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J Mascis is selling off a hell of a lot of really incredible guitars
11.01.2017
07:45 am
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It seems unlikely that guitarist J Mascis need introduction to readers of this blog, but just in case: Mascis made his name in the 1980s with a massive, roaring guitar sound that all but obscured his twangy, mumbled, self-effacing vocals in the band Dinosaur Jr., becoming an 80s underground guitar hero for albums like You’re Living All Over Me, Bug, and Green Mind, though he had originally been a drummer. He kept the Dinosaur Jr band name going for several years after the departure of founding bassist Lou Barlow (also of Sebadoh) before retiring it in the late ‘90s, proceeding from there to play guitar on solo/solo-and-friends albums, with a new band called The Fog, with Cobra Verde, and with fellow Boston ‘80s/‘90s survivors The Lemonheads. He drummed with Upsidedown Cross, Witch, and the still-active Sweet Apple, but he will surely always be best known for the enormous guitar sound that inspired countless bands including My Bloody Valentine. Dinosaur Jr. effected their seeming inevitable 21st Century reunion in 2005 and they remain an active concern today, recording and releasing new music that stands up well to their initial burst of inspiration.

Mascis has long been known to prefer offset body guitars made by Fender, particularly Jaguars and Jazzmasters, a preference he shares with My Bloody Valentine’s Kevin Shields—he even has an excellent and bargainously-priced signature model Jazzmaster, made by Fender’s budget subsidiary Squier. But his instrument collection is legendarily massive, and not restricted to just those models. And as it happens, he’s selling off a ton of it to make more room in his studio, and to make room for future acquisitions. This is a straight sale, not an auction, and he’s selling via the Reverb.com online marketplace. In addition to guitars there’s tons of drum gear and effects pedals, some priced quite affordably despite their famous provenance. You can see all the sale items at this link, but we’ve culled a gallery of guitar porn for your perusal here. A lot of this stuff sold rather quickly as soon as it went online, and surely more of it will have sold in the time between the writing and publication of this post, so see Reverb.com for the final word on the availability of these items. Clicking an image will spawn an enlargement.
 

Martin D-28S, 1968
 

Fender Jaguar, Burgundy Mist Refinish, 1965
 
More after the jump…

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Posted by Ron Kretsch
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11.01.2017
07:45 am
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Sweet Apple’s new video, filmed in a haunted train car
07.26.2017
08:52 am
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In Steuben County NY on August 30, 1943, the Lackawanna Limited passenger train drove at 70 miles per hour into a freight engine that hadn’t cleared the track. The wreckage was brutal; published estimates vary, but around 110 people were injured and 28 died. But most gruesome was their manner of death—only one passenger, one Frank Meincke, was crushed in wreckage. The rest were trapped in a coach that landed atop the freight engine, which emptied itself of steam into the coach. The victims were basically cooked alive. From The Troopers Are Coming: New York State Troopers, 1917-1943:

The Lackawanna Limited struck the left side of a freight engine, tearing up three hundred feet of track and leaving a twisted mass of wreckage scattered along the right of way. A steam jacket torn from the freight engine allowed escaping steam to enter some of the passenger coaches, causing agony and death. Twenty-eight passengers and crewmembers were killed and 117 passengers were injured.

 

 

Images via the Painted Hills Genealogy Society

But though it entombed over two dozen people, the passenger car itself was unharmed, and this grim piece of transportation history remains not just intact, but restored in the disused B&O roundhouse that now serves as a museum and restoration workplace for the Midwest Railway Preservation Society. Due to that key event in the car’s past, it’s acquired a reputation as a haunting site, and is referred to as “The Death Car.” According to Seeks Ghosts, a web site for paranormal enthusiasts,

While this old passenger car was at this yard being renovated many people connected to this society began to believe it was haunted. In fact, the volunteers at this yard dubbed this car—the ”Death Car.”

One volunteer, Charlie Sedgley who works for the society restoring cars believes he encountered at least 17 separate ghosts in the 1943 wrecked passenger car.

The society gives tours of the old train cars they restore. A trustee of the society, Steve Karpos was leading one of these tours when he led his group into the Death Car.

As he spoke a female member of his tour group interrupted him to ask why he didn’t let the other man behind him speak. Karpos didn’t know what she was talking about. She then asked about the “man dressed in the funny suit.”

Karpos recalls that, “Everyone else was saying there was a ghost in the car.” When the tour exited the Death Car several members saw, “a ghost sitting on the roof with his feet hanging over.”


That article goes on to say that the MRPS no longer owns the car, but it is indeed still there, and Sweet Apple have used it as the setting for “World I’m Gonna Leave You,” the first of four videos from their new LP Sing the Night in Sorrow. Sweet Apple is made up of members of Dinosaur Jr, Witch, and Cobra Verde, and the song includes vocal contributions from Mark Lanegan and Bob Pollard. The video is far cheekier than the train car’s grim history would suggest—the band’s namesake bassist Dave Sweetapple enters the haunted car and is bedeviled by—well, the Devil played by singer John Petkovic in a cheap mask. Drummer J Mascis and guitarist Tim Parnin also appear, as do eleven other passengers and, evidently, at least 17 separate ghosts.
 
