No Filler Music Podcast - The Trailblazing, Ear-Bleeding Fuzz of Dinosaur Jr.

Episode Date: January 15, 2024

To kick off the year, we return to our deep-dive episode format with a look at Dinosaur Jr.'s second record, the massively influential fuzz of You're Living All Over Me. The signature ear-bleeding guitar sound and slacker vocal delivery J Mascis perfected on this record went on to influential countless grunge acts and indie bands in the 90s and 2000s. This record was way ahead of its time and a truly seminal record that hinted at was right around the corner just years before grunge would take the underground mainstream. Tracklist Kracked Little Fury Things Sludgefeast The Lung Raisins Just Like Heaven This show is part of the Pantheon Podcast Network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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I mean, we practiced in Jay's basement, and he had, he was sort of experimenting with amplification, like he was trying to find the right amplification. fires to use and the right kind of guitar sound that he wanted and it was really loud and it was brutally loud like him coming in with these huge he would come in with these industrial muffs and he put them on his head he turned up his guitar and me and murph would be like oh my god welcome to no filler the music podcast dedicated to sharing the often overlooked hidden gems that fill the space between the singles on our favorite records My name is Travis. I got my brother Quinn with me, and we are kicking off 2024 with the iconic Dinosaur Jr. Q. What is your, what is your relationship with Dinosaur Jr.? How much of this is going to be your live reaction?

My relationship with Dinosaur Jr. is I brushed up against them once in a bar, and I looked back and thought, those guys look cool. And then I kept walking. Are you serious? In other words In other words I've listened to them A handful of times A lot of time ago And I thought

Man those guys are That's some fucking great tunes And then I never revisited them You kept on moving I just kept on moving I thought you were about Tell us a story about Because you live in Seattle

It's not entirely Out of the realm of possibility Right No I wish So we're covering Specifically Their album from 87 Yes

That's correct. So we are covering their 1987 record, You're Living All Over Me. And we'll get into history a little bit. But this is kind of like the album that, where they locked in to their sound and they figured out kind of the perfect mix of kind of what they do best, which is like, this is a phrase that has been attributed to them,

this noise that they create, ear bleeding country, which is interesting. But there's a lot more too than that. So we'll get into that. I think the country is more attributed to maybe his vocal qualities or something like that. But yeah, 87 is a huge piece to this. The year that this came out is a key piece to why this record is so seminal and how it went on to influence what was right around the corner with grunge.

But more importantly, like well beyond just the grunge bands, like the sound of Dinosaurs Jr. went on to influence tons of indie rock bands. The slacker rock is kind of what some people call it. And it's like My Bloody Valentine, right? So they're an influence on Shugate as well. And that's attributed a lot to the guitar playing of Mr. J. Mascus. That is the lead guitar, vocals. Really the brains behind the band. But yeah, so we're going to talk about this record.

to play a few tracks. And yeah, this is our first episode, Q back in our old format of doing deep dives into records. I'm excited, dude. Me too. We're back. But look, we're back, man. I mean, we never left, but like, we were sharing our favorite tunes all of 2023. Sharing what we heard. 2020 was about, you know, we were just out in the woods kind of wandering around. You know what I mean? Finding ourselves again. We just had to keep this thing alive, man, and we did it. You know, Yeah, we wanted to make sure that we kept it going, even if it was just an episode a month. So now we're just kind of getting back into the swing of things. So we're going to release two episodes a month, really stretching ourselves here.

