Perhaps you are unfamiliar with the fertile Boston music scene of the late ‘80s — like most of the TMT staff, I wasn’t born until 15 years later - but one of the most highly-regarded and under-appreciated rawk bands of that time was Big Dipper. Formed in 1985, the band managed to release one EP (Boo-Boo) and two bitchin’ (my word is law) LPs (Heavens, Craps) before throwing in the sweat-soaked towel in ‘92. After that year, the Boston area entered a police state and no one dared mention the band for fear of immediate castration.

UNTIL NOW: the kind folks at Merge have announced that they will be remastering and reissuing all of the band’s output March 18, 2008 in a 3-disc anthology, including an unreleased album culled from their final recording sessions in the early ‘90s, entitled Very Loud Array — hopefully a description of the sounds within. The set is called Supercluster: The Big Dipper Anthology, and as an added feature, it will include nine bonus tracks, one video, and liner notes by "The Best Show on WFMU" host and fellow latter-day Seinfeld hater, Tom Scharpling, who campaigned to reunite the band in 2004 but was cruelly denied.

Speaking of reuniting the band, the original lineup of Big Dipper is currently working out their abs and investing in Rogaine before a planned East Coast reunion tour in April 2008. Precise dates are still being hammered out, but depending on how many drunk guys spill beer on their amps, shorting them out halfway through the shows, there may be a tour of the midwest later in the year.

Yes, no precise dates yet, but until then, may I recommend some other, far more delectable precise dates?

Tracklisting:

Disc 1:

Boo-Boo EP: 1. Faith Healer 2. San Quentin, CA 3. What In Sam Hill...? 4. Wrong In The Charts 5. Ancers 6. Loch Ness Monster

Heavens: 7. She’s Fetching 8. Man O’ War 9. Easter Eve 10. Humason 11. Lunar Module 12. All Going Out Together 13. Younger Bums 14. When Men Were Trains 15. Wet Weekend 16. Mr. Woods

Disc 2:

Craps: 1. Meet the Witch 2. Ron Claus Wrecked His House 3. The Insane Girl 4. Semjase 5. Stardom Because 6. Bonnie 7. Hey! Mr. Lincoln 8. Bells of Love 9. A Song To Be Beautiful

Bonus traxx: 10. Golden Shame 11. Lou Gehrig’s Disease 12. You’re Not Patsy 13. San Quentin, CA 14. Which Would You Rather? 15. He Is God 16. Guitar Named Desire 17. Ron Klaus Demo’d His House 18. Life Inside the Cemetery

Disc 3:

Very Loud Array: 1. Wake up the King 2. Edith 3. The Beast 4. Restaurant Cloud 5. Missing Time 6. Beginning of the End 7. Lifetime Achievement Award 8. Dead River 9. Silentium 10. Approach of a Human Being 11. Mineral Man 12. The Ghost of Emily 13. Winsor Dam 14. Nowhere To Put My Love 15. Extraordinary Worm