J Mascis And The Fog / Dead Confederate

My flourish back into the world of alternative nineties grunge gigs continues from last night's Alice In Chains with none other than J Mascis of Dinosaur JR fame and his band The Fog. This, at Manchester MoHo's small but well decorated venue is their only date up North (well, past the Midlands anyway), brought about by his two weekends back to back at the ATP December festivals.

We enter the venue to hear what can be described as a local band filling in the time. They are chirpy blokes with a bit of Simple Minds about them, but the guitar player does no realise he is out of tune and hitting many bum notes. For the type of music on the bill tonight these guys stick out like a sore thumb. Sorry, but I could not find out their name; can't ask them then say they're crap on here can I?



Anyway the next band are more like it; Dead Confederate from Athens, Georgia. Dark, moody and with whaling guitar solos these guys set the mood perfectly for the might J. There is a hint of country splashed around the place, think a cross between My Morning Jacket and Nirvana.

The way the band build up their songs into a huge fireball of melodies and dirty overtures is strangely soothing, though loud as hell in this venue. 'Get Out' and 'Heavy Petting' are excellent and untamed tracks, and single 'The Rat' is a true stand out track. The band go all in at the end for 'Tortured-Artist Saint', playing their instruments like they are trying to keep them alive after a fatal smash.

J Mascis And The Fog do not hang about, they are on-stage as soon as the mismatched drum kit has been set up. J's huge stack of Marshall amps are primed and ready to go, as is his huge collection of various guitar pedals. He is joined by Dave Schools on drums and Kyle Spence on bass as The Fog.



There is not much in the way of communication with the crowd, just the odd hello and thanks for coming. The rest of the communication is through the sheer power of Mascis' guitar and amp stack, Schools' powerful drumming (I see him wrapping up blisters on his fingers) and Spence's steady bass and high pitched vocal harmonies.

You can see in Mascis' face that he can truly feel the music, pulling off incredibly complex guitar solos without once glancing at his six string. The music travels from the pedals, up through the grunge legend and out through the speakers, and will knock you over if you let it. I have been to several Dinosaur Jr gigs and have had to reside to wearing ear plugs; my ears can not take it anymore. Tonight this makes the show sound really muffled, but removing the plugs for just a second nearly makes my head explode. I must be surrounded by deaf people who feel the bass and dance, otherwise they are all freaks of nature with superhuman hearing abilities!

The songs we get are truly out of this world. Not only do we get songs from 'Free So Free', 'Martin And Me' and 'More Light', The Fog's (well nearly J Mascis' solo) three albums, we get songs from Dinosaur Jr's albums 'Green Mind' and 'You're Living all over Me', much to everyone's joy. Seeing as J recorded the majority (if not all) of these albums himself, layering the instruments and vocals like Dave Grohl did on the Foo Fighter's debut, he can play as many as he wants. The show has just got doubly as good. 'Lung', 'Sameday' and 'Wagon' are well worth the 100 mile round trip alone.



I am gutted that I had to leave when they returned to do a final song for the encore, but up to that point that show could not have got any better anyway. Those heading to 10 Years Of ATP Festival this weekend will have a great time catching these guys, make sure you do.

The Lung
Set Us Free
I'm Not Fine
Thumb
Sameday
Ammaring
Everybody Lets Me Down
The Wagon
So What Else Is Now

FUTURE GIGS

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