Dinosaur Jr. Releases Candid New Video For “Knocked Around”

Everybody loves a good reunion… or at least the believe that they do.  The truth of the matter is that band reunions can often be a lot like the Stephen King novel-turned-major-motion-picture (starring Bing Crosby’s grandaughter Denise “Lt. Tasha Yar” Crosby), Pet Semetary, where the obsession with wanting to see something come back to life so badly outweighs the knowledge that they will, most likely, be little more than a twisted ghost of their former selves after being resurrected from the grave.  Pavement did it the right way in 2010; knocking out a run of shows consisting of massive sets packed with more than 2 dozen songs, and then, when that was over, simply going back to their own lives and other projects.  It’s a rare occasion that a group can reform with such successful results, and even rarer when they can manage to sustain it for any substantial amount of time.  Even Ween has opted to restrict themselves to little pockets of shows and festival gigs throughout the year, rather than risking the strain of embarking on any full on tours together.  But perhaps the rarest beast of all are acts like Meat Puppets and Dinosaur Jr who have managed to resurface with more on their minds than simply rehashing the past, instead choosing to keep pushing out brand new material and moving forward.  More than that, it’s new material that’s actually really good!!  Great, even.  The thing about Dinosaur that sets them even further apart, however, is that they are doing it with all 3 original founding members.  Even crazier is the fact that, when they reformed in 2005, bassist/vocalist Lou Barlow had been out of the group for 16 years, parting ways in 1989, with drummer, Murph, following suit only 4 years later.  Now 12 years, 2 live albums (one present era and one from 1987), and 4 critically acclaimed studio albums into their second coming, Dinosaur Jr continues to defy the odds, juggling their own notable solo projects with some of the strongest collective material of their career.

Last year’s Give A Glimpse Of What Yer Not is the latest effort from the garner universal acclaim, and their live tour supporting the album has been received just as favorably.  Now, as the group begins their next installment of North American dates, they’ve also dropped a brand new video for the album cut “Knocked Around,” the content of which is comprised of footage from their most recent US tour.  Shot in black and white by their “longtime friend, O,” the footage was, apparently, filmed during heir live sets without the band’s knowledge, providing a candid and intimate look behind the scenes.

O offers up the following insight regarding the video:

“This song is one of my favorites from Give A Glimpse Of What Yer Not. It is everything amazing about Dinosaur Jr.: soft yet hard with J’s awesome sense of vocal melody and a heavy dose of guitar schralping! I shot the entire video live while on the most recent US tour, and in slow-mo and black and white to capture the way I see tour life. This is a very hardworking band – Dinosaur Jr. had no idea I was doing this, so what you see is very honest and all live, shot at many venues across the US with different types of cameras. “Knocked Around” is my take, and what I get from the song about being far away from family. The beginning of the video is my favorite section, with J’s son Rory guitar teching for J onstage. Lou’s sock dance/art is pretty rad, also. Thirty years after the start of this great band, they continue to release amazing albums – one right after the other.”

Check out the video below followed by a full list of North American dates