Things I learned about Dinosaur Jr. in The Big Takeover’s recent cover story

Jack Rabid does one of his typically great interviews in The Big Takeover #88 with one of my definite top 10 favorite bands of all time. Here are some highlights of the Dinosaur Jr. conversation:

• Drummer Murph says they were so bad live in their early days, on the tour for their first album, that people would regularly boo them. Hard to believe based on all the shows I’ve seen of the band.
• Leader J. Mascis says he ran sound for two shows in his life, and they were Nirvana and My Bloody Valentine. Pretty good resume item!
• Kurt Cobain asked J. to join Nirvana. It obviously didn’t happen for whatever reason.
• J. claims he’s not very good at figuring out how to play other people’s songs, despite having some of the great indie-rock covers such as The Cure’s “Just Like Heaven” and Peter Frampton’s “Show Me the Way.”
• Even still, no real answer emerges as to why Dino broke up the first time. In between the two band's stints, though, J. and Murph went to a Sebadoh show where Lou yelled from the stage at them as they simply tried to attend. It seems the reason for their breakup in the Green Mind era was for reasons that will always mostly remain a mystery.
• They played a Craig Ferguson show as their first time back on national TV and they claim to have completely messed up the performance.
• One of bassist Lou Barlow’s stipulations when they got back together was the he be allowed to bring his kid and wife, Kath, on tour.

And those are the nuggets. Luckily, Murph attended the interview because J. doesn’t say much in it.

TV Snide: For October 2021

TV Show of the Month: Only Murders in the Building (Hulu): I have a major soft spot for all things Steve Martin and Martin Short. Which made this show a can’t miss. Add the weird and compelling Selena Gomez and this is one of the great TV 3-person gangs. They produce a podcast to investigate a murder in their New York high rise. It twists and turns over the 10 episodes so much that it’s nearly impossible to explain, but the humor and suspense make this definitely one of the best shows of the year. 4.5 out of 5 stars

Novel of the month: James S.A. Corey’s Leviathan Wakes is the hefty first book in a series about the colonization of space. Holden is the “good” Skywalker-like sci-fi pilot and Miller is the Han Solo-like pulp detective. The two of them and their ideas about how to save the universe play off each other all the way until the explosive ending. It’s a space soap opera that is worth the investment if you have the 600 pages worth of time. At some point, I may venture into the second book. 4 out of 5 stars

Concert/Event of the Month: Trevor Noah at the Capital One Center in Washington D.C.: This was a surprise gift the night before my birthday and it was nice to see and attend a large indoor event. Noah riffed for about 90 minutes with his best pieces on how white people dance to the words instead of the beat, white people are great swimmers, and lots of social commentary. There were two decent opening acts as well. 4 out of 5 stars

Movie of the Month: The Lodge (Hulu): Theis 2019 slow-mover of a creepy religious flick, both haunting and suspenseful. Two kids go off to an isolated Colorado house with the dad and stepmother. Very bad vibes prevail. Alicia Silverstone and Rily Keough are both excellently not-quite-right and make this a nice addition to the modern horror cannon. 3.5 out of 5

Silicon Valley - Season 2 (HBO Max): The tech gang stays funny and bro-y in this season as they continue to barely keep their entity intact, a lot like the kids over at the real-life Facebook these days. 4 out of 5 stars

America’s Sweethearts (Sling TV): John Cusack is one of my favorite actors, but this team up with Catherine Zeta-Jones and Julia Roberts stretches the bounds of worthiness. They all do as well as they can with what they’ve got, and that includes Billy Crystal and Christopher Walken too, but the story of Hollywood players trying to get former star couple Cusack and Zeta-Jones back together is mostly silly. Hank Azaria is another favorite of mine, from The Simpsons and Brockmire, but he’s lucky this turn as a Latin lover didn’t abruptly end his career. This hasn’t stood up well, and garners 2.5 out of 5 stars.

TV Snide: For September 2021

Movie of the Month: Woodstock ‘99 (HBO Max): Part of the (big) problem was that organizers were obsessed with not letting crowds break down fences to get in, as had happened at both previous Woodstock festivals, so they located it on an abandoned air-force base, not ironically either. The lineup was another main cause of trouble. Suffering a hangover from the good glory days of Nirvana, awful stuff like Korn, Kid Rock, and Limp Bizcuit aggravated an angry mob of white boys swamping around in sewage because of the abyssmyl water and sanitation situation. 4.5 out of 5 stars

Concert of the Month: Hall and Oates/Squeeze at Merriweather Post Pavilion: My first time seeing Squeeze and they broke out about six of their 10 or so great songs. The sound was crisp and clear. Here’s the set list. The headliners continue to alter a lot of their songs to be a little jammier, which I don’t like as much as when they play them straight. The first two times I saw them, they were immaculate. The last two, just really good. How can you complain about a mega-hit set list that throws some deep tracks from War Babies and Bigger Than Both of Us in right before ending with I Can’t Go For That (No Can Do), Rich Girl, Kiss On My List, Private Eyes, and You Make My Dreams. Here’s that set list. 4 out of 5 stars

