Dinosaur Jr
Three guys out of Amherst turning their amps up to 11 next door to the English department. Not noise rock in the Jesus Lizard sense — these are songs, with melodies, with Mascis doing lead guitar heroics that would give Neil Young pause. But the volume and the distortion and the feedback are all the way there, and the Homestead / SST lineage runs directly through this band. You're Living All Over Me and Bug are the canonical records. Broke up messily in '89, reconvened in 2005, and the reunion records are as good as the originals.
People
Dinosaur Jr's white-haired slacker overlord. Plays guitar loud enough to deafen the cheap seats, sings like he just woke up from a nap, writes songs you cannot get out of your head. Forty years into it and still doing it. The stack of Marshalls behind him has its own weather system.
Dinosaur Jr's bassist (original era and reunion era), plus Sebadoh and Folk Implosion on the side. Famously fell out with Mascis in 1989, famously reconciled in 2005, and has been back in the band ever since. The lo-fi confessional songwriter thing that got named 'indie rock' in the 90s — Barlow basically invented it on Sebadoh records.