Dinosaur Jr. were the major players on the soundtrack to the movie version of my adolescent life. In the scene where I'm screwing my suicidal, Robert Smith-obsessed girlfriend for the first time, You're Living All Over Me is playing through a pink boom-box that's in the comer of the room on top of her bureau. When I'm in the back seat of the '77 Chevy Malibu smoking a joint, skateboard on lap, Bug is in the tape deck. And in the scene where I'm walking by myself past the envelope factory on my way home from detention, "Pointless" is playing through my headphones.

Interview by Ken Switzer

Many years later I was at the Middle East for the last show of their most recent tour. As usual, they were great. I was just as impressed hearing the new songs live as I was when I heard the other songs live for the first time years ago. And (as I should have expected) the next morning I noticed from the stain on my pillow that my ears were emitting a brownish-yellow pus — proof that it wasn't just a dream.

Before the show, I was supposed to talk with J Mascis. Unfortunately for me, his family was there and he was taking them out to dinner. I wanted to include George Berz in the interview, being a fellow native of the "Whip City" (Westfield) and all, but he was falling asleep in the corner. However, I was fortunate enough to speak with the bass player Mike Johnson.

So, are you living in Western Massachusetts?
Mike: No, I live in Seattle.

Did you grow up there?
No. I grew up in southern Oregon, actually.

How would you sum up the experience?
I would describe that as "hellish" (laughs). It was horrible.

How did you hook up with the band?
I moved to Seattle from Eugene, Oregon in 1980, and when I got a place I moved in with some friends of J's he was just staying there. We didn't really talk to each other while he was staying there because he had a tooth infection, and I was just like "whatever." And he knew that I got to be pretty good friends with these friends of his and he called me a few months later and was just like, "You think you wanna play bass?" And I was like "Sure, I'll give it a try." And we kinda just hit it off once we started hanging out together so it just worked.

What year was that?
'90, '91, like the end of '90.

Right around Green Mind?
Yeah, right when Green Mind came out, that's when I joined.

You guys played a lot in North Hampton [Massachusetts].
Yeah.

Was that a good place to be in a band at the time, with the clubs there and all the colleges?
Well, the times I've played there it's been since Dinosaur's kinda gotten bigger then when they started out. So I don't really know what it was like in the beginning, the ground-level scene. But we usually have a good time when we play there.