Martin & An Elastic Star

I posted recently about this year's new LP from J Mascis, 'What Do We Do Now?'. And, as is often the case, buying that record then started a chain of buying more records.

The first thing I realised was that I had completely missed the last J Mascis LP, 'Elastic Days'. I vaguely remember that this came out just before I went on my first trip to the States, and I was holding a copy in Rough Trade in Brooklyn trying to decide whether to buy it or not. Something put me off at the time. It may have been the price or it may have been that I wasn't sure it was a colour vinyl copy. Whatever the reason, I didn't buy it, and then after that I never actually got around to buying it or listening to it at all.

This is the US pressing on clear with purple swirl vinyl. I think it looks great.

Next I went back to the 'Tied To A Star' LP from 2014. I bought one of these when it came out, but the copy I bought was the UK pressing. For the past few years, Sub Pop press records in the US and also at a separate plant in Europe. So I decided to pick up a copy of the US pressing. I figure I'll sell my Euro pressing at some point.

I then also picked up a copy of the 'Martin + Me' LP from 1996. This was J's first solo record, and contains mainly acouctic versions of Dinosaur Jr songs, as well as a few cover songs (Carly Simon, Greg Sage, Lynyrd Skynyrd). I was curious as to who Martin is/was, but apparently that was a refernce to the guitar he was using at the time. Apparently this album wasn't particularly well received when it came out, but I really like it, as it contains a bunch of Dinosaur Jr songs from various records and they are all great songs.

This is an original pressing from 1996 on Reprise Records, which is a subsidiary of a major label.

As much as I love Dinosaur Jr, I don't feel the need to own more than one copy of each J Mascis LP. So now I've nearly got to where I want to be, with a US pressing of each LP. I say 'nearly' as there is one more record I need to complete this objective. Hopefully I'll get there soon...