Dinosaurs consists of former members of Big Brother the Holding Company (Peter Albin), Quicksilver Messenger Service (John Cipollina), Country Joe the Fish (Barry Melton), and Jefferson Airplane (Spencer Dryden), plus two musicians closely associated with the Grateful Dead's Jerry Garcia (Merl Saunders, who co-led a band with him, and his lyric collaborator Robert Hunter). If the group had been formed in 1972, when its members ranged in age from their mid-20s to their mid-30s, it might have been considered a supergroup and gotten national attention and a major-label recording contract. Instead, it came together in 1982, when the musicians were in their mid-30s to mid-40s, and the name, taken from Melton's stage remark, "We're just a bunch of old dinosaurs," signaled that this was some friends getting together for a little fun rather than a serious enterprise. But the pedigree of the players was enough to draw audiences, mostly in Northern California, and after half-a-dozen years of occasional gigs, the band finally made an album. It's a loose, unassuming affair from a collection of musicians who were not the focal points of their earlier bands. Melton was always a reliable second banana to Country Joe, and he remains a sturdy figure here, the closest thing to a frontman in a band that really doesn't have one. Cipollina's guitar sound helped define Quicksilver, and it remains identifiable here, particularly on the live recordings of Nina Simone's Do I Move You? and the old Quicksilver warhorse Mona. Hunter had left the band by the time the album was made, but returned to sing his lyrics on Who Makes the Moves?, the most striking original song. Much of the individual playing was striking, too, but Dinosaurs on the whole did not reach the heights ascended by some of the former bands of the group's members. ~ William Ruhlmann, Rovi

1		Whats the Password
2		Enter Computers
3		Dissolve Into Greatness
4		Program This
5		The Battle
6		Electric Peace Pipe
7		Break It Down
8		Build It Up
9		Burn Jah Flower
10		Messaging Home

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