The Hardy Boys - Season 1 (Hulu): An enjoyable romp of a twist and turn mystery that has beloved Frank and Joe Hardy searching for answers to their mother’s death, navigating a strange new family life in Bridgeport, and battling all kinds of bad guys, with the tall man being a favorite of the series. The complicated story line pays off for those who pay close attention and it will be interesting to see what the show runners come up with for Season 2. The spirit of the books, which I devoured as an early teen, is captured well. 4 out of 5 stars

A Walk in the Woods (Amazon Prime): This 2015 take on Bill Bryson’s classic book is perfectly cast, with Robert Redford as the crusty old Bryson, needing to shake up life a bit. His wife won’t let him hike the Appalachian Trail alone, so he hears from an old friend, classically played by Nick Nolte, who goes along with him, rekindling their once-soured relationship along the way. It’s a minor yet touching and funny buddy movie. 4 out of 5 stars

Graphic Novel of the Month: The Beauty (Vols. 1 and 2): This is a story about what would happen if people started catching a disease that made them beautiful. The first book is gripping but I started to lose interest as the story introduced a bunch of new characters in the second issue, without any real good sense yet of knowing how they fit in. Great premise helps earn it a 3 out of 5 star rating.

Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar (Hulu): Despite a few humorous moments, this is mostly an awful version of one of Adam Sandler’s worse offerings. The spy plot just doesn’t work with the middle-aged ladies’ stories. 1.5 out of 5 stars

The Pixies were obviously great, but they happened to hit at just the wrong time

One strong theory for why the Pixies didn’t exactly catch on fire during the time of their short-lived initial existence is that music and listeners were in a funk during that time period - the hair-metal-at-its-end late 80s into the very early 90s.

In this classic Puncture Magazine interview with leader Black Francis, one of the articles in Now Is the Time to Invent!: Reports from the Indie-Rock Revolution, 1986-2000, he claims the band’s music derives from listening to so many regular rock records, which they did a lot more than actually playing their own instruments.

The surly Francis doesn’t appear to like a lot of things, including most rock journalists (other than Lester Bangs and the British press) and Sting, with his rock-star-helping-to-save-the-Amazon persona.

Things he does like include the thought of making a documentary about the sea monkeys in the Great Salt Lake and Neil Young, although he doesn’t have a lot of Young’s albums.

Other nuggets from the interview:

• Kim Deal apparently used to be named Kim Murphy in the early days of the band.
• Eraserhead is Francis’s favorite movie and he prefers comics to books for reading.
  
  
  
  

TV Snide: For August 2021

TV of the Month: The White Lotus - Season 1 (HBO Max): nobody has ever gotten into the mind of a beach resort as well as this show. Steve Zahn, Connie Britton, and Molly Shannon are the biggest names of a powerful ensemble that digs into the class warfare that happens when the layers of the onion are peeled at a Hawaii resort. Jennifer Coolidge of Mrs. Stifler American Pie fame needs to be guaranteed a bunch of awards as the loony, spacey older single woman, and Murray Bartlett plays the best hotel manager since John Cleese in Fawlty Towers, and is even clearly inspired by the master comic Cleese. It’s like an Agatha Christie novel if she included hilariousness and shocking sex in her oeuvre. 5 out of 5 stars

Novel of the Month (tie): Malibu Rising by Taylor Jenkins Reid: In any other month, this would be atop the pop-culture list by a mile. But this was an extraordinary pop-culture month. Reid’s follow up to her legendary Daisy Jones and the Six is likely her masterpiece. It centers on the biggest party of the year in Nina Riva’s cliff-side mansion but, in doing so, unveils the story of the Riva family through generations. Mick Riva is the centerpiece as the Frank Sinatra-like figure who has commitment issues with his wife June and their children. The kids - Nina, Jay, Hud, and Kat - are all surfers who make their way to the end of the story the best they can with the cards they’ve been dealt. 5 out of 5 stars 

Novel of the Month (tie): The Final Girls by Riley Sager: This is the first of three horror-thriller books already out from someone who has already vaulted near the top of my favorite authors. A true page-turner that would make for the best film of the genre in years, it twists and turns through multiple mass killings, all of which have one thing in common: a lone survivor. The premise is perfect and the sociological commentary of our modern obsession with the news cycle and niche communities of people obsessed by some of those news stories and the characters involved is truly scary in real life, as it is in this fiction. I can’t wait to read Sager’s next two thrillers. 5 out of 5 stars

