After having to reschedule due to getting sick late last year, Dinosaur Jr.’s J Mascis will be roaring back to life during a solo show at Underground Arts on Wednesday.
A little more than a year after releasing What Do We Do Now, Mascis is making up some solo dates he had to cancel late last year due to an illness. Now fully recouped, the iconic alt rock guitarist will be returning to Philly just months after playing a show with Dinosaur Jr. at the Wells Fargo Center while on tour with Weezer.
“Those [shows] were really like Groundhog Day,” Mascis said. “Every basketball stadium looks exactly the same when you’re standing on the stage. You have no idea where you could be.”
While Mascis will be the focus of the attention Wednesday night, those opening slots for Weezer saw Dino only getting about 25 minutes on stage each show.
“That vibe was just kind of like get as many songs in as you can in 25 minutes and don’t stop to even drink water, you just got to barrel through,” Mascis said. “Acoustic is a lot more scary, just standing there alone.”
On top of facing his fears on his latest run of shows, Mascis has also been in the studio with Dinosaur Jr. working on the follow-up to their 2021 release, Sweep It Into Space, which he said will feature a song that didn’t make it to his solo album.
“It was kind of on my mind, I’m like, ‘What is that song?’ I usually am imagining us playing the song on stage when considering if this is a good Dino song or not,” Mascis said. “It seemed like maybe it would be all right, so yeah, we’ve been recording that the other day.”
“I have a lot of riffs backed up that I was checking out for new Dino songs,” Mascis said. “I got some new guitar that seemed to have a lot of songs in it, so that was good. That’s always a dream to find some guitar you think has a lot of songs in it already. Maybe that’s why I buy so many guitars.”
Wednesday’s show will see him ditch the Jazzmasters and Marshall amp stacks for his Gibson acoustic, which he said “brings out different things in his playing.”
“An acoustic is so much different,” Mascis said. “Trying to play leads on an acoustic, it’s kind of hard, it’s challenging, but it’s better than not playing leads on acoustic.”
Tickets start at $35 plus an additional $9.81 in fees. Doors open at 8 p.m. and the show starts at 9. Purling Hiss will be opening.