But it's great. It still boggles the mind, Q, that we did this once a week for years. Yeah, like four years, straight, five years? Something like that, yeah, three, four years. Jesus Christ. Five years was last year because we started in 2018. Yeah, man. But anyway, so we thought

Dinister Jr. would be a great first band to get back into this with because of just the reach of their influence touches a lot of the types of bands that we talk about. Yeah, we might as well change the name of

the podcast to with a subtitle. Like, no filler, the grungy shoegaze podcast or something because that I mean that's what we've been like leaning towards and falling in love with over the last three or four years like discovering just so there's just so much more to learn about this era you know alternative rock whatever you want to call it that spawned from the mid to late 80s through the 90s and and is still going strong today like there's

just we could do an episode every week for the rest of our lives, you know, and never run out of interesting and cool music to listen to under this vein. And it's really cool how much of an influenced Dinosaur Jr. had on this sound. Yeah. And that's the thing. If you wanted to, you know, I called them an indie rock band in the intro, but that's just kind of a really super overgeneralization because like they, you know, they were considered, they were like doing the underground, you know, rock band. thing before it but before that sound

and bands sort of in that in the like the orbit of that type of sound became noise rock yeah so sonic youth also plays a big a big part and into the story of dinosaur junior so I'll talk about that a little bit too

but anyway so let's just dive right into a queue where to begin so it's a three piece you know we love three pieces around here we talk about three pieces all the time So like I said earlier, Jay Mascus, lead guitar vocals, Lou Barlow on bass and backing vocals, and Patrick Murphy, or Murph, as he's called, on the drum kit.

So Barlow and Mascus actually met up in high school and formed a band that actually had some pretty good buzz and notoriety around them. They put out a record in 11th grade. They're a band called Deep Wound. So this was like a hardcore, thrashy, really fast punk rock band. And more hardcore than anything else. But what's interesting about Jay and Lou is that Jay actually started playing drums. That was his first instrument, it was drums.

And Lou was actually the guitar player for Deep Wound. So when they formed dinosaur, Jay was like, you know, I'm going to play guitar instead. and Lou decided to play guitar instead for some reason. But part of the reason that the Jay switched to guitar, and that's the thing, he had played a guitar growing up, like his sister had a guitar or something like that, and the house that he grew up in. So it's not like it was the first time he played guitar.

But the reason he switched to guitar is because he wanted to be the front man of this next band that they started. And in his mind, he's like, well, I got to play guitar and sing if I'm going to be the front man. so I guess I'm not playing the drums anymore. And so one of the reasons that his guitar sound is so loud, and that's kind of what they're known for, is just loud, noisy, fuzzy guitar sounds, right? It's because he wanted to essentially,

when he was playing the guitar through the amp and stuff, he needed it to sound as loud as his drums sounded as basically what he was trying to. to make the guitar sound more loud, because that's just what he... Drums are loud. He's like, this needs to be louder. Like, I'm used to playing the drums. Yeah.

Yeah. And so he famously has never really played straight through an amp. He always plays through pedals. And one of his sort of go-to pedals is the, it's the big muff pedal, is what it's called. And that is a fuzz pedal that is essentially kind of synonymous with shoe gaze, right? And so like in, I have a quote here from Barlow. He's talking about kind of like when they were first playing shows in Seattle. So this was, I think, in support of this record. This is, this is huge. So I'm paraphrasing here, but he says, the very first shows we played in Seattle, the guys from Mudhoney were crowded around

under the stage all looking at Jay's stuff, like his pedals and stuff. Name drop in there. And so Mun Honey has an EP called Super Fuzz Big Muff, which came out after You're Living All Over Me, this record. And it's like Munn Honey was basing their whole concept for the band around Jay's thing, his sound. Wow. So that's Grunge, right?

Munn Hunting is one of the first founding like Grunge bands, right? those starting to do that that sound, they were influenced hugely by what they heard that night. And that's where they were looking at those pedals, you know what I mean? And that's usually what people point back to when they talk about Dinosaur Jr. is what Jay did with the guitar and how different that was from kind of the alt rock stuff that was coming out. Basically, somebody put it as like, they're sort of like the missing link. This is a review from NME, you know, that magazine NME. This guy, his name is Jack Barron. He called the band the missing link between Husker Do and R.E.M.

