Bug is the last record you'd expect Dinosaur Jr. to dissect on stage. The seminal indie rock band's original lineup broke up during the 1988 album's supporting tour—a split that lasted until 2005 when the band reformed on good-enough terms. The resurrected partnership has toured and produced two strong albums, and now the group is exhuming Bug, with all its attendant emotional baggage, for a small run of shows in which it'll play the record front to back. That's not all: The band has tapped Henry Rollins, one of its biggest and highest-profile supporters, to interview it on stage each night.

The tour stops by the 9:30 Club tomorrow with an opening set from OFF!—the new hardcore supergroup led by Keith Morris, who shares with Rollins the distinction of having once fronted Black Flag. If this is all sounding like another tribute to Our Band Could Be Your Life, there's more: The show will also be filmed for a tentative live DVD by iconic L.A. punk filmmaker Dave Markey.

But Dinosaur Jr.'s Lou Barlow isn't necessarily feeling nostalgic, and he's definitely not feeling bitter, even though he was famously dismissed from the band by frontman J Mascis after the first leg of the original Bug tour. “I’d probably rather watch it,” Barlow says of the on-stage interview. “But who knows, it could really evolve into something…It’s an unknown thing, so I’m as nervous as anybody else probably is about it.”

He's comfortable with the material, he says, no matter what the context. "I mean, we’re working on our seventh year here reunited," Barlow says. "We’re workers. When there’s a plan, we follow through. We’ve taken it as far as making new records, and, at this point, we’re pretty strong. So doing the Bug record is kind of not really a problem.”

This isn't the first album that Dinosaur Jr. has revived in whole—the catalyst for the band's ongoing reunion was a 2005 performance of 1987's You're Living All Over Me—but Bug is different because not everything on it was meant to be performed live. "I do think there are some songs on Bug where I remember we recorded them and it was like ‘No we’re never gonna do that, that’s too weird,'" says Barlow.

The shows shouldn't be seen as any sort of landmark, Barlow cautions. “Not to be negative about it, but it’s just typical record-collector necrophilia. If Velvet Underground were to have reunited in 1984 and done Velvet Underground and Nico front to back, I would’ve been fucking psyched. It would have been great, like ‘Woo!’ So to me it’s kind of like a gesture for fans. I don’t find the whole thing unusual because I think exhuming the past and rediscovering music that’s happened before is just part of being a music fan.

"There are bands that are fortunate enough not to be left totally behind and in the past, and we’re lucky to be one of those bands.”

—

1988 was a strange time for Dinosaur Jr.  “By the time Bug came out, it’s not like we were making enemies, we were doing really well in Germany and England, and our tours in the states were getting bigger and bigger,” Barlow says. “In our own minds…we had already peaked, we had already become as popular as we’d ever wanted to be. The fight was over. The first two records represented getting the band over on people and not getting banned from clubs, all those torturous tours, that time was over.”

Bug was the second record the band released on the influential SST label—also home t0 Black Flag, Meat Puppets, Minutemen, Sonic Youth, and other '80s indie heavyweights. Like many fans, Rollins remembers falling for Bug's "Freak Scene." “I had heard them on the radio with the first Homestead record so I knew who they were,” Rollins says. “I didn’t have the money to buy their album at the time, but I knew of them. I just remember 'Freak Scene' coming out in 1988. I spent most of that year out on the road touring, and that song was everywhere—every club, the BBC was playing it, it was just one of those songs you can’t shake. You wonder why J cusses two times in it because otherwise it’s one of those inescapably catchy songs, and it was an album that drew a lot of people to that band.”

Rollins has remained a disciple of the band—and especially of Mascis—since. “It’s just music I really like,” he says. “And I think they still write really good songs…There’s still a lot of naked vulnerability in [Mascis’s] lyrics that I really appreciate. Because it would be fairly impossible for me to articulate anything like that. I don’t know if I would be able to put it into writing anymore. I just wouldn’t want to put that out there like I would when I was 22. J remains fearless, and I think that’s very very brave and big of him and I admire it. So I pay attention to anything he does.”

