REVIEW: J Mascis @ The Sinclair 2/19

By Jack Beck

1. Pizza (at its most basic, ideal, platonic level) consists of three components: tomato sauce, cheese, and bread. While there are other variations of pizza, an assortment of toppings and seasonings and different combinations which may not even include the three listed, the idea of a ‘pizza’ can be represented most directly by the combination of tomato sauce, cheese, and bread.

2. Pizza is greater than the sum of its parts.

Following this:

1. Dinosaur Jr. (at its most basic, ideal, platonic level) consists of three components: drummer Murph, bassist Lou Barlow, and guitarist J Mascis. While there are other variations of Dinosaur Jr, an assortment of lineup changes and new members and different combinations which may not even include the three listed, the idea of a ‘Dinosaur Jr.’ can be represented most directly by the combination of Murph, Lou Barlow, and Jay Mascis.

The question, then:

        2. Is Dinosaur Jr. greater than the sum of its parts?

The answer comes to us in the shadowy chamber of Cambridge’s beloved Sinclair, where this past Tuesday sentient loaf of bread J Mascis finally gave a long-overdue performance originally scheduled for last December.

First, his setup: there are multiple guitars on his right which he will swap through at various intervals throughout the night, then a single massive and imposing amp towering behind him, an empty mic on his left (to be occupied briefly by Zoë Randell of Luluc, the opening act, for a relatively gorgeous rendition of “I Went Dusk” from 2018’s Elastic Days), and a scattered collection of pedals at his feet, unseen by the audience. Jay himself, alone, stands center-stage. He speaks rarely, at most giving a basic, stilted “Thanks for coming out tonight” or “Next up is gonna be an old one,” and on his face there’s a look somewhere between vague confusion and legitimate irritation.

You see, J has a pattern for this sort of thing and he follows it like clockwork, every single song unquestionably adhering to this 5-part structure/palindrome (TASAT):

1. Tuning: J tunes his guitar
2. Actual song, part 1: J plays the first verse and the chorus of a song.
3. Solo: J has a guitar solo, lasting somewhere between 15 seconds and 20 minutes in length
4. Actual song, part 2: J plays the second verse and the chorus of a song.
5. The end: The song ends.

It is simple, it is unquestionably lazy, and in the hands of a lesser or greater man it would be an absolute slog. But in the hands of J Mascis, the performance just becomes this weird jumbled mess of contradiction, thrillingly lazy and devoutly careless. You’ve got a man who clearly shouldn’t be within 50 feet of a microphone belting these angst-filled songs with so little passion and so much soul, looking like he’s playing an unplugged guitar in his garage at 2pm on a Sunday but then soloing like he’s in front of a stadium of 20,000. He doesn’t care enough to rework these songs, to try and find the secret beauty hiding in some fanciful stripped back arrangement. No, no J just plays these songs exactly like he did when he first made them, some 20 years ago and some 6 months, never even slightly considers the fact that people might notice that the drummer and bassist didn’t show up this time.

What it essentially comes down to is this: if you walked out of the Sinclair Tuesday night thinking you had just seen one of the laziest, most boring waste-of-time shows of your life, I don’t think I could convince you otherwise. Fact is, Jay does not care about the pizza. And honestly, there is a very good chance that the pizza would taste better than the can of tomato sauce we stumbled our way into. But, in the end, we’re not here for ourselves, or a pizza. We’re here for J Mascis. And, even though he hardly looked up the whole night and never once came close to cracking a smile, I like to think deep-down J was there for J Mascis too.