Coming To Your Local Bandstand: Dinosaur Jr.

[Note: Yeah, we know Pitchfork posted this earlier today, but we wrote it Saturday afternoon and we're not throwing away our hard work. Formatting all those tour dates to look nice is a pain in the arse!] As the pace of rock reunions quickens with seemingly each successive month, and particularly with the recent revelation that the infamously dysfunctional trio The Police will this summer play to arenas filled with old people who paid grossly inflated ticket prices, it is increasingly easy to minimize the minor miracle of the reunion of Dinosaur Jr.'s original lineup. In its first life, the band's interpersonal problems became so acrimonious that they approached comical -- at least in hindsight. Our favorite moment of Lawrence Azerrad's excellent book "Our Band Could Be Your Life" is this description of friction between guitarist and sole constant member J Mascis and bassist Lou Barlow.

"'[Barlow] didn't really talk until he got his girlfriend,' says Mascis, "...and then he talked a lot. And then I was realizing from a lot of the things he was saying, 'Hmmm, maybe I don't like Lou.'"

That, of course, is all ancient history, as Dinosaur Jr. has since Voltron'd its original lineup back together and executed two successful reunion tours. And as we reported here previously, the group will issue May 1 its first set together since 1988. In interviews Barlow discusses openly how the band is still mostly The J Mascis Show, but even so the new set is the strongest under the Dinosaur Jr. brand since 1993's Where You Been, and Mascis' strongest since the 2001 J Mascis + The Fog tour de force More Light. To mark Fat Possum's release of the new set, appropriately titled Beyond, as well as the forthcoming DVD "Dinosaur Jr. Live In The Middle East," the band is touring North America. Full dates are below, and for a limited time tickets can be purchased via presale here. We've also got a second MP3 from the forthcoming set available for download below.

Dinosaur Jr. -- "Almost Ready" -- Beyond
[right click and save as]

[pre-order Beyond from Fat Possum here]

Dinosaur Jr.: InterWeb | MySpace | YouTube | Flickr

05/11 -- West Hollywood, CA -- The Troubador
05/12 -- West Hollywood, CA -- The Troubador
05/13 -- West Hollywood, CA -- The Troubador
05/15 -- San Francisco, CA -- Slim’s
05/16 -- San Francisco, CA -- Slim’s
05/17 -- Portland, OR -- Crystal Ballroom
05/18 -- Seattle, WA -- The Showbox
05/19 -- Olympia, WA -- Capitol Theatre
05/20 -- Bellingham, WA -- The Nightlight
05/22 -- Victoria, BC -- Sugar Nightclub
05/23 -- Vancouver, BC -- The Commodore Ballroom
05/25 -- Calgary, AB -- Macewan Ballroom
05/26 -- Edmonton, AB -- The Starlite Room
05/27 -- Saskatoon, SK -- The Odeon Events Centre
05/28 -- Winnipeg, MB -- Garrick Centre at the Marlborogh
05/29 -- Minneapolis, MN -- Triple Rock
05/30 -- Minneapolis, MN -- Triple Rock
05/31 -- Chicago, IL -- The Abbey
06/01 -- Chicago, IL -- The Abbey
06/02 -- Chicago, IL -- The Abbey
06/03 -- Ann Arbor, MI -- The Blind Pig
06/04 -- Ann Arbor, MI -- The Blind Pig
06/06 -- New York, NY -- Irving Plaza
06/07 -- New York, NY -- Irving Plaza
06/08 -- Toronto, ON -- Phoenix Concert Theatre
06/09 -- Montreal, PQ -- Club Soda