So, anyway, what's important about them starting out as a hardcore band is that that aggressive, loud energy is part of the dinosaur junior sound. but it's not you know they wanted to get away from hardcore and so they were you know as they're writing this record that we're going to talk about they were more into they were trying to be a little bit more melodic they were into like black Sabbath and jesus and mary chain and r em so they were fans of r em and so they were trying to be a little bit more melodic but also still noisy. So, okay, enough talking. We'll talk more about the history of the span and stuff like that, but let's just play our first track here. So again, this is Dinosaur Jr. Oh yeah, I want to say real quick. When they first formed in 84, they originally went by just the name Dinosaur. But there's this

supergroup from like the 70s. Yeah, so there's this group called the dinosaurs that comprised of like members from Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane. So like legit, a legit super group. Never heard of that. But they, yeah, they sued dinosaur.

Are you kidding? Yeah. I mean, they were called the dinosaurs. Right. Right. But I guess they just, you know,

I guess it was too close for them. So then they're just like, all right, fine, we'll just go by dinosaur Jr., which is great. Yeah. I love that kind of like,

yeah, it's just clever. Yeah, like, what are you going to do about that? You can't do nothing. Yeah, exactly.

So yeah, their first, record, they were still going by Dinosaur, and the label had to sort of like, I guess, the equivalent of recalling a record, and then they reprinted it with, with Junior slapped on to the end of it. But anyway, okay, so let's play this first song here. So, 1987, before Grunge hits, before my Bloody Valentine release sort of took off, Dinosaur Jr. was putting out music like this. So here's the first track off of your living all over me.

This song is called Little Furry Things. I mean, that kind of came out yesterday. Totally. That's so big of an influence these guys have. Yeah, 100% man. Just on rock in general. Yeah. And that's what's what's so big about Downshore Junior is like they went on to influence grunge

right around the corner, but hugely influential on the indie rock that we grow. on in the 2000s, right? The slacker rock, I guess, is what you call it. But yeah, the big thing, right there, right, you know, second one of that song, that wah-wah heavy, fuzzy guitar that just like, you know, hits you over the head. Wall of Sound? It's a wall of sound, right?

What's funny is the, there's a, so I watched this documentary, there's a, a documentary about the band called Freak Scene, which is one of their big singles. and Barlow was talking about, they were kind of reflecting back on like their legacy and stuff. You know, maybe someday, maybe someday people will understand that the wall of sound that we make is similar is as maybe as important as the wall of sound that like the Ramones made, you know,

or the Velvet Underground made. So yeah, when he talks about the Wall of Sound, he thinks about Velvet Underground of the Ramones, which is interesting. When we think of Wall of Sound, we immediately think about Kevin Shields' slag guitar. Right. And that fuzzy Shugay's sound. Fuzzy distortion.

Wall of Distortion, yeah. You know, the term wall of sound, the term wall of sound goes back to... That goes back to freaking, what's his name, dude? Yeah, the producer. Phil Spector. Yeah, Phil Specter. The, yeah, and some of those records he put out with, what were they called, the Renettes, the something. The rennets, yeah, rennets.

Anyway. That points to the fact that they were doing this before the My Bloody Valentine Wall of Sound, right? So like that probably doesn't even, they maybe still don't even immediately think of the early 90s shoegaze when they hear the term wall of sound because, you know. Yeah. They think of their influences that they were, you know, they were doing that and doing their version of it before the slide guitar of Kevin. shields. Yeah, totally. So anyway, what's interesting about his voice, right, is how... I mean, it's very slacker sounding. Yeah, he doesn't, he's very monotone. Like, it's just, like, the words are just slowly dribbling out of his mouth. Totally. Yeah. And that's how he sounds, too.

