Monday, July 27, 2009

Boredom Won't Starve As Long As I Feed It



This has long been my favorite Homestead 7-inch, which I think says something when you consider all the great 45's that came out on Homestead back in the mid-to-late 80's (most of which I've posted here already): Big Black, Squirrel Bait, Honor Role, Phantom Tollbooth, Volcano Suns, and so forth. If you were anything like me-- a hardcore punk kid, raised on 70's metal, who had openly admired his dad's Neil Young and Crazy Horse albums and was beginning to see the end of hardcore's reign as the underground's great white art hope-- the emergence of a band like Dinosaur was a flippin' godsend.

I saw Dinosaur's original line-up a bunch of times (even before the Jr. was added), including one show at Wesleyan's Eclectic House that was cut short when the fire alarm went off during Dinosaur's set, only it took them finishing the song they were playing before anyone could hear the alarm-- that's how punishingly loud they were. The strangest Dinosaur show I ever saw, though, was at the Night Shift Cafe in Naugatuck, which must've been around '88 or so. Lou and J. got into a fight onstage and actually started hitting each other, including one of them (I forget now if it was Lou or J.) swinging his guitar, still strapped around his neck, at the other one like a baseball bat. The two pictures you see below (scanned from an old issue of Brushback) are from that show, although I stopped taking pictures once the fight broke out; it was so uncomfortable that I put my camera down, not wanting to turn anyone's meltdown into a National Enquirer moment. There's been times since then when I've kinda wished I had gone ahead and taken a photo or two, though.

Supposedly the on-stage fight was mentioned in the book Our Band Could Be Your Life; unfortunately, when I flipped through the book trying to find it, the writing was so boring that I had to stop reading after a couple of pages.


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Dinosaur -

"Repulsion"

(this file is now listen-only)


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8 comments:

Anonymous said...

How about the time we saw them at the El'N'Gee in New London and Lou broke his bottom E string on his bass? How the hell do you break such a thick piece of metal anyway?

Brushback said...

Lou was the first guy I ever saw who would hammer away on his bass the way that guitar players thrash their guitar. ( A lot of guys do this now, of course)

Nick M said...

"If you were anything like me-- a hardcore punk kid, raised on 70's metal, who had openly admired his dad's Neil Young and Crazy Horse albums and was beginning to see the end of hardcore's reign as the underground's great white art hope-- the emergence of a band like Dinosaur was a flippin' godsend."


Mirrors my life, right down to the father & NY&CH thing. Is it a common occurance to grow up like this?

Cool page... glad I stumbled on by.

Brushback said...

Hey, thanks!

Brushback said...

The mp3 file on this post is now a listen-only (non-downloadable) file.

gkay44 said...

Thanks for the photos and great stories.

Barry said...

There was/is(?) a video of that onstage fight. My wife and I were honeymooning in NYC 20 years ago this coming January, and a friend was house sitting for some underground rock royalty. He played us the video, and it did appear that actual malice was at work. This was followed by the video of naked Gibby having sex with their topless dancer at an infamous NYC Butthole Surfer's show. I don't know whether the video ever became public, but the rock royalty eventually moved, as did the house sitter (back to his parent's farm in Tallahassee), and 20 years later my wife and I are going to Islamorada and Lignumvitae State Park instead of NYC for our anniversary.

Brushback said...

Boy, would I love to see a tape of that show!!

Definitely one of the more interesting nights I've ever experienced.