J Mascis and The Fog is the post-Dinosaur Jr. musical project embarked by D… Read Full Bio ↴J Mascis and The Fog is the post-Dinosaur Jr. musical project embarked by Dinosaur Jr.'s founding member, musician J Mascis.

After fulfilling his contractual obligations to Blanco y Negro in the UK and Sire Records/Reprise Records in the US, Mascis holed up in his home studio in Amherst, MA, which he named Bob's Place after his pet bulldog. Recording 99% of the instruments on the recordings, he emerged from the studio with the first J Mascis and The Fog album, More Light, an album title inspired by Mascis' growing interest in "hugging saint" Ammachi. One of the pivotal songs on the album, "Amma Ring", is also about Ammachi. Mascis signed with Artemis Records to release the album.

To promote More Light, Mascis enlisted sometime Dinosaur Jr. drummer George Berz and former The Minutemen and fIREHOSE bassist Mike Watt. Mascis had worked with Watt several times before - most notably producing the final fIREHOSE album Mr. Machinery Operator (1993, on which he also contributed some guitar and vocal parts) and contributing guitar and drum performances to several songs on Watt's first solo album Ball-Hog or Tugboat?. They embarked on four separate tours between October 2000 and the spring of 2001, including a tour of Japan and Australia, a European tour, and two full tours of the US. The set lists would be a mix of songs from both More Light and the Dinosaur Jr. back catalog, along with a handful of Stooges songs and a version of Black Flag's "I've Had It" with lead vocals sung by Watt.

During their first European tour, Mascis and The Fog participated in a John Peel session for BBC Radio, during which the band recorded a medley consisting of Teenage Fanclub's "Everything Flows", Pavement's "Range Life", and The Ruts's "In a Rut". This session is the only commercially available studio recording of the 2000-2001 line-up featuring Watt, and, along with a later J Mascis solo session from 2002, was released on CD by the Strange Fruit label in 2003.

At some of the tour dates, the band were frequently joined onstage by former Stooges guitarist Ron Asheton, during which time Mascis and the Fog would play several Stooges classics. Sometimes the group would be joined by guest vocalists like Evan Dando and Primal Scream's Bobby Gillespie; a London appearance by the Fog with Asheton and Gillespie was marred when a fan spat upon Gillespie, which provoked the singer into hitting the fan with a mike stand as the Fog and Asheton were playing, ironically, "No Fun". The Gillespie incident notwithstanding, these appearances by Asheton later led to a one-time supergroup of Mascis, Watt, Asheton, and Ron's brother and fellow Stooge Scott Asheton, which inevitably led to the reformation of the Stooges themselves with vocalist Iggy Pop and Watt replacing the late original Stooges bassist Dave Alexander.

A second European tour behind More Light was cut short when the band was involved in a van accident en route to a Swedish concert. Mascis suffered minor back injuries but rebounded from them fairly quickly and began work on the second Fog album, Free So Free, released in 2002.

In 2005, Mascis put his Fog project on hold in order to tend to other business, mainly the reformation of the original Dinosaur Jr. lineup, to coincide with the re-release on the Merge label of the first three Dinosaur Jr. albums that had previously been on Homestead and SST.

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Outside
J Mascis and the Fog Lyrics

Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴

I've been away too long
I've been a freak
On the other side
Everything turned out wrong
Wait 'till we meet
I won't know where to hide
Fenced inside it's over, done
Just to be there, said i'd won

And I'm not the only one
Who'll run, who'll run
Outside (6x)
I tend to think too much
I've been insane
I'll take another ride
I've been a little shy
I've been too vain
On the other side

Everybody took my turn
I don't know why I can't learn
No surrender I won't learn
I'll squirm, I'll squirm
Outside (6x)

Where 'ya goin' baby?
I think we've been in this way too long
On the other side
(Guitar solo)

I've been away too long
I've been a waste
On the other side
Everything turned out wrong
I've got no taste
On the other side
I've been away too long

I've been away too long
On the other side

Overall Meaning

The lyrics of "Outside" by J Mascis and the Fog deal with feeling disconnected and out of place. The first verse presents the singer as a "freak" who has been away for too long and doesn't know where to hide when they return. This sense of being an outsider is reinforced by the chorus, which repeats the word "Outside" six times, suggesting that this is where the singer feels most comfortable. The second verse explores the theme of mental illness, with the singer admitting they tend to think too much and have been "insane." Despite this, they are still willing to take "another ride" into the unknown. The final verse brings everything full circle, with the singer acknowledging that they have been a waste and have no taste on the other side.

Overall, the song seems to be about the difficulties of fitting in and finding one's place in the world. The repetition of "Outside" suggests that the solution might be to embrace one's outsider status and find meaning in it. The guitar solo in the middle of the song reinforces this idea of finding one's own path and doing things on one's own terms.

Line by Line Meaning

I've been away too long
I've been gone for a while

I've been a freak
I've been an oddball

On the other side
In a different place/situation

Everything turned out wrong
Things didn't go as planned

Wait 'till we meet
I'm not sure how I'll react when I see you again

I won't know where to hide
I'll be at a loss for how to act/what to say

Fenced inside it's over, done
Feeling trapped and hopeless

Just to be there, said i'd won
I thought just being present would be a victory

And I'm not the only one
There are others who feel the same way

Who'll run, who'll run
Who will try to escape the situation

I tend to think too much
I overanalyze everything