If you hear the guy on interviews and stuff, very, you know, Binstein from Ferris Bueller, very like, monotone, slow. Yeah. That's just his vibe. But right, yeah, this is a good example. this song is a great opening track to a record number one. But I think it really showcases exactly what they do really well, which is like this loud, loud wall of sound, heavy, heavy guitar solos, right right out of the gate, you can almost call it a guitar solo. And that's something that was unique to,

for that period, the 80s. You know, unless you were listening to heavy metal, you weren't going to hear a guitar solo. Like hardcore bands didn't do guitar solos. So, like, he was very influenced by like 70s rock at the time. Like they said, Black Sabbath and Sabbath is what they were listening to. So he brought back, you know, if you want to call it this, he sort of brought back the guitar solo with an underground indie rock because bands weren't doing that. And then, you know, grunge certainly brought that back, the guitar solo.

And then we lost it again for many years, man. Yeah. Maybe it's coming back. Yeah. And that's the thing. it's coming back because bands are making grunge again. Right. But it's interesting because, you know,

we think about dinosaur junior 40 years later, approaching 40 years later. But like, it's just interesting because, you know, right now, you and I, we talk about this all the time. Oh, I'm so happy that bands are making gruns music again. You know what I mean? They were influenced by Sabbath, which was, you know, 20 years prior to them.

How many critics were listening to Dinah Jr. and be like, man, I'm so glad bands are making... Making heavy rock again. This kind of music again. You know, it's just funny how everything is so cyclical. Right. All right, let's jump to the next track here. Oh, yeah, so let me just give a little bit more history here.

I didn't really play any clips from their first record because they were kind of still experimenting and kind of figuring out their sound. What Blue Barlow says here is that Jay, meaning Jay Masquez, again, he's pretty much the brains behind this group. He threw a bunch of styles together on the first record to see what's stuck. You're living all over me was an outgrowth of that experimentation. So basically, you know, they had been in a hardcore band.

That's what they were used to doing. He was a drummer. He just switched to guitar. Lou was a guitar player and he switched to bass. So it's kind of funny. He actually talked about this in an interview that I read that they did last year with Decibel magazine where he says, I'd had a realization after listening to Master of Reality, which is a Sabbath record.

He says, oh my God, the bass and drums were really. really work together. Wow, what a revelation. Yeah, and that's what a reason. I guess that wasn't a bombshell, but I didn't have a lot of experience as a bass player and didn't understand the power of a rhythm section. I became obsessed with Murph and I becoming a dynamic rhythm section.

Oh, dude. That's what you need, man. That is, yeah, you got to have a backbone to your band. So he's coming into that realization during, for the recording of this record. They didn't have that on the first record because you're still learning what it meant to be a bass player. But what's interesting, because he has that background as a guitar player,

is that he played bass, he played chords on the bass, like a rhythm guitar player. So, you know, that allowed this three piece to kind of, you know, have sort of like having a rhythm guitar player, but on the bass, which sort of freed up Jay to do the guitar solos and like just have these heavy, heavy, massive noise, like guitar noise, right? Because you still had sort of a rhythm section with a guitar player who learned to play bass, you know, just recently, right? So anyway, really interesting. Okay, I'm going to play another track here that's kind of along the same veins as far as like on their heavier side of their sound. All right, so this song is called Sludge Feast.

I'm hearing his voice, like, as an influence to more and more bands, the more songs of there's I'm hearing. I'm kind of reminded of the Balkans or Jurassic Shark who I mean they were very short-lived like you know super heavy syncopated pop punk group where it's just yeah it's that lazy vocal delivery you can definitely hear the Black Sabbath influence on this song in particular I couldn't tell you because I'm not not much of a Sabbath fan well I can tell you I can tell you all day that you can hear Sabbath all over that but um Yeah, it's really, it's the dynamic of their songs that went on, you know, that that is what was next for rock. Like the Dinators Virginia, I feel like this is where rock is headed. Like we're in the 80s. You got the college rock, alt rock stuff from like REM and stuff like that. This was like they had, you know, it's like they had a foot in both camps of like what was coming around the corner with grunge, but also like the indie rock sound. and also like the, you know, to alt rock.