When Dinosaur Jr approached Rollins about joining the group for the East Coast shows, he agreed with one reservation. “What I want to do is keep my fandom out of the way,” he says, laughing. “When you’re a fan of the band maybe you’re not the best person to interview that band. So knowing that, I am going to very delicately and adroitly keep myself out of that and just get the information...'Cause I’m 50 and I’m sure the Dinosaur Jr. guys aren’t that far behind me. The audience could very well have been two years old, five years old when Bug was released, so maybe that era might not have the same context. I want to see if they can help the audience understand where they were at, what was relevant at the time.”

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Fawning aside, it's tough to understate the sheer force Keith Morris brings onstage, even though he's well into his 50s. A show that unites two iconic Black Flag frontmen on one bill might be worth a fit of nostalgia. “It’s really funny just being on tour with two ex-Black Flag vocalists,” Barlow says. “Not to mention Henry’s S.O.A was a huge deal to me as a mail-ordering, first-wave hardcore kid."

Rollins doesn't find it quite so surreal. “I get to see Keith sing every night—Black Flag's original—and best—singer, and also just one of the best frontmen ever,” Rollins says. “I mean, he’s a fascinating dude with more charisma than he knows what to do with. He’s the real thing, he doesn’t have to try. He’s like Iggy. He just shows up and it’s real.”

Perhaps feeling that this weekend's hardcore revival hadn’t quite come full circle, Dinosaur Jr. enlisted Markey (1991: The Year Punk Broke) to film Saturday night’s show in its entirety, eschewing the other dates and venues in favor of 9:30’s open, camera-friendly room. In addition to his own crew, Markey will provide six fans with cameras, the prize for winning his "In the Hands of the Fans" contest.

Barlow doesn't mind the cameras while he does his work. “His stuff is pretty casual, so I’m not sure how much pressure it would really add,” he said. “But I’ll do my best.”

Dinosaur Jr. performs Bug at the 9:30 Club tomorrow at 8:30 p.m. $30.

If anyone refuses to be pushed around, it's Iggy Pop. With "Raw Power," Iggy's heroin-propelled middle finger extends as far as ever, and The Stooges hold it down behind him.

Henry Rollins knows what you're feeling, and he's pissed, too. In fact, if anyone has ever been  anger incarnate, it's him. Black Flag's "Nervous Breakdown" ought to sum up your concerns.

Before you light that match to take the whole building out (maybe you saw Office Space one too many times), consider letting D.C.'s The Points take it down for you. "Rock N Roll No Rules" has enough unbridled punk rock fervor to set the whole place on fire. See for yourself at The Velvet Lounge on Friday, but leave the gasoline at home.

How did you earn the nickname Giant J?

I’m a large character. It started from years back. I don’t wanna promote fistfighting, but I’m a little guy that will probably kick a big guy's ass. I always wanna be as big as possible. Everything about me and what I’m doing is bigger than it should be.

"Giant J" has nothing to do with THC?
The joint part of it...no. But that would kick in at any moment because there is always a joint hanging out of my mouth.

I'm really confused about your ideology. You guys are from the Northwest, but then you were a band in Southern California, but now you live in Las Vegas. Meanwhile, you are funky, but you're also positive punks, but also Rastas—
When you get into Black Flag or the Circle Jerks or the Sex Pistols, they weren’t necessarily negative. Maybe during their time they didn’t have a Hot Topic making their style cool. They were perceived negatively, but when you get into what they were telling kids to do, they weren’t negative. “God Save the Queen” is negative, but it is an issue for that time.

[The author contemplates possible positive meanings of the Sex Pistols sarcastic anthem "God Save the Queen" and supposes that, in a way, that anthem could be interpreted positively had the Sex Pistols not represented (and lived) total nihilism).] So you’re saying there’s a positivity in the negativity of the message?
There’s a negativity to be found in that moment, but that negativity was spawned by...the government of their time…I don’t think they were trying to say that we need to live in a world that’s worse than the one we live in now. I think they had rightful complaints and were singing in hopes of changing that.

We have a song called "Fight the World" on our first album. People take it as a negative thing…if you don’t hear what I’m talking about, you can put negative overtones on it. But it’s not negative. I want [kids] to fight back. I'm not saying they should grab pitchforks and put in it in the chest of every guy with a suit. [I'm saying they should] be Thomas Jefferson.

But you are also Rastas—
We just happen to have dreadlocks. I am not a Rasta—I’m not an anything. My mother is a Buddhist, my dad is a Green Beret. I’m on both sides of the fence. I’m fully willing to take a deep breath and tackle problems like a logical man. If you’re a drunken asshole at a show, I will knock you the fuck out. I don’t have a religion. I don’t believe we have answers to “What are we here for?”

