J looks like that guy at every record store who appears next to you out of nowhere and recommends some extremely obscure album that turns out to be amazing.

this is the most enthusiasm i've ever seen in J before

J has to be my favorite boring person ever. He sounds so relaxed about everything and then proceeds to melt your face off with the finest "in-your-face" guitar playing out there. It's like dropping a V8 in a Kia.

“When you turn on the Big Muff, then it’s louder” J Mascis

"If you want some dynamics to your music, you've got to turn things down...". Wish more guitarists knew this. Thanks for the great vid, Reverb!

J keeps a spare Big Muff in his hip pocket.

If Eeyore was a guitarist it’d be this guy

The thing to take from these videos is that these guys are professional touring musicians, so they know how to use their gear to get real world tones live, not bedroom sounds. Anyone who plays live knows that the sounds you get at home or at rehearsals can be night and day to how you may want to sound live. The big muff and muff styles pedals, are famously scooped and get lost in the mix, his point on allowing that pedal the greatest threshold in your signal change is invaluable to giving it presence in a live mix. A lot of players set everything to stun hoping it'll help them cut or sound bigger but it just crushes their presence. This is a good lesson on how to use fuzz live and sound epic

imagine having j as a roommate hes just like "yeah I figured I would have a can of soup for dinner :/ "

Imagine someone buying your guitar on reverb and you go to deliver it and it's fucking j mascis

"I always have some distortion on it when it's clean". My kinda guitarist

"lets make his guitar sound loud as balls and his voice really quiet."

this dude talks like he is constantly exhaling a massive bong rip.

J really needs to calm down

J is my all time favorite guitar player. the fact that average guitar geeks don't get what he does makes me appreciate him even more.

Every time I hear J play guitar I want to go skateboarding.

One of my friends knows him a bit and took me to a show he played solo. It was fun chatting with him then watch him get super quiet and shy when people would walk up and ask for pics and autographs. Then they would walk off then he would chat and goof off. Super nice guy just seems to have a bit of social anxiety.

J looks like the Chris of Family Guy, but older and awesome

I don't think people get nor appreciate what kind of guitar player J is. I dug this video and am always looking for the J Mascis secrets of tone.

What a gorgeous guitar. I saw J on one of his solo tours. Him, a guitar, and loads of pedals, including a looper. He was incredible. He was playing chords that I still haven't figured out.

J's dynamic range is from loud to loudest

J Mascis is a righteous dude. The sportos, motorheads, geeks, bloods, wasteoids, dweebies--they all adore him.

The guitar outro to Thumb was a huge inspiration to me as a beginner guitar player a long time ago. Mascis plays with such heart, and is a amazing player.

Ain't guitar gear an amazing thing? Never heard this band's songs, don't know the guy, then I find out he probably shares more of my taste for gear than all my favorite guitar players combined... Single coils, AC30, Big Muff, Tone Bender, using pedals to decrease volume... I think I'm the Dinosaur Junior-Junior!

This is the fastest I've heard J talk.

This is literally the most excited I've ever seen J Mascis on camera.

"Here's my clean tone..." Turns on distortion pedal. 🙃 It's definitely a novel approach to gain staging.

If he were to be anymore chill, he would shit himself

His enthusiasm is so infectious

He looks like he just changed the oil in his car lol

One of the loudest guitarist on stage I’ve ever seen, it’s hilarious seeing him talk about turning down here. Much love!

Everybody makes the same comments in EVERY Mascis video. True originals.

This was actually super helpful, especially that about the big muff and finding the restraint to turn everything else down!

I saw Dino jr. in the 80's in a tiny club called City Gardens... great show, couldn't hear for days, too close to the stage. Saw them again on Lollapalooza 93' (?) even in an open field they were way loud... still can't believe there was a time a band like them were on a major label... Does anybody else think of Chris Griffen when they see and hear J. talk? I can't stop making that connection. (lol) J. used to have Marshall stacks with mis-matching rare color 4x12 cabinets... looked really cool on stage.

Genuinely good advice for people new to pedals and distortion. I remember when I was first trying to play in a style of going from clean to fuzz, and finding the transition between the two to just not work at all. Turning on the fuzz feels like it actually sucks all the energy out and takes down the volume cause youre losing a lot of the frequencies you have in the clean sound. Going from mild overdrive to fuzz is definitely a smoother transition.

I appreciate the level of detail into gain staging for live guitar performance. Totally different world than a household guitar session.

I just realized, this mad man has his tuner at the end of the signal chain. An absolute mad lad.

I was never a big DJ fan, but I saw them live and they were freaking rad.

Thank you J. That was a great video and I’m glad you got your guitar delivered.

I am watching videos with J for a week now. He makes me feel relaxed.

No pot was harmed in the making of this video

One of the loudest shows I've ever enjoyed (& I've enjoyed hundreds) was Dinosaur Jr. at the Hollywood Bowl. A band called Christmas opened. Both were mind blowing.

Fantastic!! Love me some J!! Thank you J and reverb!

Amazing artist and player, much respect.

Dinosaur Jr, I love them. J Mascis, a very talented man, I love how he uses that kind of slacker aesthetic. But, he's not a slacker, anyone who knows how talented Dinosaur Jr is, knows that that takes a lot of work.

