Dinosaur Jr emerged at a time when American rock bands seemed to be getting interesting where, for so long, they'd almost entirely been point missing and unengaging. The newer ones coming through from the mid '80s combined noise with songcraft. By the mid-'90s this kind of genuine cleverness had become so muleishly copied that it was over (even if the imitators dragged it across gravel into the next decade). Seriously, if you went to an indy gig in the '90s and watched (AGAIN) band members switching instruments so the drummer could get to the mic with a guitar and the singer could play the drums and you didn't just walk out you were very tolerant, very young or just hadn't been out much. Everyone took the freedoms of bands like this and showed how different they could be by doing things in exactly the same way as everyone else.
Before that, though, the likes of Sonic Youth, The Pixies, My Bloody Valentine etc were showing that rock wasn't quite dead even if they were all present at its death as a base of innovation. After them, the notion of forward thinking was more or less abandoned or at least propped up by unexamined assumption. They led the pullback on the glamour that had grown back after punk chopped it off back in the '70s and gigged close to their audiences. They also recorded everythign they did which is why we have highly watchable doccos like the ones on Slint, the No Wave scene, and this one.
The band started like they all do but it's worth hearing the origin story from different voices. J. Mascis barely gets the words out and sounds like Stephen Wright talking in his sleep but what he says is pithy and not a syllable too long. The other two original members are more forthcoming but he band's history is served well by a wealth of witnesses, many of whom will be familiar to anyone who sees this (Henry Rollins, Thruston Moore, Frank Black, Kim Gordon etc). And there is a trove of home and live video to add moment to the recollections. While the gluey colour-bleeding look of old VHS has become THE LOOK of these documentaries this one works because of the lackadaisical image the band seems to insist on.
But then all bands are alike in other ways, as well. Kim Gordon speaks of being in a band as being part of a psychotic family. That gets it. Every band is composed of a god and others who want to be in bands. Sometimes the latter will also include one who would prefer to be a god. That might make them compete and enhance creativity or it might lead to the more usual implosion as it did here. Dinosaur Jr became Mascis and others for many years before reforming sufficiently grown up to play cooperatively together.
And it's that as well as the refusal to portray Mascis as a misunderstood genius for the ages. He's a bloke who writes songs and plays music that revels in its quirks and delights its listeners. And after all the testimony of fans who liked it so much they bought the company we get an oddly moving montage of roads seen from the front of a tour bus as an instrumental section plays us to the fade and the credits which roll under an early take of the title track. A refreshingly pleasant, well crafted and informative rock doc.
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