J Mascis returned to a 1959 Jazzmaster and a Mesa/Boogie Mark I for Dinosaur Jr.’s There Near

J Mascis reached back to two pieces of Dinosaur Jr. history while recording There Near. In a new Premier Guitar interview, he says he used a 1959 Fender Jazzmaster for much of the lead work after several years away from the model. The valuable original no longer tours, but its return in the studio helped reconnect the record with the band’s early guitar language.

The other key piece was a secondhand Mesa/Boogie Mark I, similar to the amp Mascis used on Dinosaur in 1985. Fitted with hemp-cone speakers and recorded through a miked Marshall cabinet, it gave him what he describes as a clean sound thicker than a Fender. A Marshall JCM800 4104 and a Tone Bender MkI-style fuzz also appear in the documented rig.

There Near was recorded in short bursts over roughly a year at Bisquiteen Studio in Amherst. Mascis says the band worked for about an hour and a half on four days each week, a slower schedule that left more time to reject weaker ideas and unify the record. The finished album pairs the trio’s familiar volume and loose vocal phrasing with more sharply defined, Who-like power-chord foundations.

The interview also underlines how the reunited core of Mascis, Lou Barlow and Murph still divides the work: Mascis directs drum parts for his songs, while he steps back to serve Barlow’s arrangements on the bassist’s two compositions. Four decades in, the band’s continuity comes less from repeating a preset formula than from reusing old tools under a more deliberate recording pace.