What about your geography?
I'm from the West Coast. I’m from Southern California...We love reggae, but we appreciate the white boy's West Coast. Jack Johnson, Sublime…that’s reggae, but if you take that shit to Jamaica, they ain’t having it.

Our ideology is tattooed on all of our arms. "Think free, live free." That’s a vague statement trying to do a interview about it. I know that’s a cliché, but it’s a cliché because it’s true.

So you're a positivist. A humanist.
We’ll take that.

But what about Vegas?
This band started as a joke to open up for another band. The joke became my fantasy lived out.

Southern Cali was my home, [but] I owned a 1,000-cap venue called the Old Shipwreck in Tacoma. [Giant J relates the FunkyJahPunkys epic genesis story: the head chef of the Old Shipwreck is "Mr. Black," the FJP's guitarist. After the band formed, it relocated to Southern California.] I got home and was looking for the scene I grew up in. The scene I was looking for wasn’t there anymore. We started playing where we could—playing Vegas once a month—and we found it here.

Some of the most hippie motherfuckers that I deal with are here in Vegas. There are drum circles in Red Rock. Vegas is a huge melting pot. It's a loving community that I dig a lot.

We don’t live on the Strip. We’re not down on the Strip hanging out looking for hookers...we live on an acre 8 miles from the strip. One of the houses is for the band, the other is for my wife, mother-in-law, and daughter. We all work together and live in one place and make it possible. Once a month, we host a PCP Family Barbecue to prove that Vegas isn’t the question you asked. [Author's note: "PCP" doesn't refer to the popular arylcyclohexylamine derivative, but to Pacific Coast Pirates, the FJP's Vegas-based record label.]

If I’m ever down on shit to write about, I just go to the strip on a Saturday night. I just go see the people that didn’t mean to spend their mortgage. When you put that much greed and sin all in one spot, you see some visible negativity. The best negativity is at the gas station at Stateline. That’s where you see the losers really losing. You see a poor guy with his wife and kids and see how bad every decision he made that weekend turned out.

I think I’ve been in that gas station a couple of times. [Author's note: this is, literally and figuratively, true.]
I haven’t had a drunk in nine years. I was a full-blown ulcered alcoholic at 22.

How’d you get out of it?
Hitting rock bottom. Seeing as bad as I could foreseeable be while knowing I had so much love and opportunity available to me.

I grew up in a Partyville, I knew the right people. I could do anything I wanted. My brother was older than me and involved in
selling everything. I partied hard. I love drinking to this very day. God, I wish I could have a drink...Alcohol owns me, bro. I drink a 12-pack of nonalcoholic beers at every show.

That's hardcore.
We tell every venue to have it. I’d love to have a real beer, but I’d have 12 shots of tequila afterward.

How did you guys get involved with Ice-T for the song "Corporate Takeover?"
One of the bands on PCP—a band called Colombyne—has a 400-pound rapper Pauly Mac used to be with 187. He lives in Vegas…he's a nephew of Ice-t. Ice put him through college. That was the personal connection that made this possible. Ice-T gave me a small chance for people to notice…if not for Ice,
you wouldn’t be talking to me from Washington, D.C.

[Author's note: Giant J is right. The author—a huge fan of Body Count, O.G. Original Gangster, the film New Jack City, and the survivor of a mosh-related injury incurred at a Body Count show at the Trocadero Club in Philadelphia in December 1993—received a press release from PCP Records in re: Ice-T's appearance on the FJP song "Corporate Takeover," contacted Giant J in the hope of interviewing Ice-T, and only requested to interview Giant J after finding his lifestyle, ideology, and general modus operandi, if not his aesthetics, diverting. In this small way, Giant J is a postmodern American hero: He, an artist who desires attention, has found a found a way to get it, and received it.]

Photographs of the author by Darrow Montgomery

Because I wrote about Title Tracks' versions of songs by The Flamin' Groovies and The Merseybeats earlier this week, and because Bob Dylan's truly atrocious new disc of Christmas standards leaked yesterday, I've been thinking a lot about covers.

