IN: Dinosaur Jr. is an American rock band formed in Amherst, Massachusetts, in 1984, originally simply called Dinosaur until legal issues forced a change in name. The band was founded by J Mascis (guitar, vocals, primary songwriter), Lou Barlow (bass, vocals), and Murph (drums). After three albums on independent labels earned the band a reputation as one of the formative influences on American alternative rock, creative tension led to Mascis firing Barlow, who later formed Sebadoh and Folk Implosion. His replacement, Mike Johnson came aboard for three major-label albums.

Mascis and Barlow played together, on drums and guitar respectively, in the hardcore punk band Deep Wound, formed in 1982 while the pair were attending high school in western Massachusetts. After high school, they began exploring slower yet still aggressive music such as Black Sabbath, the Replacements, and Neil Young. Mascis' college friend Gerard Cosloy introduced him to psychedelic-influenced pop bands like Dream Syndicate, which Mascis in turn showed to Barlow. Barlow explained, "We loved speed metal...and we loved wimpy-jangly stuff".  Deep Wound broke up in mid-1984. Cosloy had dropped out of the University of Massachusetts Amherst to focus on running his independent record label, Homestead Records, and promised Mascis that if he were to make a record Homestead would release it. Mascis wrote a number of songs by himself and showed them to Barlow, to whom he offered the bassist position. Barlow said the songs "were fucking brilliant...They were so far beyond. I was still into two-chord songs and basic stuff like 'I'm so sad.' While I was really into my own little tragedy, J was operating in this whole other panorama." Mascis enlisted vocalist Charlie Nakajima, also formerly of Deep Wound, and drummer Emmett Patrick Murphy, otherwise known as Murph, to complete the band. Mascis explained the concept behind the group as "ear-bleeding country".  The band was initially named Mogo, and played their first show on University of Massachusetts Amherst campus in the first week of September 1984. However, Nakajima used the performance to launch an extended anti-police tirade. Mascis was so appalled by Nakajima's behavior at the show that he disbanded the group the next day. A few days later Mascis invited Barlow and Murph to form a new band without telling Nakajima. "I was kind of too wimpy to kick him out, exactly," Mascis later admitted. "Communicating with people has been a constant problem in the band." The trio named themselves Dinosaur, and Mascis and Barlow took over lead-vocal duties.

when was it formed

OUT: The band was initially named Mogo, and played their first show on University of Massachusetts Amherst campus in the first week of September 1984.


IN: Sylvia Jane Hutton (nee Kirby, born December 9, 1956), known simply by her first name Sylvia during the 1980s, is an American country music and country pop singer and songwriter. Some original source books have her birth name as Sylvia Kirby Allen; however, Allen was her first husband's last name. She consequently used only her first name. There was also a point in time that she used Sylvia Rutledge.

The release of her fourth album, Surprise, spurred her second foray into the Adult Contemporary charts, but neither its sound, nor her newly shorn locks courtesy Francesco Scavullo, were well received in country music. Surprise was the last of Sylvia's first four albums to be produced by Tom Collins, who also produced Mandrell, Charley Pride, and Ronnie Milsap. They have been described by critics as too slick for country music.  Her following album, One Step Closer, produced by The Judds' producer Brent Maher, had a more guitar-driven feel to it as opposed to her previously more orchestrated affairs. It was followed up by Sylvia's last top 40 country hit, "Nothin' Ventured, Nothin' Gained", from the unreleased album Knockin Around. The shelving of this album marked the end of Sylvia's tenure with RCA Records. The label did release a Greatest Hits compilation and a single from it titled "Straight from my Heart" (written with Jimmy Fortune of The Statler Brothers). The record received little promotion from RCA and the single charted in the low 60s. In the late 1980s, RCA began streamlining its roster of country-pop artists and the casualties included Sylvia, Dolly Parton, Louise Mandrell, Deborah Allen, Juice Newton, John Denver and Kenny Rogers.  Over an eight-year period, Sylvia crisscrossed America many times with her popular concert performances (over 200 per year), and she was a frequent guest on network television talk shows and specials -- from The Today Show and Good Morning, America to Dick Clark's American Bandstand and the Country Music Awards.  Her decision to stop touring and recording at the end of the 1980s was not fueled by the grueling schedule, as some might guess, but by her desire to bring more of herself to the music, she turned her energies to songwriting.

Did she release any singles off the album?

OUT: 


IN: Carroll was born in Joliet, Illinois on May 18, 1945. His father worked in a coal processing plant. The family moved to San Diego in 1954 where Carroll grew up. He describes his early years in Ocean Beach as an ideal childhood.

Carroll did not believe in an omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent god. However, in his essay "Why I am not an atheist", Carroll described his dislike of the term "atheist" because he feels that the term is being exploited by theists and used as a straw man argument. He felt that the term implies a dogmatic set of beliefs and carries its own share of negative baggage. So, Carroll suggested that atheists might as well adopt the term "Brights" with all its negative connotations.  The only religion that Carroll found attractive after abandoning Catholicism, despite never following it, is Buddhism as taught by the Dalai Lama.  Carroll has always maintained the opinion that people have to be more skeptical of religion than they are now. He said in multiple interviews that religion is an area that skeptics don't target enough, and that pure faith is winning the race against critical thinking.  Carroll tended to have a moderate outlook on religion. He believed that religion has a role to play in people's lives and he didn't condemn religion for terrorism. When asked about the relationship between violence and religion he said that he can't recall anything negative about his religious upbringing, and that maybe Catholicism can provide more good than harm. He didn't believe religion causes wars, he rather believed that it serves as an excuse for people who will go to war regardless of religion's existence. Carroll believed that some people rely on religion as their only source of morality and as a source of comfort. However, he found it distressing that some people are unable to find meaning in their lives without religion. In an interview with Beyond a Doubt he said  "There is nothing dull about a life without fairies, Easter bunnies, devils, ghosts, magic crystals, etc. Life is only boring to boring people."

Did he write about religion?

OUT:
in his essay "Why I am not an atheist", Carroll described his dislike of the term "atheist"