You know, they had, he had such a wide range of styles he incorporated in each of his songs. I know pixies were a huge, they were influenced hugely by Dinosaur Jr. But yeah, here's, this is just a good, I think this is a good, a good list here because, like you say, Q, you can hear a bunch of different influences if you really stop and think about it. Especially on that song, I definitely thought this, you know, when I went to that kind of quiet, almost, no distortion guitar streaming right before it got loud again. I was like, man, that sounded like Smashing Pumpkins. Yeah. And sure enough, like Billy Corgan lists Dinosaur Jr. as an influence, right?

Here's at the bottom of their Wikipedia page. Dinosauri Jr.'s music has influenced many other musicians such as Kurt Cobain of Nirvana, Billy Corgan of the Smashing Pumpkins, Black Francis of Pixies, Radiohead, Graham Coxon of Blur, Doug March of Built to Spill. We've done an episode on them. actually we've done an episode on pixies matching tokens yeah

Henry Rollins Tad Kevin Shield of my bloody Valentine ride slow dive the list goes on and on dude I could I could just keep going but that's that's the whole point right is that they were they're just huge

and briefly here dude like I could really hear just how like meshed bass and drums were on that like I was the whole time I was focusing on that and it was just like one entity, really. Well, yeah, Q, you can thank Gizer Butler and Bill Ward for that.

Because, you know. Am I supposed to know who those are? You are supposed to know who that. As a bass player and drummer for Black Sabbath at the time of Master of Reality. So, yeah, it's just funny because he had just had that epiphany, which is something, I'm sure all bass players and drummers, you know, have that realization at some point. And we're like, oh, you know what? We need to really work together.

We're kind of, like, important. So anyway, so yeah, he was very conscious about that. And like, as he said, he became obsessed with making sure that they had a dynamic rhythm section between him and Merv. So something else that's kind of important. You know, as they were playing, they were, you know, touring for their first record, which was self-titled. What's funny is it's self-titled when they put it out. But now that they're called Dinosaur Jr., it's not really self-titled, but it's still called Dinosaur, which I thought was funny. I like it says too

It just says recorded in Chris Dixon's house Like recorded in and it says in quotes Chris Dixon's house Just some guy's house yeah Some guy's house Well so So you're living all over me It was their first record under SST records Which is the label that they were signed to

And they caught the The ear I guess you should say Of Sonic Youth So Sonic Youth saw them play a couple shows and are really impressed with them and sort of took them on tour. So they toured with Sonic Youth before they put this record out. And this record was mostly engineered

by a guy named Wharton Tears who worked on the record Confusion is Sex. Do you know anything about that record, Q? No, I don't. I believe it's like an EAPE. It's a Sonic Youth. no, it's an album. I thought you read the whole biography Q on Sonic Youth. Oh, I mean, it was a

thick book, dude. It was a lot in there. I don't remember. Well, anyway, that was a record they put out in 1983. So anyway, Wharton Tears, this record was produced. I mean, their first one was recorded in some dudes' house. This one was

recorded and engineered by somebody who worked with Sonic Youth. So yeah, they're moving on up in the world of of underground rock at least. But anyway, so let's move on in the next song here. I've got two more tracks for us. So now we're going to slow things down a little bit, relatively speaking at least.

So, and again, that's kind of, that's part of this story, right, in terms of like why they're so, their influence is so wide because they had such a range on their styles and stuff. All right, so moving to the very next track. So I will say one thing. I feel like this record has a very distinct A and B side. So I've been playing nothing but from stuff from the A side. Nice. And I'm pretty sure that Warden Tears was primarily involved with the A side tracks,

which is kind of interesting. And the B side tracks were recorded somewhere else. That is interesting. You wonder how many other albums are like that? like a distinct difference in the producer and where it was recorded between side A and B. Interesting.

It is interesting, isn't it? Interesting. And you can kind of tell. You can kind of tell. All right. So are we on side? We're still on side A. We're still on side A, I believe, yeah.

