Double Nickels on the Dime

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6
Double Nickels on the Dime
Michael T. Fournier
7
2009
The Continuum International Publishing Group Inc
80 Maiden Lane, New York, NY 10038
The Continuum International Publishing Group Ltd
The Tower Building, 11 York Road, London SE1 7NX
www.continuumbooks.com
Copyright 2007 by Michael T. Fournier
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by
any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording,
or otherwise, without the written permission of the publishers
or their agents.
Printed in Canada
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Fournier, Michael T., 1973-
Double nickels on the dime / by Michael T. Fournier.
p. cm. (33 1/3)
eISBN-13: 978-1-4411-2216-2
1. Minutemen (Musical group) Double nickels on the dime. 2.
Punk rock
musicUnited StatesHistory and criticism. I. Title.
ML421.M58F68 2007
782.421660922dc22
8
2007004600
9
In memory of
D. Boon
1958-1985
Frank L. Fournier
19142006
Craig Ryder
19672005
10
Contents
History Lesson
History Lesson (Part II)
Arena Rock Is the New Wave: Side D.
Punk Rock Is the New Nostalgia: Side Watt
Dance Rock Is the New Pasture: Side George
Chump Rock Is the New Cool: Side Chaff
Real Names Be Proof
11
History Lesson
The three members of the Minutemensinger/guitarist
Dennes D. Boon, bassist Mike Watt, and drummer George
Hurleyspent their teen years in San Pedro, California, a
working class port suburb of Los Angeles. San Pedro was a
rough town, so Boons mom encouraged him and Watt to
play music. That way, she reasoned, theyd be doing
something productive and safe, away from the streets.
Boon was nominated guitarist. Before Watt got a proper bass,
he played the low strings on a guitar. D. and Mike mostly
taught themselves their instruments, trying to do covers of
Smoke on the Water and such. The famous anecdote about
their early years is that they didnt realize that instruments
had to be tuned together. They thought that the looseness or
tightness of strings was a matter of personal
preferencesome guys liked to play tighter than others.
Their high school graduation came at roughly the same time
as the first wave of punk acts playing in Los Angeles.
Watt and Boon would drive up and see bands play the (in)
famous Masque club. If the weird dudes up on stage could
play in a band, the two friends reasoned, anyone could.
Including them.
Watt and Boons first punk band was called the Reactionaries.
(Their first group, which mostly played covers, was titled
Bright Orange Band. Watt had the bands acronym painted on
the back of his jacket, causing everyone to mistakenly start
calling him Bob.) George Hurley, a former surfer who
12
switched to the drums after a near-death experience on the
waves, played the skins. Martin Tambourovich was the
singer.
After the Reactionaries disbanded in 1979, Boon and Watt
kept writing and playing songs. George Hurley joined a New
Wave band called Hey Taxi!, leaving the two friends
drummerless. Local welder Frank Tonche assumed the role.
The new three-piece was dubbed the Minutemen.
Tonche was none too enamored with the punk scene. He quit
the band quickly. Hurley was re-recruited when Hey Taxi!
broke up.
The Minutemen eschewed a traditional front man, feeling that
such a role was too rock, preferring instead to have a band
member (usually Boon, sometimes Watt) sing the quirky
lyrical bursts the band became known for.
The Minutemen played their first gig with Los Angeles
Black Flag. After their set, Hag guitarist Greg Ginn, owner of
the SST record label, asked the trio if they wanted to put out a
record. The Minutemen guys couldnt believe it. A record
after their first show!
The Paranoid Time EP, released in 1980, contained seven
short spurts of song that sounded wholly uniquejagged,
obtuse, and edgy. The records that followedThe Punch
Line, a fifteen-minute long LP released in 1981; What Makes
a Man Start Fires, their second long-player; the Joy and Bean
Spill EPsdocumented the band defining and refining their
sound and aesthetic.
13
It was such odd, prickly, and, at first pass,
un-listener-friendly music, says Clint Conley, bassist for
Mission of Burma. Furthermore, it seemed like rock in a
different languagelike these savants had been airlifted in
from some distant continent. It shared almost none of the
syntax, surface, and convention of the new music of the
time. No fat guitars, no power chords, no mouthfeel! These
short, strange eruptions had no specific reference to any spot
on the rock spectrum, reallyChuck Berry to Velvet
Underground. It was completely original and brave music.
The Minutemens music sometimes takes the back burner
when the group is discussed simply because of the character
of both the band itself and the three men who played in it.
They were striking onstage: The ex-surfer drummer with the
squeeb do playing faster than seemed humanly possible as
the flannel-clad ringer for Castro wrestled his bass and blew
locomotive steam from his cheeks. In the front, this huge guy
in bad shoes and cutoffs dwarfing his guitar, playing
dentist-drill blasts. They played songs about Latin America
and big thunder law, extended these metaphors youd piece
together as you fell asleep weeks after hearing em. They
portrayed the personal as political but were never preachy or
out of line, leading by example with a sense of humor, a huge
set of influences, and fierce determination to do it their way.
