Dinosaur Jr vintage Green Mind shirt Meat Puppets Sonic Youth Nirvana Sebadoh

Promo tee for Green Mind, released in 1991. I've always been both intrigued and vaguely bothered by this photo: Priscilla, Jones Beach, 1969 by Joseph Szabo. I mean, that girl is obviously too young to be smoking, but there's no denying that it's a stunning shot--doubtless one of the coolest graphics in the history of cover art. Ah, the 90s: I have such vivid memories of this period in my life, because this was really the only time in American history when mainstream music (Nirvana's Nevermind, Dre's Chronic) overlapped, however fleetingly, with what was actually good. I distinctly remember the day I walked into "Earth Foods" on the campus there at UMass, Amherst, where I was doing my undergrad (we derisively called it "Dirt Foods"--you know, because we were too cool for that hippy crap; I'd give anything to eat there right now). As usual, I needed a coffee, and since it was one of those places where they'd let the employees play their own music, there was generally something cool pumping through the (analog) sound system (it was all CD back then). I didn't recognize the song; I just knew that I loved it. Jutting an index finger into the air, I asked the dreadlocked, patchouli-stanked dude behind the counter, "What is this?" He looked at me a bit dazed, clearly stoned, and replied in his monotone drone, "It's Dinosaur Jr. The album is called You're Living All Over Me." It was an odd answer, to be sure, and you could tell that he loved that title, and instantly so did I (it's literally one of the best album titles ever, bar none). I made a mental note, but I don't think I ran right out to the record store just yet (this was Amherst, Massachusetts in the early 90s; we had some great record stores in the area). But the next time I went in there, there was a different song playing, and again, I thought it was great. Later I'd realize that it was "Start Choppin'"--for by now I'd been to the record store, and I'd bought some albums, Living all Over Me and Where You Been, at least. I fell so in love with this band because they fit in so perfectly with everything happening in my life at the time. I'd been into punk rock for many years at this point, but along the way I'd met so many quirky people and I'd come across a lot of interesting music. I don't have the space for it here, but for those of us who've lived out in western Massachusetts (all in all, I've spent about 15 years there since I was 18), the idea that "grunge" started in Seattle is a bit grating on our nerves. See, both of my brothers went to UMass as well, and I'd been visiting the campus and partying in the area since I was 13 or 14 (I wouldn't recommend hitchhiking on the Mass Pike anytime soon, but this was the 80s, different world back then), and I'd met all these people that could only be described as "hippy punks." They liked the Grateful Dead and the Dead Kennedys equally--I found them fascinating. See back then, high school really was like a John Hughes movie (the jocks, the punks, the stoners, the "richies," etc.), and thus I had no idea that one's taste could be so diverse and that people, generally speaking, could be so open-minded about things. So follow the timeline here: I'm immersing myself in this funky ass scene during my formative years at exactly the time when the Pixies and Dinosaur Jr and Sebadoh are building their fanbases--not making a lot of money (because the "scene" hadn't broken yet), but touring and putting out albums (mostly touring), but also playing locally around western Mass. Those gut-wrenching guitars, the shrieking vocals, but also the acoustic guitars and the heart-rending vocals--the whole melodic-verse-thrashing-chorus sound--this is where it really comes from: western Mass, where 60s folk blended with 80s punk, and we got all these incredibly influential bands. And hence this is where I come from. And I've been fortunate enough to have seen Dinosaur Jr numerous times, from the Student Union Ballroom at UMass (with Sonic Youth) in the 90s to the more recent tour where they played Bug all the way through, which I caught at the Calvin in Northampton. And to this day, if you spend enough time in western Mass, you'll see J Mascis walking the streets, long gray hair, perma-baked expression. We've met many times; he never remembers me.