This next song here has a very nice runway cue. You know, I love a good run right. Love them. All right. So this song's going to sound kind of almost like a kind of REM. or at least more like kind of jangly pop-ish if you want to kind of call it that so here we go the song is called the lung killer guitar solo and there it is man the guitar solo he brought it back killer the indie rock the college rock bands or i guess the alt rock bands the college rock bands like r em

uh they just weren't known for that they were kind of getting away from that you know uh the jangle pop stuff. And so Dynastor Jr., you know, this drummer who picked up a guitar and just wanted his guitar to be as loud as his drums and stuff. And he was being influenced by Sabbath at the time. Like, yeah, he's going to throw some guitar solos into his records, you know. And that's what made them so influential for the next wave of rock that was coming right around the corner. Big time, you can hear how Bill to Spill was influenced by By that particular, that song in particular, I could totally hear how Doug Marsh was influenced by that. I'm reminded by Sloan quite a bit, who we covered.

Sloan? Yeah. Sure. Who, I mean, their first record was, I don't remember exactly the early 90s, so I'm sure they were influenced by them too. Yeah. Also, I love how that song was just literally just two lines. Yeah. It was mostly just a jam.

Yeah, and that's, it's, yeah, I'm glad you brought up the songwriting. It's something that a lot of people talk about, including his own, his own bandmates, how big of a leap there was between their first record and you're living all over me, but mostly just how kind of sophisticated he had become as a songwriter being so young, too. So Barlow, he says, now that I have more experience as a songwriter, so another thing about Barlow, he went on to form the band Sebado, which is another big sort of 90s, all-rock bands. Anyway, so that, you know, she says, now that I have more experience as a songwriter, I can see how brilliantly these songs were constructed.

It's an amazing song. So basically, a lot of the themes of like, you know, you read interviews from these guys, is they all praise the songwriting abilities of Jay. and now basically throughout Dinosaur Jr., throughout the history of Dinosaur Jr., you know, the band kind of broke up for a little bit. Well, basically Barlow, after this record, after the next record, Bug came out.

Like they had a falling out. He left the band. He started Sabadoe. The way that some people call it is like, they were called Dinosaur Jr., but it was basically Jay, you know, it's his band, his music. He wrote all the songs.

So Dinosaur Jr. is, Jay in terms of the songwriting. Even down to like for this record, like he, this is kind of a dick move, but he, I'm kind of reminded of Dave Grohl, the story about Dave Grohl. Well, he had, he set up his own drum kit next to. Oh, no. Murph in the studio and would go over and sit on his drum can be like this so. Oh, no.

Yeah, I know. So anyway, that would get under my freaking skin, dude. Yeah. And this documentary that I watched, they all talked about how like they didn't, they didn't see the band as, it wasn't like a fun thing. Oh. Like it was a, it wasn't fun. That hurts, dude. I was just talking about how much of a fun jam this sounds like.

The lung. Yeah. Well, poop. But they've, you know, they've reformed. They reformed in like 2005 and, you know, they've all grown and, you know, put out, they still put out great tunes. And so, you know, there's a happy ending. They all get back together and continue to make music. They're still making music.

I think they put out a record a couple years ago. Anyway. But at the time, like, you know, it sounds to me like Jay was kind of a perfectionist and had a very particular vision. And everybody got behind this vision. And everybody realized, you know, how brilliant this guy was. And that's kind of why they stuck with him. All right.

I got one more song for us here and this song. In particular, Jay Mascus said that this was his favorite track on the record. So when I asked by Decible Magazine what their favorite tracks were, Masquez said, I guess I would pick raisins. It was maybe the most dinosaur of our songs at that point. It had all the elements of the sound that we were looking for on this record. It just works for me. Nice.

Well, so, and so track, the one we just listened to, the long, was the last track on side A. Raisins is the first track on side B. So we're flipping the record now. And yeah, let's do it. He's definitely not singing in tune. That's part of the story here, man, of like Dinosaur Jr. And the sound and the influence. I feel like that's part of the story of grunge, you know.

It's not polished. But it's not exactly. And that's the thing. These guys, they came out of the hardcore punk scene. You know what I mean? Like this is what they were. Anti-establishment. Yeah.