What I love about J and why he's one of the best players of the last 20 years is because in an age of lightning fast shredders he actually still plays with a genuine heart and soul and his tones are amazing. Modern shredders can't be differentiated from each other because there isnt any feeling put into shred, but J dosent follow trends.

I love the simultaneous dual foot pedal stomps. So J!

I love using my Russian Tank Big Muff run through my Boost-wah pedal (running into my C50 2x12 on the dirty channel) and using the wah effect to pitch-shift and set various stacked fuzz tones. Gives me a LOT of range in terms of fuzz tones plus I can disengage either the boost or the big muff and get even more tones.

I saw Dinosaur Jr. many times in the 80's, in London especially. The Fulham Greyhound really sticks out as one of the best! I saw Dinosaur in Glasgow a few nights before and decided to head to London for their next gig, so me and a mate came all the way from Glasgow, with no tickets, and the venue was completely sold out with a massive crowd outside trying to get in the locked doors. There was just no way we were getting in that way! So we went in to a pub up the road, phoned the venue and asked to speak to Dinosaurs manager, and amazingly enough they put her on, we bullshitted her that we'd met J at the Glasgow gig and he'd told us to come down to London and he'd put us on the Greyhound guest list, and she bought it! Next thing we know we're at the back of this huge crowd when the door opens slightly and a bouncer shouts our names out. It was like the parting of the Red Sea as we both shoved our way through this crowd and were dragged bodily into the venue just in time for the band hitting the stage for one of the best gigs ever! Nothing ventured.....

How did you guys actually get him to talk??

Awesome playing and tone. Wow you Rock!

He makes me feel so relaxed

Finally, someone stacking fuzzes

There's one pedal not mentioned in the gear he used on this video, the Red one with knob bumpers is a Hovercraft Ionostrofear Fuzz v2.5. The new version is almost Neon Green with a white strip in the center where the model name script goes. A Cool distortion/ OD/ Fuzz/ Boost pedal for sure.

Was trying to see how to stack my fuzz, eq, overdrive and distortion when combined saw Jay on Uboob and was like this man knows and he does but seriously never seen him so hyped take a chill pill Jay we know you love it thick just calm it a bit lil too much

i was literally looking for this all day lol

That flange sounds amazing!

J Mascis... a man of few words to quote Mike Watt, but makes up for it with his incredible guitar work

Love it. This was me 15 yrs old in the late 70s. Had a dozen EHX pedals, a strobe light that highlighted the blue smoke haze that just hung there. So basically he is saying lay out a bunch of pedals and start pressing them and see what happens. Still works for me 35 yrs later.

I really loved the clean tone

J needs a Booster pedal for his voice..

That rangemaster stacked nice into the muff. I’ve been stacking a Fulltone 70 silicon fuzz into an OCD for a bit, that shit sounds INSANELY huge!

never thought about putting a muff together with those classic old fuzzes. Great sound! Saving in favorites for future ref

J Mascis is one cool dude! What a cool cap he’s wearing! So dope!

was j mining coal just before this was shot?

does he have a damn rubics cube in his pocket

Tim and Eric Awesome Show Great Job!

i love this video. It's so useful

cool guy,great & unique player

The tone really comes from the Ikea rug.

So much knowledge in so few words....

he’s so freaking precious 🥺

CALM DOWN MAN!

that is very true "if you want dynamics you gotta turn things down"

Best lesson ever.

"1991: The Year Punk Broke" VHS had some awesome live coverage of J and Dino Jr. rocking Europe with Nirvana, Sonic Youth, Babes In Toyland and so forth. Wish I still had it!

I think I've never heard more than a couple of this guy songs. I started to play guitar because of the Edge, Gilmour and Knopfler (strange trio btw). But I totally enjoy this guy's tone here. And I love to see how that Neil Youngish grungy style is alive and kicking in people like this.

Sounds a bit like Chris Griffin. Cool guitar sounds too!

i use the BOOST on the t-rex octavius pedal with my electric violin and it works great as a boost pedal. Adds richness, low end and volume. But violin reacts so differently to the pedals than guitar. Big Muff is my favorite fuzz on my electric violin. Keep rockin ❤️

Can't believe this guy never had a lesson. So many people study for years without being able to get close to his level of talent. He's an amazing guitar player, songwriter and achieves beautiful tones.

omg i fucking love you for this

While everyone so careful to play a nice tuned chord pre pedal demo, this guy 1:09 hahahahahahahah!!!! Gotta love giving no fuks.

I love that most of those pedals are just different distortions to stack

i love this!!

"I want more dynamics" Stacks a bunch of hard clipping circuits. Nailed it.

Genius!!!

Excellent.

The tao of J....love when talks about Greg Sage from the Wipers...the true king of bleeding guitars

Put the speed at 1.25 you'll thank me later

Why is this unlisted lol

He starts to play and he's a real deal!

I love how J talks about "turning on" a clean amp cause under no circumstance is that his default setting. Also love how he says the volume with the overdrive on is not much louder (it totally is) cause I feel like anything under 90 DBs J just recognizes as the same volume.

Nice grungy tone

HAH! David Blaine, I see straight through your gray wig and snapback disguise!

the most under appreciated guitarist around imo

This dude is one of the best shredders of his genre

Put the speed on 0.5

"pretty depressing" lol

J sounds and looks cool!

I aspire to be this chill