{"id":2153,"date":"2011-07-26T14:16:26","date_gmt":"2011-07-26T20:16:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stylusmagazine.ca\/?p=2153"},"modified":"2011-07-26T14:16:26","modified_gmt":"2011-07-26T20:16:26","slug":"j-mascis-several-shades-of-why","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/2011\/07\/26\/j-mascis-several-shades-of-why\/","title":{"rendered":"J Mascis &#8211; Several Shades of Why"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a rel=\"attachment wp-att-2154\" href=\"http:\/\/stylusmagazine.ca\/archives\/2153\/j-mascis-several-shades-of-why-300x300\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-2154\" title=\"J-Mascis-Several-Shades-of-Why-300x300\" src=\"http:\/\/stylusmagazine.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/J-Mascis-Several-Shades-of-Why-300x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" \/><\/a><br \/>\nJ  Mascis was long known for being one of the loudest dudes in indie rock,  or \u2018Alternative\u2019, as it was called at the time. His signature Fender  Jazzmaster caused many an eardrum to bust in his seminal band, Dinosaur  Jr., but in the good way. So, knowing nothing of his solo works, I had  the volume knob turned way, way down. I was waiting for the record to  start, thinking there was some long, teasing intro before my ears were  guitarsmashed into my head, but after tentatively turning up the volume  to a reasonable level, I realized that J had gone quiet. This is as  delicate and restrained a record as they come. Gently plucked acoustic  guitar, lilting string arrangements, and even the electric guitar\u2019s  appearance quiet(ish). It reminds very much of fellow \u201990s ear-basher  Thurston Moore\u2019s recent Trees at the Academy,  the difference being that Moore\u2019s roots are in noisy experimentalism  (which he can\u2019t shake), whereas Mascis\u2019 lie in good old fashioned rock  \u2019n\u2019 roll in the vein of Neil Young. He is very much doing a reverse Neil  Young here, switching gain-heavy distortion for intimate,  acoustic-driven introspective pieces, which are okay but show more  promise than anything else. A pleasant listen for Dinosaur Jr. fans who  hold some sentimentality in J\u2019s moany voice, or fans of nice stuff. It\u2019s  really nice. (Sub Pop, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.subpop.com\">www.subpop.com<\/a>) <strong>David Nowacki<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>J Mascis was long known for being one of the loudest dudes in indie rock, or \u2018Alternative\u2019, as it was called at the time. His signature Fender Jazzmaster caused many an eardrum to bust in his seminal band, Dinosaur Jr., but in the good way. So, knowing nothing of his solo works, I had the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[265,459],"class_list":["post-2153","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-dinosaur-jr","tag-j-mascis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2153","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2153"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2153\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2153"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2153"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2153"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}