Dinosaur (Jr.) / You're Living All Over Me (SST / 1987)

Boston's steady decline as a record town has been the source of no little consternation to the few left to be bothered, but every so often a dedicated digger can still find a gem. Armageddon Records, risen from the ashes of Cambridge's legendary, defunct Twisted Village, purveys a fine selection of punk, garage, and metal LPs, new and used all mixed together in the bins as regrettably has become the fashion. I haven't turned up much here over the years and find the new/used toggling annoying, so I was making a perfunctory flip through the new arrivals when I found myself staring at a great favorite: Dinosaur Jr.'s breakthrough classic, You're Living All Over Me.

I came to this band and this record late, sometime after college, having missed the 90s era, post-Lou Barlow version of the band and their excellent albums during the grunge years, though I do remember hearing a lot about Green Mind at the time. Fish to water with this record, right? Not one that needs to grow on you. It's impossible to deny YLAOM's insane melodicism, and the carefully layered guitar parts just barely discernible through the crap production that gives the record it's unique texture. This record seems both influenced by and kin to early Meat Puppets in the way it manages to feel simultaneously sludgy and bright, and perhaps also in how J. Mascis and Curt Kirkwood manage to turn their imperfect voices into remarkably successful instruments that feel of a piece with the music.

I'm burying the lede, but the coolest thing about this record is that it's a true first pressing from 1987, with the band's original non-Juniorized name on the jacket. The short story: after recording their first, self-titled record as Dinosaur, they put out YLAOM only to be instantly hit with legal action by now-forgotten "supergroup" (shouldn't a band have to produce some worthwhile music to earn this tag?) the Dinosaurs, prompting the name change on subsequent pressings of this LP. Seeing this without the Jr. made me pull a double-take, then grin like an idiot who's just found candy.

The second coolest thing about this record, or maybe the coolest depending on your perspective, is the SST catalog booklet that came inside, still in mint condition. Aside from being a kind of time machine back to the days when people spent real attention designing print ephemera, it also helps date this pressing doubly. Everything is available only on LP and cassette, excepting an insert page headed "Compact Disc-O-Rama," featuring SST's earliest CD offerings (unsurprisingly the biggest names on the roster). All in all, this is a hell of an item, a cornerstone of any punk/alt collection. Though I'll bet Green Mind is impossible to find on vinyl.

*Update* I just reread this post and think it sounds too bitchy about Armageddon, which is a very cool record store with a great deal of good stock and very friendly owners who assured me that I could return this record no problem if I encountered any trouble with it. As some of you know, there are many record stores I'd be happy to shit on for being poorly run, stocked, or organized, but Armageddon isn't one of them. Go buy something from them.