good To Know

See You At The Movies

I can't imagine J Mascis is getting very many new fans at this stage in his 'career', that the youth are getting into his records or even that Dinosaur Jr are on the verge of a re-discovery (despite their reunion). His band and solo career seem to play to people who got into him between the mid 80s and mid 90s and have stuck. This song sneaked out a while ago, a solo song ahead of a new solo album.



In lots of ways it's as good as anything he's done for ages, all the J Mascis elements present and correct- timeworn vocal, lovely acoustic guitar backing, blistering lead guitar parts and a general sense of lethargy (but with that electric jolt still there). Sonic Youth wrote Teenage Riot about J Mascis, imagining him as president of the USA in an alternate reality. What seemed nonsense in 1988 now seems like good common sense- J would be a million times better than the current incumbent and his support for medieval theocracy, whatever the cost.

Dinosaur Jr wrote, recorded and released an album in 1987 called You're Living All Over Me. If you don't know it, this is a good place to start.

In A Jar

Hold Unknown

A new song from Dinosaur Jr, a single on Adult Swim, is out now. I don't know if you can buy it anywhere but you can listen to it. J Mascis, Lou Barlow and Murph could have made and released this song at almost any point since 1987 but that doesn't mean it's not a magnificent piece of music. J sounds, in his singing and playing, both energised and typically slack.

Show Me How You Do That Trick

There's a dreamlike quality to The Cure's Just Like Heaven, a 1987 single recorded in the south of France. The instruments come in one by one, the quicktime drums and melodic bass then rhythm guitar, followed by keys and lead guitar, and finally Robert Smith's lyrics and thin vocals, inspired by a trip to Beachy Head with Mary. Smith says it is about 'kissing and fainting to the floor' and that sense of giddy weightlessness crosses over into the music.

Just Like Heaven

Dinosaur Jr's 1989 cover is faster, louder and messier. It still carries the sense of weightlessness but is rooted in small venues, spilt beer and feedback.

Just Like Heaven

Tiny

I can still remember the first time I heard Freak Scene by Dinosaur Jr on cassette back in 1988. The joyous crashing, distorted guitars of the intro, the thumping drums on the bridge, the stoned vocals and dysfunctional lyrics and that twisted guitar solo. A three minute pop song that invented slacker rock- but is so much more than American kids in big shorts. It has a similar effect on me when I hear it now, a song I can't get tired of and one of those songs I'd put in a list of 'songs of my life' if I had to write one.

Freak Scene

Dinosaur Jr so impressed Sonic Youth they wrote their best song, Teenage Riot, in tribute, a song imagining J. Mascis as President of an alternative USA. Maybe he should run for the real thing given the state of the Republican candidate. This new single, out in August physically, hits some of those Dinosaur Jr highs. I've got tickets for their show at The Albert Halls in November which I'm really looking forward to- not that I want to wish the summer and autumn away.

Run For The Sun

Right then- midday today and we're off, hitting the road and driving to The Jura, that bit of France just above Switzerland, eleven nights in a Eurocamp tent at the campsite pictured above. The vino, the fromage, and the jambon are calling me. Thankfully when we booked back at the start of the year we decided to cross from Hull to Zeebrugge so are avoiding what looks like a nightmare at Dover- Calais.

This Dinosaur Jr song is called Run For The Sun and that's pretty much what we're doing. The weather in the north west of England has been poor, nothing in the way of summer except for three hot days at the start of July. So, hopefully France will deliver us some sunshine. In this song Dinosaur Jr channel their inner Beach Boys and turn in something very good indeed. Unlike the video, which is shite. Video only again I'm afraid- I'm putting off making a decision about a filehosting service until I get back from France. Have a good time while I'm away, see you in two weeks. A bientot!

Sometimes I Don't Thrill You

In 1988 the world's most dysfunctional rock group released their definitive song, Freak Scene. The song practically invents slackers and grunge. J Mascis' guitar sound is brilliant- controlled but chaotic, spinning distorted notes off all over the place. His vocals are resigned, almost bored to tears with the whole thing but it's a love song of sorts too- 'when I need a friend it's still you'. Post-indie punk, pre-grunge, with a pop tune. And swearing too. I've got its parent album Bug but never really play anything off it except Freak Scene.

Dinosaur Jr were a nightmare to each other by all accounts; passive aggressive, J controlling Murph's every drum beat when recording, not communicating. Bassist Lou Barlow wrote the lyrics to the final song on Bug, the only one he sings. Over ear splitting noise, aimed solely at J Mascis, he screams 'why don't you like me?'

I don't know what's going on with my Boxnet bandwidth but either it's not reset at the end of May or June is already over the limit. I'll try to sort something out. In the meantime you can watch the video for Freak Scene, filmed in John Robb's back garden in bohemian West Didsbury. It looks like it cost less than the price of a pint of lager and a bag of chips.

Fade Into You

A dangerously fragile, acoustic guitar-led, somewhat enervated cover of Mazzy Star's beautiful Fade Into You by J Mascis to start Monday and the first week of autumn. The ghost of Neil Young never far away, memories of Dinosaur Jr beyond reach. Bizarrely, cheapeningly, this cover version was done for a trainer advert, released on limited 7" single as a sop to the purists.

Fade Into You

Back to work tomorrow- Tuesday's coming like a jail on wheels, to misquote Mr Strummer.

Dentistry

This isn't facebook it's a music blog but still- I got an emergency dentist appointment today. A few weeks ago I lost part of a filling to a chocolate brownie. The only appointment I could get then was for the dentist to confirm I had lost part of a filling and to make an appointment for him to fix it. The nearest appointment was on October 24th. So, unable to get it sorted out for six weeks, I've since been chewing on the right, wincing at hot/cold drinks, swallowing pain killers and dulling it with alcohol. Until last Sunday when it got really bad, with shooting pains round my head and non-stop jaw/gum/toothache. I finally got a proper emergency appointment today where I was drilled, filled, capped, scaled and polished. And told I also had a partially erupted wisdom tooth which had got infected. Much of the pain is now gone, replaced by a different, post -treatment pain, which is better. At least it's different pain.

Feel The Pain