Let's put aside the illustrious history of ill-advised tributes (read: the entire Me First and the Gimme Gimmes oeuvre). A good cover can both satisfy a simple, dorky impulse—to hear one artist you admire spin another in an interesting way—and prove rather instructional. For example, it can tell you that Title Tracks frontman John Davis is probably a sucker for semi-obscure gems (he is), as well as a student of infectious, pop-classicist hooks. With that in mind, I've collected some recent covers by local artists.

My short list, after the jump, is fairly folk- and indie-centric, and by no means complete. Tell me what I missed in the comments.

These United States and Vandaveer—the folky side project of  TUS's bassist, Mark Heidinger—contributed cuts to Dylan Mania, a French tribute compilation that slipped under the radar when it dropped in May. Vandaveer's take on "The Man In Me" is fairly straightforward, if not nearly as creepy and self-satisfied as the 1970 original. These United States' version of "To Ramona," meanwhile, is more animated and unhinged, benefiting greatly from a galloping rhythm and some thickly applied pedal steel. You can hear both songs on the groups' respective MySpace pages.

Ugly Purple Sweater has a cover of the Woody Guthrie-penned folk standard "This Land Is Your Land" up on its MySpace page. No surprises here, really—except that the duo has tweaked the title a bit, and decorated the song with a fairly silly falsetto. Which, strangely, is pretty awesome.

Last Tide—whom I wrote about in this week's One Track Mind—includes a swirling, eerie cover of Talking Heads' "Memories Can't Wait" in its live set. Cover Me—a blog that, yes, covers covers—has an mp3 of the song from the band's recent appearance on WMUC’s Third Rail Radio program. Also, Last Tide frontman Nate Frey's other band, Detox Retox, does an, um, interesting cover of Joy Division's "Transmission":

The gloomy art-punk outfit Screen Vinyl Image taps one of its sonic forebears in this live cover of an early Slowdive B-side. Bonus! The woozy video quality and seizure-inducing lights are straight out of any shoegaze music vid circa 1989:

Ted Leo doesn't make music in the District anymore, but I like his tense, crescendoing cover of Robert Pollard's "The Numbered Head"—from the recent Score! 20 Years Of Merge Records: The Covers! comp—enough to include it here. You can stream the song at the Merge Records online store. It's got nothing, though, on the all-adrenaline cover of "Suspect Device" that Leo played at Fort Reno a few years ago.

Yo La Tengo hails from Hoboken, N.J, but the group played a pair of (kinda) D.C.-related covers at its 9:30 Club show recently: "Firecracker, Firecracker," by Half Japanese, and "Nervous Breakdown," which L.A.'s Black Flag wrote about three years before the District-born Henry Rollins joined the group. Rollins' provenance was a shaky excuse for Yo La Tengo to play the song, but the crowd was happy to forgive the trio. You can stream the entire set at NPR.

Punk leftovers-cum-merchandising powerhouse the Misfits have announced a fall tour, stopping at Jaxx Sunday, Oct. 25. It's not quite Halloween, but close enough.

The Jersey-bred musclemen/metal punks emerged in 1977, developed a crude catalog of '50s B-movie themes banged out and recorded with even less tact,  and, technically, disbanded by 1983 (when head howler Glenn Danzig left the group). But since 1996, a Frankenstein-ian composite of aging shredders and hangers-on have been keeping the monster alive. Founded by the incomparable Danzig and Jerry Only, Marky Ramone and Black Flag's Dez Cadena were once part of the deciduous line-up.

Throughout the years, reissues, and coffin-shaped box sets, the (theoretical) band has  gained a cult following its current members refer to as the Fiend Club, bearing the Misfits' signature logo and genius graphic design feat. the fiend skull. Their songs have been covered by Metallica ("Last Caress") and Guns 'n' Roses ("Attitude"). Now, Jerry Only is the last founding fossil standing and most new material, quite frankly,  sucks. (Exception: 2003's Project 1950 for its kick-ass cover of "Great Balls of Fire.")

The Misfits haven't released an album since 2004's Fiend Club Lounge, so who the  hell knows what to expect on Oct. 25. I'm not even sure what to expect from the line-up. Rudimentary research indicates Only and Cadena are in, backed by Robo on drums, and Danzig is still out. Such shaky circumstances make me think I should sit this show out too, but I'd probably pay to see a Misfits cover band anyway, and by now that's just about what the Misfits are–an amoebic group toiling in the shadow of their former, better catalog.