Guest Selector: Lou Barlow of Dinosaur Jr

Lou Barlow is the bassist of the legendary Dinosaur Jr, which he founded with prodigious guitar wizard J Mascis after their previous band Deep Wound broke up. Also the brains behind Sebadoh, Barlow is one of the most influential musicians in the alt-rock scene. Still, he also has his own influences, and here he delves deep into his roots to guide The Skinny through his ten favourite songs by bands from Massachussetts, the state where Dinosaur Jr formed in 1984.  

Neats – Now You Know

[Ace of Hearts, 1983]

"This is off their first LP. They’re from Boston and were contemporaries of R.E.M. – in the early ’80s they played shows with them. I think they have kind of a similar sound in that it’s informed by 60s jangly stuff, but has a new wave rhythm going on underneath and really incredibly soulful vocals. They were a really important band for me when I was in my final years of high school and transitioning out of listening to a lot of hardcore punk, and this is something that I think if more people heard, they’d really like it."

The Girls – Jeffrey I Hear You

[Brasch Music, 1986]

"I don’t know a whole lot about this band, but this is cited as an early no-wave band. This song was produced by David Thomas of Pere Ubu and it’s a really urgent song. Of course, I found out about it many years after the fact, but it’s just got this real frantic energy to it and there are a lot of chaotic elements to it; it’s a really strong, very catchy song. And the guitarist was George Condo, who became this incredibly successful modern artist who I met many years later – a very interesting character. This was their real seminal track that people are continually finding out about!"

Mission Of Burma – Academy Fight Song

[Ace of Hearts, 1980]

"Mission Of Burma I actually found out about on my own, before I met J. I think I saw a television performance by them and I was just like, ‘What is this?!’ The name was so mysterious and the band looked so mysterious. They were very popular within the Boston area and when the single came out I found it in the local record store; it’s one of the first real underground records I bought. It’s a beautiful pop song and a really unique-sounding record, and one of my first real discoveries. It was a really big song for me!"

Gang Green – Rabies

[Modern Method, 1982]

"Gang Green are a hardcore band and I’d assume they’re exactly my age. There was an amazing compilation called This Is Boston, Not LA, before the hardcore sound became really defined and – the word that I’ve heard smarter people than me use – codified. It was this real ragtag collection of bands from Boston; Gang Green are ridiculously fast with just full-on screaming. They were influenced by bands like Discharge, but took it a step further, making it into this screaming cacophonous burst of energy. It’s lyrically absurd but musically totally advanced. They still sound crazy to me! And they were wonderful live."

The Magnetic Fields – 100,000 Fireflies

[Red Flame, 1991]

"My girlfriend lived with this woman who was one of Stephin Merritt’s best friends. Through her, I became aware of the band and I bought the Wayward Bus CD and that song just totally blew me away. It’s such a beautiful song. I was just living in Boston and buying records in this really idyllic part of my life – I was in my late 20s, my bands were doing reasonably well and I had a lot of money to spend on records. I’d listen to college radio all day long and walk to a record store and buy whatever I liked. It was wonderful."

The Groinoids – Empty Skull

[Modern Method, 1982]

"This band were also on the This Is Boston, Not LA compilation and their two songs on that record were the two most ridiculously idiotic – just really incredibly rude and could barely play, just really guttural. On the heels of that came a 7” called Unsafe At Any Speed, and this was the Groinoids track on that. It’s this bruising steamroller of a song that could be from any time."

The Barbarians – Moulty

[Laurie, 1966]

I picked this because I thought everybody knew about this song. I mean, it was a bona fide hit in the 60s, they were on TV lip-synching to it. They also had a hit song called Are You A Boy Or Are You A Girl?, which was an amazing mid-60s song about changing hairstyle which was really catchy. But this song was sung by the drummer, who has one arm – he lost an arm in an auto accident or something [a pipe bomb-related explosion, actually – Fact-checking Ed.]. If you watch the videos from the 60s he literally has a hook that he plays the snare with – the lyrics of this song are him explaining his story. The verses are literally just Moulty speaking and telling his story: how he lost his arm, how he keeps going, how he’s got the spirit and how he’s looking for a woman to love him. It’s so touching, and he delivers it all in this heavy Boston accent, which makes it even more charming. It’s a really unique song."

The Remains – You Got A Hard Time Comin’

[Epic, 1966]

"The Remains are from the mid-60s, and I think, instrumentally, they’re as good as The Kinks or The Yardbirds. They’re incredibly tight, like the stuff that came out of bands playing a lot of blues covers, and then as they branched out and started writing originals they were writing incredible songs. This song is like a full-on proto-punk song. It’s really fast, like a more muscular version of The Kinks, and it’s just a ripper. When people say, ‘I think pub started in 1977…’ it’s like ‘No!’ It was way earlier than that. This is faster than the Sex Pistols and snottier than… whatever. It’s just a raging encounter of a song."

The Lemonheads – It’s A Shame About Ray

[Atlantic, 1992]

"This is one of my favourite songs. Evan [Dando] is Boston born and bred so to not include this song… like, I didn’t include The Cars or Aerosmith who have both written songs that are among my favourites, but this just occupies a really nice spot in my head. It’s like this soft-rock punk that just endures. I listen to it a couple of times a year and every time I hear it I’m just, ‘Oh god, what a nice song!’ It’s beautiful and great."

DYS – Circle Storm

[Xclaim!, Xclaim!, Xclaim!, 1983]

"DYS were part of the Boston ‘first wave’ hardcore scene, and the core of the bands had this really similar sound. They were the guys who were at the middle of every hardcore show in Boston, absolutely destroying anybody who got into the pit, who’d elbow you in the face and who kept me from ever stepping anywhere near the pit. DYS were very martial-sounding hardcore – it was their interpretation of Dischord Records and Minor Threat, and this song is just so frantic and catchy. It’s as catchy as The Bee Gees, mind, and I love how stuff with all this attitude behind it is also catchy."

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Give a Glimpse of What Yer Not by Dinosaur Jr is out now
Dinosaur Jr play Leeds University Stylus, 26 Oct (as part of Beacons Metro); Arts Club, Liverpool, 27 Oct (as part of Liverpool Music Week); O2 ABC, Glasgow, 17 Nov, and Albert Hall, Manchester, 19 Nov