SUPERCLUSTER, BABY Big Dipper
Aug 14, 2008
Classic Boston combo drops bunker buster anthology.
BY MIKE SHANLEY
Big Dipper’s two-album-and-one EP run on Homestead Records set a standard for loud underground pop in the late ‘80s. With one member of the Embarrassment (guitarist Bill Goffrier), two original Volcano Suns (bassist Steve Michener, guitarist Gary Waleik) and a drummer of the regional hardcore band XS (Jeff Oliphant), the Boston quartet combined the sum of these disparate parts gracefully into songs about relationships, UFOs and a friend who wrecked his house. A move to Epic yielded one disappointing album (Slam) and the band broke up in 1992.
To recapture the band’s glory, this spring Merge released Supercluster: The Big Dipper Anthology, a three-disc set with debut EP Boo-Boo and albums Heavens and Craps. Along with several bonus cuts, it also includes 15 unreleased post-Epic recordings that rival their early work in terms of sonic firepower. “Every song is kinda like one of your babies in a way,” says Waleik, “and it’s nice to get these babies out of the incubator and into the big wide world. It only took about 15 years, but I guess it was worth it.”
To celebrate the release, the group reunited for three shows in Cambridge and New York in late April. Waleik emailed Mission of Burma’s Roger Miller for advice to a musician nervous about a reunion show. “He said, ‘You’ve got to do two things: You’ve got to rock it hard and you’ve got to do some new songs,’” Waleik says. “I think we’re going to be okay for the rocking it hard, but I don’t know if we’ll have the time and inclination to learn any new songs.”
As long as they played “All Going Out Together,” the planets will align.
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