Addressing a two-year-old dispute regarding a synthetic video created for his solo track “Old Friends,” Dinosaur Jr. leader J Mascis broke his silence regarding machine intelligence in art. “Yeah, just some kid did it,” he explained regarding the visual project, continuing, “I thought it looked cool, so… Yeah, that’s dipping my toes into the… I don’t do much with videos.” Though the quiet guitarist paused throughout his explanation, he eventually conceded, “But yeah, I guess that’s a slippery slope.” Despite his conviction that automated systems do not belong in song creation, he acknowledged their inevitable presence, noting, “I guess we’re learning how to deal with it. And hopefully it won’t kill us all.”
That pragmatic outlook contrasts sharply with his passionate dedication to bone-rattling concert volume, exemplified by a recent gig inside the 280-capacity venue Baby’s All Right where he deployed three full speaker stacks. Rejecting click tracks and in-ear monitors, the musician believes concertgoers crave genuine sonic experiences. “I noticed the audience too seems more desperate for something kind of reality-based,” he observed, asserting, “We don’t have in-ear monitors or click tracks. We have amps and you know, just, I think some people are responding to the reality of it. Like they really need something that’s not, you know, computer-generated or
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