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This Ain’t No CBGB, This Ain’t No Dinosaur Jr.
A True Story of a Wannabe Punk Rocker
“Are you the bass player in Dinosaur Jr.?” a young woman asked me with the air of having gathered a mountain of courage to approach me. We were at a Descendents concert atMaxwell’s in Hoboken, NJ, one unbearably hot and sweaty night in 1987. I was 21.
I had seen her looking at me quizzically, as if she was trying to determine whether she recognized me, and perhaps weighing more heavily, whether she should say something to me.
“Only for one night,” I said, laughing.
Two weeks earlier, I had been waiting to see Dinosaur Jr. at CBGB. I was in love with their most recent album, “You’re Living All Over Me.” While CBGB was the undisputed birthplace of punk rock, that night it seemed small and empty. I was home for the summer from college, going on solo adventures. That night I was alone at CBGB. For a while, I really was alone — no one else was there. No audience. No band, no crew. No one was setting up for the concert. I asked the person at the door when the concert was going to start. “In about a half an hour.”
More than a half an hour went by, and while people started to trickle in, there were still no signs that there would be a concert. I went to talk to the person at the door again, and while he was trying to reassure me that…