Outer Banks - Season 2 (Netflix): This heart-pounding young-adult-aimed show keeps satisfying as one of the best things on these days. The lower-class Pogues continue their quest to get back the gold that’s rightfully theirs, but the rich folks keep foiling them at every turn. The biggest cliffhanger yet leaves us waiting (probably for at least a year) at the end of the season’s final episode. 4.5 out of 5 stars

Bridge and Tunnel - Season 1 (Epix on Sling TV): Edward Burns was one of my favorite indie rom-com actors and directors in the 1990s. He's back now as the dad in this story of kids home from college in Long Island and trying to figure out what's next in life, possibly in nearby NYC. 4 out of 5 stars

TV Snide: For July 2021

Novel of the Month: Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk by Ben Fountain: Billy Lynn is on a victory tour for two weeks with his Bravo Company, which has won a major and treacherous battle in Iraq. Most of the gripping tale centers on the gang’s visit to a Dallas Cowboys game on Thanksgiving, where they negotiate tricky deals with stadium employees, fans, a cheerleader named Faison, and a Jerry Jones-like Cowboys’ owner, who is seeking the rights to their story to option as a movie with Hillary Swank. I’d been wanting to read this for a while and glad I did (it's also a 2016 movie). 4.5 out of 5 stars

TV of the Month: McCartney 321 (Hulu): This series is an extended conversation between Sir Paul and music producer Rick Rubin and it sheds still more light on why McCartney is truly to pop music master, who I can't imagine will ever be topped in terms of one human being so perfect (as well as so darn cool) at musicial creation. 5 out of 5 stars 

Never Have I Ever - Season 1 (Netflix): This coming-of-age story of Davi, an Indian-American girl in the Valley, is really cute and touching, and good for middle schoolers as well. Highlights of the season include the Model U.N. conference that ends up in drunkenness and a proposal for one country using nukes against another, the finale that leaves us in big anticipation for Season 2, and, of course, the narration by my favorite athlete of all time, John McEnroe (who I’ve oddly been dreaming about lately as a character from my childhood hometown of Edwardsville). 4 out of 5 stars

I Am Greta (Hulu): The impressive tale of 15-year-old Greta Thunberg’s quest to get world leaders to take notice and do something … anything, about climate change. The cameras follow her from starting out with simple one-person strikes in Stockholm to a rough boat ride all the way to New York, all the time battling her Asperger’s condition and the malaise of leaders and the public. But her messages touchingly begin to take hold. 4 out of 5 stars

Space Jam: A New Legacy (HBO Max): A big loud mashup of every pop-culture character under the sun, this is pretty entertaining but I can’t say it’s actually all that funny or even all that creative, but worth a couple hours with the kids. 3 of of 5 stars

Little Richard was the rock pioneer and his hits remain classic

Little Richard, the self-proclaimed “architect of rock’s roll,” died just over a year ago, back on May 9, 2020. I recently re-revisited his story by reading great obituaries in Classic Rock Magazine and Mojo Magazine, and here are some of the things to know about LR:

• Tutti Fruity, Good Golly Miss Molly, Lucille, Rip It Up, Keep A Knockin’, and Send Me Some Lovin’ are absolutely must-own party rockers for anyone’s collection.
• Tutti Frutti’s original lyrics were “Tutti fruity/good booty/If it’s tight, it’s alright/if it’s greasy, makes it easy,” which were a visually too racy and had to be changed.
• His real name was Richard Wayne Penniman.
• All the biggest stars covered his songs, and Elvis even declared, in 1969, that Little Richard was the greatest.
• He always felt more like a girl and was picked on heavily for it throughout his childhood.
• His route to superstardom was routed through the carnival circuit, where he performed in drag, even still wearing a velvet gown when he later started performing with his new stage name of Little Richard.
• His famous thin moustache was actually drawn on with pencil to cover a scar on his lip.
• He always said he taught Paul McCartney everything he knew. Long Tall Sally was the first song young Paul ever sang in public, and, of course, Richard taught him Paul’s patented “wooooooo.”
• Some scary incidents at the height of his career while touring Australia with Gene Vincent caused him to retire prematurely and focus on God and gospel music.
• He was eventually swayed back to rock and twice played with The Beatles opening for him.
• He presided over the marriages of Cindi Lauper and also Stevie Van Zandt.
• When Jeff Tweedy met him after his show, LR said, “Wasn’t I wonderful?”

