A week before the disc arrives in stores, the folks at Sub Pop Records have begun streaming ‘Several Shades of Why,’ the first-ever solo studio album from Dinosaur Jr guitar god J Mascis. Hear the whole thing right here.

To help promote ‘Several Shades of Why,’ the forthcoming solo album from Dinosaur Jr mastermind J Mascis, the folks at Sub Pop Records have posted this rather odd interview with some woman named Maureen.

With J Mascis’ first-ever solo studio album due out in just over a month, Sub Pop Records has kicked free a second track from ‘Several Shades of Why’: ‘It Is Done,’ featuring Band of Horses’ Ben Bridwell on backing vocals.

Today’s collection of interesting stuff, including interviews with The Smiths’ Andy Rourke, Lou Barlow of Sebadoh and Dinosaur Jr and Gang of Four’s Jon King, plus some stripped-down, a capella New Order.

J Mascis will unplug this spring — or, as Dinosaur Jr bandmate Lou Barlow put it, ‘pretend he’s a peace loving acoustic guy’ — for a just-announced 22-date North American tour in support of his first-ever solo studio album ‘Several Shades of Why.’

With Dinosaur Jr on break, bassist Lou Barlow is shifting focus to a revived Sebadoh, with plans to release expanded reissues of 1994’s ‘Bakesale’ and 1996’s ‘Harmacy’ this year and take the famously lo-fi act out on the road for the ‘Bakesale/Harmacy Remembering Time Tour.’

Sub Pop Records today offered up the first taste of Dinosaur Jr frontman J Mascis’ forthcoming record ‘Several Shades of Why’ — an acoustic collection that’s actually his first-ever studio solo album — in the form of a free download of the track ‘Not Enough.’

J Mascis of Dinosaur Jr will tone things down considerably next spring with the release of his first proper solo album, an acoustic — and apparently drum-free — collection called ‘Several Shades of Why.’

The reunited Dinosaur Jr tonight wraps up a four-date swing through Brazil, the band’s first-ever performances in South America. To mark the occasion, we offer up this nicely shot clip filmed at the trio’s concert in Recife, Brazil, this past Saturday.

Dinosaur Jr will perform its third album — 1988’s ‘Bug,’ featuring the band’s break-out single ‘Freak Scene’ — in its entirety next summer at a Don’t Look Back concert in London headlined by The Flaming Lips, who will perform their 1999 classic ‘The Soft Bulletin.’

Twenty years ago tonight, Robert Smith and the rest of The Cure — aided by a pair of American DJs and shadowed by MTV and the music press — set up a pirate radio station at the headquarters of Fiction Records with plans to illicitly premiere their soon-to-released remix album ‘Mixed Up’ over the London airwaves.

For our latest Vintage Video installment, we present this pro-shot footage of Dinosaur Jr’s original lineup — J Mascis, Lou Barlow and Murph — rehearsing at the University of Massachusetts in 1986.

Taking a pause from the ongoing Dinosaur Jr reunion, Lou Barlow this week released a new digital EP called ‘= Sentridoh III’ — recorded with his current backing band, The Missingmen — and announced two rounds of North American summer dates.