Watch after the jump…

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Posted by Ron Kretsch
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07.26.2017
08:52 am
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‘If Heaven was real’: OFF!, Melvins and Dinosaur Jr. interviews by a 10-year-old kid


 
Last spring, we told you all about Kids Interview Bands, a web series featuring two young ladies from Central Ohio talking to members of Mastodon, Slayer, the Pixies, and even ICP. Well, perhaps predictably, the boys are on the case too: a young fellow named Elliott conducts musician interviews for littlepunkpeople.net, and he’s doing a fine job. (He’s the son of the site’s masterminds, Daniela and Justin Fullam—the site is basically a family art project. Cool family, I must doff my cap to them!)

Here he is getting Keith Morris of Black Flag, Circle Jerks, and OFF! talking about the go-for-it ethos of early So-Cal hardcore, what he’d do if he were President, and other critical subjects like “the government or Dracula?” And Morris is plenty awesome here.
 

 
Much more after the jump…

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Posted by Ron Kretsch
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11.07.2014
02:24 pm
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J. Mascis singing Mazzy Star’s ‘Fade into You’
11.03.2014
10:51 am
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Flood Magazine reported this week that J Mascis will be releasing a cover of Mazzy Star’s classic 1994 single “Fade Into You” on Record Store Day. The article doesn’t specify this, but the release will happen on RSD’s Black Friday event on Nov. 28, not the regular RSD in April. The clip they posted of a live version of the song is every bit as wonderful as Mascis’ years-ago cover, with Dinosaur Jr, of the Cure’s “Just Like Heaven,” which itself got the RSD treatment earlier this year.

DM readers in the Southwest and West Coast of the USA still have a chance to catch Masics on his Tied to a Star tour through November. He’ll be in Europe in December, and the UK in January.
 

Posted by Ron Kretsch
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11.03.2014
10:51 am
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Mike Watt stars in new Sweet Apple video: a DM exclusive premiere


 
Dangerous Minds is proud to present the exclusive premiere of the new Sweet Apple video, “Let’s Take the Same Plane.”
 

 
Sweet Apple is the indie supergroup formed by J Mascis of Dinosaur Jr, Dave Sweetapple of Witch, and Tim Parnin and John Petkovic of Cobra Verde. Their current album, The Golden Age Of Glitter, is earning raves, and “Let’s Take the Same Plane” is the third of a planned six videos to complement it. (You can see the first two in this DM post from April.) This one stars Minutemen/Firehose bassist and stalwart rock lifer Mike Watt as a kayaker launching his boat and roaming out into the Pacific, shot on the same San Pedro beach where Watt took photos for his book On and Off Bass. And that’s pretty much it. That’s all it needs to be! It’s a disarmingly poignant video for the album’s most contemplative song, a lonely acoustic number with gorgeous backup vocals from the Screaming Trees’ Mark Lanegan and Rachel Haden of the Rentals and That Dog.

Here’s the video. Enjoy.
 

 
Mike Watt is currently a member of il sogno del marinaio, who will be touring this fall. Dates are listed at his web page.

Posted by Ron Kretsch
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06.09.2014
10:47 am
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Dear Boy: Advice column for ‘Sassy’ teenagers from Dinosaur Jr’s J Mascis
04.23.2014
10:06 am
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The Gen-Xers among you will surely remember Sassy, that transcendent turn-of-the-‘90s magazine for teenaged girls. It was noteworthy for being uncommonly smart, accessible well outside its target audience, and in its music coverage, every bit as friendly to under-the-radar bands as Spin was at the time. Their regular “Cute Band Alert” feature once highlighted the ferociously uncute Poison Idea, and they infamously declared Nation of Ulysses’ singer Ian Svenonius the winner in their 1990 search for the “Sassiest Boy in America.” Males of any age were “boys” to Sassy, and there was certainly no exception for their “Dear Boy” column, in which established and emerging alternarock luminaries would impart to curious young women the life lessons only years in the van could teach.

The column featured such “boys” as Iggy Pop, Mike D, Beck, and the gentleman who concerns us today, Dinosaur Jr’s J Mascis.
 

 
Via Girls of a Certain Age:

What’s with boys and commitment?
—Margie

This is the first answer J gave us: Boys — yes it’s true — are reluctant to commit. But what would happen if the guy let the girl know he was psyched for this heavy commitment? She would get bored and blow him off. If he had “let’s settle down” all over his face, he’d never get lucky. Face it girls, it’s guys who want the commitment, but they know you’d break their hearts if they gave you half a chance.