TV Snide: For June 2021

Graphic Novel of the Month: Criminal: Vol. 1, Coward: Ed Brubaker is my favorite graphic novelist that I’ve discovered this year. This is noir crime in which the antihero tries to save his girlfriend and her daughter and tries to get away with multiple scams. He’s not very good at any of it and the blood sprayed around is epic, but somehow there’s still a likable heart to the whole thing. Looking forward to reading more of this series. 4.5 out of 5 stars

Movie of the Month: Indiana Jones and the Lost Crusade (Pay Per View): Somehow I never saw this, the third installment of the Indy films. With a focus on Harrison Ford’s relationship with his father, played by Sean Connery, you really can’t go wrong. The laughs and the thrills are a mile a minute, as bumbling Nazis fall rapidly by the waysides. None of these movies will ever beat the original, Raiders of the Lost Ark, but this comes as close as can be expected, with a nice added touch of medieval lore thrown in for good measure. 4.5 out of 5 stars 

Thelma and Louise (Sling TV): When Brad Pitt is the fourth or fifth best thing in a movie, you know you’ve you a good one. With the music of the Eagles leading them on a deadly girls road trip across the Southwest U.S., Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis kick some serious butt in the fight against idiot males. 4.5 out of 5 stars

Produced by George Martin (SlingTV): The story of the Beatles and the swinging 60s told through the eyes of a kid who got thrown into the role of head of Parlophone Records and really didn’t know much else but classical music is great. Martin's unique perspective was a cherry on the top (and maybe more) of the Fab Four’s cannon. 4.5 out of 5 stars

Weekend at Bernie’s (Hulu): Andrew McCarthy slums it with this nobody cast in what is actually a classic physical comedy from 1989 that I had somehow never seen. The goofiness is nonstop but it’s endearing and pretty funny. 4 out of 5 stars

All of Me (Sling TV): Steve Martin was my hero after The Jerk, his many Saturday Night Live guest appearances, his standup albums, Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid, and The Man With Two Brains, but I never saw many of his other movies. This one is as silly and ridiculous as it gets, but Martin and Lily Tomlin have great chemistry (they better, Tomlin dies and goes into his now almost-bipolar body). 4 out of 5 stars

Lethal Weapon (Sling TV): Long before Mel Gibson was outed as an anti-Semite, he was tough guy cop Riggs, a guy with a potential death wish after his wife dies. Gibson and Danny Glover get roughed up along the way to exterminating Gary Busey and his band of heroin kingpins in some fun action-adventure. 4 out of 5 stars

Friends: The Reunion (HBO Max): Considering I’ve only seen a dozen or so episodes of this show, you may wonder why I watched this. I don’t know the answer to that, but it strikes me that this is about like the show itself: relatively mindless drivel yet still compelling because of its ridiculously likable cast and perceived voices of a generation (although who would ever take Friends over Seinfeld, it probably goes without saying). 3 out of 5 stars

A clarion call for women in rock

Puncture was a great music magazine in the 1990s and some of its former editors have released an impressive compilation titled Now Is the Time to Invent: Reports from the Indie-Rock Revolution, 1986-2000. I highly recommend it, and one of the best pieces I've read so far from the early part of the book is Terri Sutton’s essay from 1988. 

Here are my favorite nuggets of insight from it:

• The author used to be in love with Paul Westerberg of The Replacements, partly because he seemed so normal and attainable, but mainly because there weren’t many female idols and mentors and she saw herself in him.
• Even at the few women-owned record labels at the time, their rosters were all male. “On part, women finding women singers annoying can be traced to culturally-induced self-hatred and insecurity.”
• Sutton offers a litany of common-sense ways to get girl rockers more exposure, and all of the tactics (like finding the right fanzines to read and asking record store clerks which females are putting out great music) have come a very long way since this article was published. Cool to see at least some areas where the human race has evolved!

 

Best Magazine Reads: Robert Pollard of GBV in The Big Takeover

Now that Magnet Magazine seems to have finally been laid to rest, the best source for finding the best music is easily The Big Takeover. It recently had a massive two-part interview with my hero Robert Pollard of Guided by Voices. Here are some nuggets from part two, which had magazine staffers asking questions they’ve always wanted to ask the rock legend.

• Pollard has released around 2,400 songs.
• He was mostly into arena rock in the 1970s and didn’t become “enlightened” until late in the decade when he discovered bands like Wire and Devo.
• Among his favorite record stores in the U.S., Pollard mentions St. Louis’s “the Euclid stores” and Planet Score.
• Basketball was the favorite for the three-sport star.
• His experience as a teacher translated to the stage in that he has to maintain energy and keep the kids in the audience excited and attentive for long periods of time.
• He says he's too shy to ever do a solo acoustic guitar tour. He also notes that he was once the only guitarist in the band, in the 80s, which is interesting because he’s only been the singer on stage since the 90s.
• He writes his songs and does his art collages in the dining room of his house.
• Pollard’s favorite cover of one of his songs is Glen Campbell’s version of “Hold On Hope,” a tune Pollard says he didn’t even like much until Campbell changed his mind about it.
• He became quickly disenchanted with his brush with a major label (TVT), which wouldn’t let him use his own art on the covers (he hated the art on those covers), forced his vocals to always be pitch perfect, and even told him (at 40 years old) to write songs about summer, cars, and girls.