Dinosaur Jr.

Deep Wound broke up in mid-1984. Cosloy had dropped out of the University of Massachusetts Amherst to focus on running his independent record label, Homestead Records, and promised Mascis that if he were to make a record Homestead would release it. Mascis wrote a number of songs by himself and showed them to Barlow, to whom he offered the bassist position. While Barlow had played guitar in Deep Wound, he accepted as he was impressed by the material Mascis was creating. Barlow said the songs "were fucking brilliant...They were so far beyond. I was still into two-chord songs and basic stuff like 'I'm so sad.' While I was really into my own little tragedy, J was operating in this whole other panorama." Mascis enlisted vocalist Charlie Nakajima, also formerly of Deep Wound, and drummer Emmett Patrick Murphy, otherwise known as Murph, to complete the band. Mascis explained the concept behind the group as "ear-bleeding country." The band was initially named Mogo, and played their first show on University of Massachusetts Amherst campus in the first week of September 1984. Nakajima went into an anti-cop rant during the performance, and Mascis was so appalled by his behavior at the show that he disbanded the group the next day. A few days later Mascis called Barlow and Murph to form a new band without telling Nakajima; "I was kind of too wimpy to kick him out, exactly," Mascis later admitted, and explained, "Communicating with people has been a constant problem in the band." The trio named themselves Dinosaur, and Mascis and Barlow took over lead vocal duties.