SOUNDTRACK OF MYLIFE
‘How can a guy sing like that? What kind of music is this?’
album (1992, Island). I thought, ‘How can a guy sing like that? What kind of music is this?’ It was confusing, because you knew you liked a lot of it, but it also left you feeling scared somehow. Then I went backwards to early records like Closing Time, when he was a wino making sweetly romantic jazz ballads. You listen to those two records back to back and you think, ‘God – what a transformation!’ You can’t help but wonder what happened to Waits in between.
‘‘I also really loved Beck’s Odelay. It pressed all the right buttons for me, mixing hip-hop, folk, cool grooves, strange production techniques and throwing it all in a blender together. That record paved the way for us thinking, ‘Look, there’s an audience for this kind of weirdly diverse music, so maybe people will like what we’re doing too’.’’ Gomez play at Auckland’s Power Station on October 23 and Wellington Opera House on October 24, with Julia Deans as support. While most reconsitituted alt-rock acts merely become live tribute acts to their glorious past, Dinosaur Jr defy the odds by making worthwhile new music. IBet on Sky is the third great LP since this fractious Massachusetts band reformed in 2005, and while it’s not as wiggedout as 2009’s The Farm, its slower, sadder vibe is just as emotionally potent. There are scattered keyboards now and occasional outbreaks of acoustic guitar, but the key ingredients haven’t changed since 1984: Lou Barlow’s deceptively melodic basslines, Murph’s heavy percussive barrage, and the careering solos of unlikely guitar god J Mascis, whose fuzzed-out riffs surge and swirl around his wistful high creak of a voice until you’re left imagining Neil Young trudging home through a Canadian blizzard. Standouts? Watch the Corners and What was That? provide aggressive guitar chug and sweet melancholy vocal, Pierce the Morning Rain is a breathless punk pearler overlaid with unreasonable shredding, and I Know it Oh So Well surfs towards nirvana on a warm wave of wah-wah guitar.