Screaming. Like, and like the, you know, fast, quick, loud, noisy. Like, that's what they were playing when they first joined up, at least Barlow and Masquez. And then he even talks about how like he wanted to scream more. Like, he tried screaming. screaming in his, like for Dennis Jr. songs, like he wanted to try to do that, but like he just couldn't sustain it. Yeah.

So he just said, fuck it. I guess I'm not going to scream. And like, that's, you know, that's part of what makes it. That's his signature sound, in my opinion, is like that vocal delivery. Yeah, so I looked this up because I wanted to make sure I was saying this correctly. So, yeah. Side A was recorded by Wharton Tears in New York. Side B at Pine Trial.

in Holyoke, Massachusetts. Doctor Jr. is from Massachusetts. So the way that Jay says it, by the way, it says it was recorded in some guy's home studio in Holyoke, Massachusetts. So, you know, Panger Dues as an indie band. You're going to just record in people's houses. But the way that Maskis says it is that he says, he doesn't even remember his name. that's so funny he goes the guy in hellyoki didn't have any frame of reference for our sound

i think he was in a journey type band doesn't even remember his name which which is which is so funny because that is part of the grunge story is like they're they're so you know jaded by those types of band yeah uh yeah so that's you know the disdain you can hear it just even you know 20, 40 years later. He goes, he didn't know punk rock. I had to kind of take control of that session and force my will on him. Now, that just kind of plays to what I was talking about with Jay. Like, that's kind of how he was with everybody.

This is how I would produce this song. Let me get behind the soundboard. I mean, but look, that's the thing. Everybody's saying that Jay has this clear vision, right? Right. Like, this record is because of that. He goes, I guess that was similar to our experience of making the first album. So there you go.

He's calling our Chris Dixon. I had to really help form the sound because he didn't have exposure to anything alternative or punk. So I bet you he was like, oh, guys, we got turned down this fuzz, you know. Are you sure you want the guitar that loud? I mean, you're not a drummer. Right. I don't know about this, guys. All right.

Well, let's take you. Scratch on the surface, as usual. But, you know, it's impossible to really describe just how massive. influential this record was, dude. Yeah, for sure. Everybody largely recognizes that this record was massive and like

just in terms of like the underground rock scene of the 80s and how you've got guys from Mudhoney like at their shows in Seattle like, you know, writing shit down and their notepads and stuff. I'm like, okay, I got to get a big muff pedal. You know, got to get that big muff.

Yeah, they named a record after after that pedal they called it super, super fuzz big muff that was their EP it came out in 88 a year later

you know what I mean so like it's crazy to think about just how influential this band is and how much they're staying power

they're still putting on new music they you know they headline shows festivals and stuff like that right they do yeah almost all the time

they're going to be number one or two on the bill yeah and you know they like I said they still play tracks from this record. And as somebody said it, I don't remember who said it, but basically the idea was like,

you know, they could still play songs from the 80s and it sounds just in line with the stuff that they put out on the last record, right? Like their sound that they invented is so timeless. He had a clear vision, dude, clearly. Yeah, clearly. He was a visionary because, yeah, they were ahead of what was right around the core. So anyway, if you haven't listened to this, record. I don't think I need to convince you any further, but go back and listen to you.

I mean, we basically played all of side A, so you got the rest of side B to listen to. You're right. We did. And we only played a few seconds of cracked, but we did play all of side A in the very, we're basically playing the album in order. Now, I'm seeing track 10. It's called Just Like Heaven. Is that a cover of the cure? It is a cover of the cure. Awesome. We should, we should outro with that. Yeah, we can do that. And that's another thing, actually. They actually, they used to make a point of just doing covers for fun, like just while they were messing around and stuff.

And a lot of times they would end up on an EP or on a record or just playing it live and stuff like that. I think that's a great idea, actually, for a band to do that. That's a great idea. Well, the way that they put it is that, like, they would do it just, you know, just kind of playing around having fun. And then they would be like, oh, you know, this actually sounds really good. Yeah. It sounds better than the original.

