Leapin’ Lizards

Rip It Up, Issue 147, 1 October 1989, Page 17

Leapin’ Lizards

Dinosaur Jnr

Dinosaur Junior have made itall the way from Ambherst, Massachusetts to Great North Road, and look poised to head right back again, sit down, and think

things over.

JMascis, guitar noise godhead for the over-ripe 90s, is sprawled in the darkest corner of the dingiest hotel roomin all Grey Lynn. “Are those new DMs2" he mutters at my feet, meaning “Did mommy pay for

them2” This turns outto be the most animated he gets during the whole interview, but before you decide that there's anything unusually laid back about that, just think of any local band who've tried to (not) talk about their music on radio or TVin the last five years. :

Jwould make a great CV presenter, actually. The endless minutes Larnie and Robert usually spendin paroxysms of giggling inanity would be used up in the time it would take J to drawl “Here’s ...

another ... clip.” Fortunately drummer Murph and new bassist Donna (also ofthe Screaming Trees) are alsoin the room, and although they're not interested in spouting media-friendly platitudes they’re arficulate and easy totalkto. :

Some questions, however, can only be answered by J. Forinstance, surely the world has a rightto know whether he's considered running for the presidency of the USA after being nominated by noless a political kingmaker than Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth. When the ideais putto him, J justlaughs momentarily and exhales an almost inaudible “No.” Then there's the other question on everybody's lips: whatkind of wah-wah pedal doesJ - use? This time multiple words are forthcoming: “A Dunlop Cry-Baby — the generic wah-wah pedal.” This descent into darkest muso-domsetsoffalengthy digression between J and Donna about “that pedal” which turns out, at

the Powerstation, to be a particularly extreme phaser not heard on record since ‘Forget The Swan’ onthe

band's debut LP. Dinosaur Jnr were formed as Dinosuarafee years ago in Amherst, Massachusetts, a small university townin America’s north-east. J and original bassist Lou Barlow had been playing guitar and drums respectively in a Minor Threat/ Rudiementary Peniinfluenced group called Deep Wound, but one day something moved J to grow his hair long and buy the Dunlop Cry-Baby. They switched to their current instruments, recruited Pat Murphy on drums and the most sweeping, spiralling sound to ever be falsely labelled “hardcore” was born.

Since then they've kicked out Lou andbeenforcedbyabunchof outstandingly irrelevent hippies

called the Dinosaursto add “Jnr" to their name, butthe rush of blood to every part of the body sonic swoon that made them famous has remained. The real change, accordingtoJ, has been crawling fromthe closets of an army of sycophants back home. “People who always hated us try and turn around and talkto us to see ifthey can geta record out of us or somethin’. They're bummed that they weren't nice fo us years ago ‘cause now they want our help but we just don't care, really, we don'twanna give them any. ltkind of makes me sickreally ==ia4 et s Jisalso “kind of sick” of the. Amherst atmosphere, as he thinks “anyone would be after living there foralongtime,” butMurph likesit - because he “doesn’t really know

anyone there now”. He likes visiting big cities but wouldn'twant to live

away from his “fresh air and greenness” forlong. Donna does live ina big city: San Francisco, roughly 2,800 miles away from the rest of the band, and whether for this or some other reason she’s not necessarily a permanentfixture in the line-up. This touris seen as “a kind of try-out” for the bass-player and atleast one prominent Auckland radio announcer has already proclaimed undying love. Murph makes it quite clearthat Dinosaur Jnrand - “permanentfixture” are almost mutually exclusive concepts. “We don'thave any plans for the future as far as writing new stuff or recording goes. We don'treally know what we're gonna be doing.” The idea of the work ethic applied to music, of playing huge stadia night after night justso more people can'see them doesn'thold any appeal for them whatsoever. “l just saw the Pixies at a stadium somewhere,” says J, “And they were horrible.” : “I hate big shows like that,” adds Murph. “l hate to see them and | hate to play them. But unfortunately it's one of the only ways bands can make any money.” : Do they hate the business the more they see of it, or s it possible to build up asort of numb tolerance? “No, it's evill” expounds Murph. - “Rockis evill Get a job and a haircut. Your parents were right.”

Soif devil music isn't the be-all and end-all of life, what else could the future hold for the disparate thirds of Dinosaur Jnré Have any of them ever done anything they like better than, er, rocking? : “Yeah, | wantto be a professional badminton player,” J smirks, a mind boggling thought on par with Gibby Haynes joining the Darling Buds ora Flying Nun artistwinning a New

Zealand music award. “Actually, I've never really had a regularjobsol don’tknow. Donna has a regularjob Do you like it better than touring?” - ~ “Noway!” S Ten minutes later J changes his ambition, decides that he wants to take up acting, become part of the Brat Pack. Murph, meanwhile, wants to go into Shakespearian theatre.

We probably won't even believe it whenwesseeit.

Trying to ask Dinosaur Jnr earnest questions about the music they play is nota recommended pastime. ] does manage tq get across that he doesn't have much time for the Bob Dylan/ Bob Mould acoustic ‘

singer-songwriter ethic, butwhen | try and ask him something about tension and catharsis he just shoots me alook that loses itself somewhere inthe gulf between withering and

withered and says, “Well, that one justsailed over my head.” Understandably, the band don't wantto talk about “influences”, especially notN.lY...g, but atthe momentthey’ve been listening to My Bloody Valentine, Nirvana, Black

Sabbath and Niggers With Attitude. They acknowledge that the latter might offend some people, something they think the likes of GG Allin and Killdozer can't hope to do anymore. Mention of Killdozer brings J to frighten all present by

threatening to play a Lynyrd Skynyrd tape he has with him, but Murphmercifully changes the subject, steering the conversation towards Johnny Rotten, and revealing acute - perception by saying that Public Image Limited have turned into

Adam and the Ants. Dinosaur Jnraren’t aboutwords. J insists that the lyrics are “the least important thing” in his songs, and that even then his half-heard tricks of the language are more significant than any “content”. Ifthey'renot overflowingwithany shrink-wrapped, pre-italicised quotable quotes, it's forthe same reason. Their genius, as anyone who was atthe Powerstation on October 4 willknow, is most evident when

words fail them, when all sense of rhyme and reason is overwhelmed in the inarticulafe skyward surge of the most heavenly guitars that never left the earth,

MATTHEWHYLAND