The Minutemen were a bunch of normal dudes with jobs and
worries who put things together
and made it happen. They were a band that used the
infrastructure and ethos of punk rock but were light years
away from the scenes musical orthodoxy.
There is tragedy in the Minutemens story, as well. Singer/
guitarist D. Boon died in a van accident on December 22,
14
1985, just after the Minutemens 3 Way Tie (For Last) was
released. Watt swore off music until a young man from Ohio
named Ed Crawford showed up at his door. Shortly thereafter,
Crawford, along with Watt and George Hurley, started a new
band named flREHOSE.
This book is not about all that.
But it kinda is.
See, the music I love has always made me want to dig deep,
to figure out what the songs were about, and who/what
influenced them. Once I get those things, its easy to start
putting together an idea of what the players were thinking,
what they were shaped by, and how they funneled their
energies into something unheralded.
In the course of researching for this book, I have been lucky
enough to receive commentary and support from some of the
folks who were involved in making what I consider to be the
greatest record of all time. Ive heard tons of stories and have
been presented with new ways to look at the album. A lot of
the anecdotes are pretty specific, super geekyjust the kind
of stuff, in other words, I would want to read about the album
if I wasnt writing this book myself. I guess what Im trying
to get at is this: Im assuming that you, the reader, are way
into the band. Maybe not, though. Maybe Double Nickels is
one of those records thats been sitting on your shelf for a
long time. Lord knows its more than a little intimidating. Its
a long-ass album, daunting and seemingly impenetrable.
Theres a lot to absorb, which is why Ive been going back to
it again and again for fifteen years. I still hear new stuff with
15
every spin, little nuances that had been missed in the
largeness of the opus.
So, its up to you how to read this. You can go straight
through and read about all of the songs, start to finish, or you
can flip around and find your favorites first. Its cool.
16
History Lesson (Part II)
Work on the record that would eventually become Double
Nickels began in the summer and fall of 1983, following the
Minutemens European tour with label mates Black Flag.
In early 1983, the Minutemen were asked to contribute a song
to producer/ex-Blue Cheer keyboardist Ethan Jamess Radio
Tokyo Tapes, named after the Venice, California, club where
he worked. Write a song, James told the band, and Ill record
it for free. The Minutemen, of course, wrote really short
tunes, so they mashed three songs
togetherSelf-Referenced, Cut, and Dream Told By
Motoand recorded them all in one shot. (Those three
songs, along with five more recorded for a total of $50, would
later be released as the Buzz or Howl Under the Influence of
Heat EP.)
In the early eighties, it was difficult to find recording
engineers and producers who understood both the sonic and
aesthetic qualities of punk. Prior to the Radio Tokyo sessions,
the band had recorded solely with Spot, SSTs de facto house
producer. He always did a good job with the band, but, as
bassist Mike Watt said, Ethan, although not knowing us
much, tapped right in. Hes a very open guy, not a lot of
prejudice. The Minutemen were so impressed by the Radio
Tokyo sessions that they enlisted James to record their next
full-length.
The Minutemen recorded an albums worth of material with
James in early 1983.
17
Then, in December, Hsker D, a Minneapolis three-piece,
came through town, and posed an inadvertent challenge to the
band. Hsker Dsinger/drummer Grant Hart, singer/
guitarist Bob Mould, and bassist Greg Nortonwere friends
with the Minutemen. Both acts were three-pieces, providing
musical camaraderie and kinship, and both bands, by that
time, were recording for SST Records. Hsker Ds first
recording was released on the Minutemens New Alliance
imprint. [SST] didnt have the wherewithal to put out this
tape that (Hsker ) gave them called Land Speed Record and
we thought it was like methamphetamine Blue Oyster Cult,
Watt says. We really liked it, so we put it out. We put out
their first album. (Hsker D later returned the favor by
releasing the Minutemens Tour SpielEP on their Reflex
imprint.)
In the winter of 1983, Hsker D made their way to
California. They were eager to get into the studio to record
their long batch of ambitious new songs, tided Zen Arcade,
with Spot.
Zen Arcade is a double-length concept album about a
runaway who experiences a life full of confusion and terror
outside of the familiar confines of home (before, of course, he
wakes up and finds that his trip was merely a dream). The
record contains tinges of psychedelia, quiet acoustics, and
Eastern meter, light years from the angry, buzzing thrash the
band was known for. It wasnt all new and unconventional for
the band, though. Bits of, pop melody lie submerged under
Bob Moulds trademark locust hum of guitar, with drums that
always felt a fraction of a second off anchoring howling
torrents of lament. Nothing like Zen Arcade had ever come
out of the punk scene before. The album (along with Double
18
Nickels, a little later) was, according to American Hardcore
author Steven Blush, either the pinnacle or the downfall of
the pure hardcore scene. After Hsker D and the
Minutemen released their respective double albums, many
punk bands would begin to ignore the stylistic limitations of
the punk scene.