Well, awesome, man. Great way to kick off the year, I think. Great record to kick off the year with. And I've got a ton of ideas for, I mean, here's the thing. If we're only doing two episodes a month, one of which will be a deep dive, that's only 12 records that we're going to be talking about, or bands if we decide to devote an episode to a band over just a record. True, because we're planning on keeping our watcher hurts once a month.

And we can call it that again, Q? You sure can. because it's yeah so uh i was thinking we could do a deaf tones record okay maybe we do that next yeah that's another band that i i really need to listen to more of we haven't really covered a band like deaf tones all that often i like i've said before and on the track that i played actually last month i guess i would have played in november our first best of 2020s episode i played a narrowhead song that was a huge, huge, deaf tones vibes. Anyway, so Nairhead, which is one of my favorite new acts,

were hugely influenced by Deftones. So that sound, we want to talk about another very influential band. Oh, yeah. But they're pretty different than our usual flavor of grunge and shoeguages like that. So that'll be a different kind of episode. But I've been really digging this record, their self-titled record that came out in 2003. So we'll do that next month.

But man, what an interesting. What an interesting band, dude. That's a group that I just did not, was not on my radar at all back in high school. Same. Because we were mostly into the garage rock stuff. Like this kind of thing wasn't in our, like we were into like more emo. Mm-hmm. Whatever the email, whatever you want to call it that came out.

Third wave. In the 2000s, third wave emo. Jimmy World, stuff like that. And then garage rock. I mean, that's because the strokes, dude, the strokes came out on the scene. I mean, like we had no choice. but to be into garage rock. 2003, I want to say, was room on fire?

I think so. Yeah, 2003, Room on Fire. Was Kings of Leon putting out? They had put out stuff in 2003, right? Yeah. We were obsessed with Kings of Leon before. Kings of Lincoln became... In 2003, dude, youth and young manhood.

So, yeah, we had no room for Deftones, dude. That was the year that we saw them open for the strokes, man. Yeah, we had... we had no room for deaf tones um turning on turn on the bright lights had already come out that was 2001 I believe 2001 but I believe now 2002 2002 2003 2004 whatever the point is we didn't listen to tap tones but I I I'm starting to I'm starting to get it you know what I mean like I really enjoy this record so yeah I'm excited man yeah I'll need to give it a listen before we press record uh no you

shouldn't listen to it. Oh, okay. I like getting your fresh reactions, dude. All right. So that's next month. But before that comes out, we'll put out our What You Heard for this month. I got tunes, dude. I'm bringing them. I got them. You finally got tunes. All right. Got tunes. Yeah, I started putting together my list for the first like one or two, What You Heard's for this year. If you're like me, dude, it's going to be a bunch of bands that put out music last year that you're like, man, this should have win on my best of them. for last year. That always happens, dude.

Right after we put out our best of 2023 or whatever, best of the year, I continue to listen to new stuff that came out. And I'm like, damn. And you're like, damn it, that came out last year. How did I miss this? Yeah, exactly. That happens all the time. Anyway.

All right. Well, thanks as always for listening. Again, that was Dinosaur Jr. You're Living All Over Me. Came on 1987. Go give it a spin. And as always, you can check us out on the Pantheon Podcast Network. that's pantheonpodcast.com

and yeah we'll see you guys in a couple of weeks for what you heard for January. My name is Travis and I'm Quentin. Take care. You may have heard of the sex cult nexium and the famous actress who went to prison for her involvement, Alison Mack, but she's never told her side of the story until now.

People assume that I'm like this pervert. My name is Natalie Robamed and in my new podcast I talked to Allison to try to understand how she went from TV actor to cult member. How do you feel? about having been involved in bringing sexual trauma at other people. I don't even know how to answer that question.

Alison After Nexium from CBC's Uncover is available now on Spotify.