Hey Doublemint people, you blew it. This was your jam and you totally blew it.

Sometimes in our RSS-haze we forget that “indie rock” wasn’t always so fashionable. In fact, if you go back to early nineties, the style was a lack of style, and not in some “I’m going to wear this because no one would think that I would actually wear this” sort of way. (Look at you Mom jeans.) Rather, it was earnest, as if all indie rockers of the ’90s merely woke up, saw their jeans and put them on. It was honest. It was real. Often, it was pretty ugly. While the slacker style has surely come back into play by kids whose first CD was Bush Sixteen Stone, it just doesn’t feel as “authentic” as it did back then. Times have changed kids, but the classic t-shirt, Levi’s and All-Stars will never die. It just will never look as cool as it did on these dudes.

You could even be a fat dude in shorts and that was cool…even in Europe! (Fun fact, pretty sure Ira Kaplan has been swapping between the same two t-shirts since Yo La Tengo began in 1984.)

As Pavement demonstrate, your clothes did not have to “fit,” let alone be “form fitting.” Also note, white long sleeve tee. God I miss the ’90s.

Sonic Youth wear coats. Long leather jackets, black and purple nylon ski parkas and denim jackets with leather collars.

As for video fashion, Chavez may have put it all out on the table when they shot their video for “Break Up Your Band” on a trans-gender hosted talk show featuring suburban moms, stripping firemen, kimono clad rickshaw drivers, loin cloth covered dudes in bear masks, and a bevy of gigantic collars.

Something tells me Veruca Salt will opt against the floral crop tank top when they inevitably reunite. (Notice the gold microphones. Oh, Glastonbury.)

Lou Barlow in Germany in 1995 looks like my fifth grade Earth Science teacher in Germany in 1995.

On the other hand, J. Mascis looks pretty much exactly the same.

Story by Samuel Duke

Dinosaur Jr. are old. You can see it in J. Mascis’s hair, once a seemingly never-washed curtain of stringy brown that has turned a greyish white. Drummer Murph, once the band’s resident hippie, is bald, and Mascis and bassist Lou Barlow both have, gulp, kids. But as of today they are in the midst of a grueling tour routing through Japan, Europe and the US to support their new (and second since reuniting in 2005) album Farm. Can we even call it a reunion anymore now that we’re on the second record? Maybe not, but considering the fact that Mascis and Barlow (well, mostly Barlow) spent the better part of fifteen years hating each other’s guts, it still seems like a gift that they have an official and regularly updated MySpace page. And that they’re an almost better band than they were before.

Who knows how to explain this. The years have made Barlow and Murph better players, and Masics’ obsessiveness has waned, putting the others at greater ease. But they’re not exactly best friends. “We don’t take field trips,” Barlow tells me. “The music is really where the chemistry I enjoy with them is.” He’s calling on release day from Los Angeles, where he lives with his wife and daughter, and on this morning, is probably cranking out a ton of phoners while the band are between gigs at the Troubadour. When I ask how the two months of Farm sessions felt at Mascis’ home studio, he says, “I like making records, but I think the way Dinosaur does it, fun isn’t really a part of it.” But fun is most certainly a part of listening. The band’s greatest assets—Mascis’ gushing open chords and couchsurfer whine, Barlow’s steady hand, Murph’s barely capable drumming—are not hard things to love. They are not difficult noisemakers, they are what amounts to a punk rock Crazy Horse with lyrics about feelings that don’t sound wussy.

The first time I heard Dinosaur Jr. was in “Video Days,” Spike Jonze’s 1991 skateboard film that is regarded by some as The Godfather of the genre. Their cover of the Cure’s “Just Like Heaven” played during Rudy Johnson’s part. Since that moment, Dinosaur and skateboarding were inseparably linked in my brain, both regarded as gilded nuggets of Gen X slackerdom. So when their new video for “Over It” hit the web, with Mascis on a board and Barlow and Murph on BMX bikes, shredding LA street scenes like pros, I think my medulla wet itself. And yet, Barlow seems nonplussed. “The video was definitely a nod in that direction,” he says. “I’ve never ridden a skateboard in my life. J was sort of the first person I knew who sported it and I never actually saw him ride, I just saw him carrying it. At the hardcore shows we would go to, people would be doing it, but to me it always seemed forced. ‘Like, OK dude, you’re trying to ride up this wall?’”

This saltiness must make them who they are. If they were too eager, too nice, too “right on,” it wouldn’t be the same. They would be like Sonic Youth: still putting out okay records but also doing questionable things like appearing on Gilmore Girls and making deals with Starbucks. Dinosaur would never do that, mainly because they don’t care enough. They just want to play. Loudly. When I ask if making records is, at this point, a means to an end to play live, Barlow is quick to answer in the affirmative. “For now it is. If we go make another one, maybe we’ll tweak the way we work.” This is crazy to me, that one of the best records of the year exists ostensibly to keep them from getting bored on stage. I want to say it cheapens things a little, but if it means we can continue to hear new Dinosaur music, and have it be this good, I couldn’t care less.

Hey, good news: Lou Barlow’s got a new album coming via Merge Records on October 6. Trusty press release elves tell us that aside from being a hybrid between Sebadoh and Dinosaur Jr (weeeird) Goodnight Unknown features Dale Crover of The Melvins on drums as well as some contributions from Imaad Wasif of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Lou Barlow and the Missingmen will be on on tour this fall opening for Barlow’s other band Dino Jr. That dude’s going to be tired.

Lou Barlow + the Missingmen on Tour:

09.30 Toronto, ON @ Phoenix Concert Theatre
10.01 Montreal, QUE @ Pop Montreal Festival
10.02 Cambridge, MA @ Middle East
10.03 Cambridge, MA @ Middle East
10.04 Clifton Park, NY @ Northern Lights
10.07 New Haven, CT @ Toad’s Place
10.08 Washington, DC @ 9:30 Club
10.09 Philadelphia, PA @ Theatre of the Living Arts
10.10 Columbus, OH @ Newport Music Hall
10.11 Pontiac, MI @ The Crofoot
10.13 Madison, WI @ The Majestic Theatre
10.14 St. Louis, MO @ The Pageant
10.15 Chicago, IL @ Vic Theatre
10.16 Louisville, KY @ Headliner’s Music Hall
10.17 Atlanta, GA @ Variety Playhouse
10.26 Kansas City, MO @ The Beaumont Club
10.27 Omaha, NE @ Slowdown
10.29 Boulder, CO @ Boulder Theater
10.30 Fort Collins, CO @ Aggie Theatre
11.03 Tempe, AZ @ Marquee Theatre
11.04 Solana Beach, CA @ Belly Up Tavern
11.06 San Francisco, CA @ The Fillmore
11.07 Portland, OR @ Wonder Ballroom

It’s no secret that in today’s musical climate, touring is where the money is at. This may explain why The Walkmen, whose most recent record, You & Me, came out late last summer, have decided to tour this summer with Cass McCombs, whose most recent record, Catacombs, comes out this summer, and play the SummerStage in Central Park with Dinosaur Jr, whose most recent album, Farm, comes out tomorrow, two days after the official start of this summer, in August, which is right smack dab in the middle of this summer. To be honest, You & Me didn’t really hit us until early fall, so maybe this actually makes sense since that album was clearly made for more summery type circumstances. Full tour dates after the jump.

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