This is the revised answer J gave us two weeks later: Face it, guys are psycho. You can’t pin them down. They’ll change their minds from minute to minute. You may think that boys tend to avoid commitment like the plague, which is true, unless of course you girls aren’t into it. You gotta keep him guessing.

I hear celebrities hate when people spaz out over them. Is this true? What should you do when you see or meet them?
—A Speechless Fan

Try to talk to them about ordinary things as if they’re normal. Don’t ask them any questions about their profession.

Shopping for a guy — that’s worse than taking the pop quiz your calculus teacher throws you on Monday morning! Do you have any ideas on gifts for members of the male species?
—TP

Blank tapes are always good, because you’ll buy the wrong bands if you try store-bought tapes or CDs. Clothes are negative. Flashlights are always fun. Candles, fireworks — anything with a pyro angle. Stuffed animals are usually OK if they’re not too sappy.

I am 16 years old and I have a 19 year old boyfriend who’s in jail. I don’t know how to deal with him being there. Do you have any suggestions?
—Imprisoned by Love

It depends on what he’s in for, and if you feel like sticking by him. Just don’t get too obsessed and freaked out about it. If he stays cool, keep an open mind and don’t let prison ruin your life too.

Do boys like it when girls ask them out?
—Aggressive

In general, if you’re not a total spaz about it, guys are completely psyched if you ask them out. We’re a lazy breed, so the more you ladies do, the happier we are. The vaguer you are, the easier it is to get out of it if he completely blows you off. Just stand near him and smile a lot. Try to talk to him if you can, but don’t overdo it. Casual is key.

I am a 16 year old girl and I’ve had sex before. I’m not sure if I like it or ever want to have it again. I’m very interested in guys, but when sex is brought up, I feel sick and turned off. The problem is, my friends all say how great sex is and how much they love it. Am I totally weird?
—Scared and Confused

I don’t think girls start digging it for a while, but you’ll probably turn around. Just don’t worry about it; you’re definitely not weird. Don’t do anything you don’t wanna do. Don’t feel weird if your friends talk about it. You don’t have to compete.

Do boys like big butts?
—Kim France

I am baffled by this question. Butts are so awesome that obviously the bigger, the better. Any guy who’s not a weirdo will take as much butt as he can get. I don’t know if you’re worried that yours is too big or too small, but it can’t be too big. Whatever it is, just get into it.

I asked this guy to the Snow Ball about a month ago. We were just supposed to go as friends, and it was going to be really cool. Anyways, he calls me up about three weeks before and asks me if it’s all right to take his girlfriend with us. I have my dress and shoes already. What should I tell him?
—Dissed

I would be enraged. I think you gotta throw a total fit and make sure he and anyone who knows him hears about what a complete jerk he is. Try to go with someone else, if you can stomach it, just to torture him and make sure he has a miserable time. Guys will try any scam. It’s up to you not to let him get away with it. He’s testing the boundaries of sanity and good taste. Make him pay. You can’t blame the guy for trying but I think you gotta make him pay.

I like this boy. I hope he likes me, ’cause he teases me a lot. How do you know when a boy likes you? Also, how do you get a boy to like you?
—Confused

You can tell if a boy likes you if he looks terrified whenever you’re around. He points his head at the ground, shakes and stutters, if he can get the nerve up to talk to you at all. You’ll see him around a lot and wonder how he got there. You’ll see him stare at you and dart his head away when you catch him. Either that or he’ll do all he can to completely avoid you. Try to talk to him calmly whenever possible, and smile and flutter your eyes. Basically, guys like girls who like them. It’s pretty simple. So make him think you dig him and he’s yours.

 

 
In the years since he dropped all that wisdom on the youth, Mascis has dissolved and reconvened Dionsaur Jr, performed with the Fog and Witch, and most recently, released The Golden Age of Glitter with Sweet Apple, his band with his Witch bandmate Dave Sweetapple, and Tim Parnin and John Petkovic of Cobra Verde, with whom Mascis has served as touring guitarist. The album’s been getting favorable attention from some unlikely places, and the video for the lead-off single, “Wish You Could Stay (A Little Longer)” featuring guest vocals by Screaming Trees’ Mark Lanegan, was released last month. Another video, for “Boys in Her Fan Club,” shot at the Rose Bowl, made its debut shortly after.
 

 

 
Cute Librarian Alert—many thanks to Beth Piwkowski for this sassy find!

Posted by Ron Kretsch
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04.23.2014
10:06 am
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Dinosaur Jr.‘s J Mascis Throbblehead
01.23.2012
12:36 pm
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Well whad’ya know? Dinosaur Jr. frontman, J Mascis, gets his own Throbblehead figure. Apparently J comes with the “signature silver mane that features REAL DOLL HAIR.”

You can pre-order one now (shipping starts in April) at Aggronautix.

Posted by Tara McGinley
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01.23.2012
12:36 pm
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