Dinosaur Jr. - "Bug Live at 9:30 Club: In the Hands of the Fans" DVD Review (MVD Video)

Last summer, Dinosaur Jr. went out on a small run of East Coast dates where they played their 1988 album Bug in its entirety. Bug was the band’s second release for SST and was the last disc to include bassist Lou Barlow prior to the band’s 2007 reunion album. Looking back, Lou Barlow reflects that the album that many fans cite as their favorite (and the disc is listed as one of the “1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die” was actually anti-climatic for the band. Barlow said. “In our own minds…we had already peaked, we had already become as popular as we’d ever wanted to be. The fight was over. The first two records represented getting the band over on people and not getting banned from clubs, all those torturous tours, that time was over.” In keeping with the band’s indie-rock aesthetic, Bug was reissued as a limited-edition, hand-numbered cassette last summer through Joyful Noise Recordings.

"Bug Live at 9:30 Club: In the Hands of the Fans" captures the band playing live at the 9:30 Club in Washington, DC on June 25, 2011. The band has come a long way in the 13 years since Bug’s original release as they were playing small and mid-sized clubs at the time (Dinosaur Jr. played The Ritz on this tour) but this time out, the band played Terminal 5 (3,000 capacity). This DVD is the second in the “In the Hands of the Fans” series and the video was shot by six contest winners under the direction of Dave Markey (who filmed Dinosaur Jr. back in 1991 for "The Year Punk Broke").

The concert portion of the disc runs just over an hour and the band plays Bug from start to finish along with “Sludgefest” and “Raisans” from You’re Living All Over Me. As to be expected, there is the bare minimum of dialogue with the audience aside for some brief ‘thank yous’ from Lou. The longest bit of dialogue is when Lou explains that he blew out his voice early in the tour and he brings a fan from Arkansas on stage to sing “Don’t”.



The bonus footage on this DVD more than doubles the overall running time of the disc. This footage includes a live performance of “In a Jar” and “The Wagon” (I believed the band opened with these tracks), an interview with Henry Rollins where he talks about the significance of the “old” 9:30 Club, backstage interview footage where the six contest winners ask the members of Dinosaur Jr. questions, and a live on-stage interview where Henry Rollins interviewed the band prior to their set. The additional live footage is brilliant but the interviews are a mixed bag and the sort of thing you will scan through or skip the second time around. The Rollins interview footage is interesting in that it is amusing to watch Hank’s obvious hero worship compared with J, who looks completely disinterested in the interview and mumbles an occasional answer. The interview footage with the contest winners is a bit more interesting as Lou gives some insightful answers about his influences and whether some of the songs on Sebadoh’s first disc were considered for inclusion of Bug. J, on the other hand, delivers some pricelessly droll responses to seemingly innocent questions.

Track List:
01. Freak Scene
02. No Bones
03. They Always Come
04. Yeah We Know
05. Let It Ride
06. Pond Song
07. Budge
08. The Post
09. Don’t
10. Sludgefeast
11. Raisans

While Lou Barlow said “I do think there are some songs on Bug where I remember we recorded them and it was like ‘No we’re never gonna do that [live], that’s too weird'", the end-to-end live performance of the album sounds great. Dinosaur Jr. can still work up a wall of melodic noise (check out the number of amps on the stage) that lessor bands can only dream of.

Links:
Dinosaur Jr.

Does Music 'Grow' Better in Sunlight or in Filth? (You Can't Go Home Again)

I'm starting to feel really old --

I spent last weekend in DC and walked by the old 9:30 Club (picture below). That whole side of F Street has been remodeled and it looks like none of the properties have been rented (go figure...). Somehow, I don't think you would have had the music or the scene that sprung up out of the 9:30 Club in a neighborhood that now has a McCormick & Schmick and Gordon Biersch.

The same sentiment hold for CBGB. Forgetting the rent debacle, would the club have survived on the Bowery given the high-end stores and restaurants that have opened up around it?

Given the sky-high rents in most major cities, it just seems like there is no going home again.

After moving from DC to NYC in the 90s, I was a regular at the Continental (Divide) and Coney Island High and was sad to see both club go. (There was a quote from Trigger on BrooklynVegan a few years ago: "I’m surrounded by McDonald’s and Starbucks and K-Mart and I’m paying that level rent."

What took the cake for me was that I was on St. Mark's Place earlier today and the former Mondo Kim's location is going to be a karaoke bar. I wasn't that big a fan of Kim's - good used CD selection, major attitude from the employees - but I suppose that a karaoke bar makes the transformation of St. Mark's Place complete.

I fully recognize that change is a continual thing that happens everywhere (and that I'm the one who is out of the step with the pace of change) but I have a hard time seeing how this change is for the better.