Pitchfork

Years ago, when college rock heroes Dinosaur Jr. went the way of the, uh, Passenger Pigeon, virtually no one expected they'd ever hear from the monolithic trio again. Flash forward to 2006: you're all wrong.

Not only are J Mascis, Lou Barlow, and the lovable Murph back on the live circuit as Dinosaur Jr., them boys is cookin' up some news tunes right now at Mascis's Massachusetts pad.

Pitchfork caught up with Murph recently, who revealed that he and his bandmates "have some frameworks and outlines [for songs] going". The primary focus for these lumbering giants right now is preparation for their world tour, announced a couple weeks back, but Murph kindly told us that the cogs are slowly coming into place at last for new Dinosaur Jr. material.

"We're playing together," said Murph. "We're at J's, just kind of hanging out, getting ready, jamming around...we're keeping our summer pretty open, so we're going to try to work on [new] stuff then."

He went on: "We're trying, but I can't really say it's concrete enough that we have this many songs and there's going to be a release date now. You have to remember that we haven't worked in this capacity in fifteen years or more, so it takes a little time to kind of gel and see how things go. It's not as easy as just like, 'Oh, let's get in there and bang out another record.'"

Fans shouldn't count on hearing these fledgling tunes on Dino's spring tour, however: "I don't know if we're ready for that. That might be a train wreck if we tried to pull that out."

Rapport's the word 'round J's place these days. "It's been pretty cool [with] Lou and his wife and the baby. We're actually staying at J's a little while this week which is pretty unprecedented...it was definitely a big family vibe. We all went out to dinner a couple of times and it was really cool."

The prehistoric power-trio are also putting together a DVD, documenting several of last fall's reunion gigs, which Murph hopes will arrive in late summer. Moreover, Dinosaur Jr. were chosen to curate a day of this May's All Tomorrow's Parties extravaganza, tapping Broken Social Scene, Mission of Burma, and Dead Meadow, among others. "J has been really keen on that," says Murph.

No asteroids admitted:

02-26 Tokyo, Japan - Shibuya-AX
02-27 Tokyo, Japan - Shibuya-AX
03-01 Osaka, Japan - Namba Hatch
03-02 Nagoya, Japan - Diamond Hall
03-05 Perth, Australia - Club Capitol
03-07 Byron Bay, Australia - Great Northern
03-08 Brisbane, Australia - The Tivoli
03-09 Sydney, Australia - Metro Theatre
03-10 Sydney, Australia - Metro Theatre
03-11 Melbourne, Australia - The Corner Hotel
03-12 Melbourne, Australia - The Corner Hotel
03-13 Auckland, New Zealand - Shadows
03-29 Dallas, TX - Gypsy Tea Room
03-30 Austin, TX - Stubb's Bar-B-Q
03-31 Houston, TX - Warehouse Live
04-01 New Orleans, LA - House of Blues
04-02 Tallahassee, FL - The Moon
04-03 Jacksonville, FL - Freebird
04-04 Myrtle Beach, SC - House of Blues
04-05 Washington, DC - 9:30 Club
04-06 Carrboro, NC - Cat's Cradle
04-07 Asheville, NC - The Orange Peel
04-08 Atlanta, GA - The Variety Playhouse
04-09 Nashville, TN - City Hall
04-10 Memphis, TN - Young Avenue Deli
04-11 Indianapolis, IN - The Vogue
04-12 Columbia, MO - The Blue Note
04-13 Lawrence, KS - Liberty Hall
04-14 Boulder, CO - Fox Theatre
04-16 Salt Lake City, UT - The Depot
04-18 Eugene, OR - WOW Hall
04-19 San Francisco, CA - Great American Music Hall
04-20 San Francisco, CA - Great American Music Hall
04-21 Hollywood, CA - Troubadour
04-22 Hollywood, CA - Troubadour
05-19 Camber, England - Camber Sands Holiday Centre (All Tomorrow's Parties) *

* with Mission of Burma, Dead Meadow, Broken Social Scene, The Brian Jonestown Massacre, Lilys, The Bevis Frond, Eater, The Magik Markers, Tracy + the Plastics, Herman Düne, Mt. Eerie

Dinosaur Jr.'s resident t-rex, J Mascis, will take his new stoner-rock project Witch out on the town next month. Get Jurassic wit' it:

03-23 Brooklyn, NY - Northsix #

# with Panthers, Titan

And, finally: Why keep trucking, Murph? "[It's] the same as the reason to just keep going and do more touring, really...things just worked. We weren't sure how this reunion would go and things have gelled pretty well and we're pretty comfortable with each other, so we might as well just keep going and see how far we can go."

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