In the wake of Hsker Ds magnum opus, the Minutemen
decided to rise to the inadvertent challenge presented by their
friends. Reknowned rock critic/former SST Records manager
Joe Carducci says, quite simply, It just hadnt occurred to the
Minutemen to do a double album.
SST Records was willing and able to release the double
albums by both bands. One thing that was really amazing
about SST records what that they did not censor their art in
any way, says Steven Blush. If a band came up and said
that they wanted to put out a triple album, theyd do it. If you
went to a major label with a relatively young band and said
that you wanted to do a double album or a triple album,
theyd laugh you out of the office.
[Hsker D] had a whole concept with theirs, says Mike
Watt. [W]e already invented a batch of songs, recorded em,
so we had to stretch and make a concept to put this [record]
together to be like them. It wasnt really a competition, even.
When I wrote Take That, Hskers! in [the Double Nickels
liner
notes] it was acknowledging that they gave us the idea to
make a double album.
It was back to Jamess Radio Tokyo to record a second batch
of songs. Its interesting to note that the songwriting
19
throughout Double Nickels is cohesive despite the time that
passed between the first and second recording sessions. The
players have no memory of which songs come from which
sessionthe work was simply done. (There are a few songs
that I was able to pin down as being products of either the
first or second session due to contextual clues. When such
hints come up, Ive made notes in the entries for the tunes in
question.)
So, the challenge the Minutemen faced was to create a
concept from a seemingly disparate bunch of songs, recorded
months apart in two separate sessions.
They rose to the occasion and came up with interlocking
concepts. The first was a reaction to the popular music of the
time: a pre-Van Halen Sammy Hagar had scored a big pop hit
with I Cant Drive 55. The Minutemen thought it would be
funny to comment on the nature of Hagars little ditty by
letting listeners know that driving fast wasnt terribly defiant.
So to wear red leather and say that you cant drive 55 like
thats the big rebellion thing ... to us, the big rebellion thing
was writing your own fuckin songs and trying to come up
with your own story, your own picture, your own book,
whatever. So he cant drive 55, because that was the national
speed limit? Okay, well drive 55, but well make crazy
music, says Watt.
The cover of Double Nickels on the Dime spells it all out:
Watt driving his VW Beetle at exactly 55 miles per
hourdouble nickels, in truckerspeakon Californias
Interstate 10, affectionately known as the Dime. Minutemen
buddy/contributor
20
Dirk Vandenberg snapped photos from the backseat as Watt
piloted the Dub under a sign for San Pedro, the Minutemens
hometown. It took three circuits around Los Angeles to get
the photo right, but they got it.
We had to drive all over Los Angeles and whenever we
found a San Pedro freeway sign we took a shot, says
Vandenberg. There were three elements that Mike wanted in
the photo: a natural kind of glint in his eyes reflected in the
rearview mirror, the speedometer pinned exactly on 55mph,
and, of course, the San Pedro sign guiding us home. There
were two separate days of shooting with me smashed up in
the backseat of his VW. I had to push myself back in the seat
as far as possible to get every element needed in the shot. We
finally got lucky and nailed it. The big story to me is how we
worked pretty hard to get it right and when the shot was
finally presented to SST someone botched the cropping for
the print and cut off the end of the word Pedro on the album
jacket.
For their second concept, the Minutemen decided all three
dudes in their band would have a solo song on their album
sides. Their inspiration was Ummagumma, a double album
released by Pink Floyd in 1969. Ummagumma featured solo
performances by each band member. In keeping with the
automotive/driving 55 theme, each side of Double Nickels
would be announced by the particular band members car
starting (and, at the end of the record, the song Three Car
Jamall three engines revving at oncewould send things
off).
21
The good songs, Watt realized, should be at the beginning of
each side, and the ones that werent quite up to par should be
hugging label, on the inside of the record. The solution,
then, was to have a kind of fantasy draft, to draw straws and
let each member of the band pick songs in turn, and put the
leftovers, the chaff, on the final side of the album. That
way, says Watt, the songs that werent on the bands top shelf
wouldnt glob up and each members individuality would
show through all the more in the songs that they chose as their
favorites. [Y]ou separate the wheat from the chaff, Watt
explains, cuz that was the side that had the songs that
nobody picked.
22
Arena Rock Is the New Wave: Side D.
Songs selected by D. Boon comprise the first side of Double
Nickels on the Dime.
I remember the day I first bought the record. It was sometime
in 1991, after finishing up my SATs at Concord High School
in New Hampshire. I was deep in the throes of skateboarding
at that point, spending hours a day skating in an upside-down
metal satellite dish (no kiddinghey, East Concord was
pretty rural!), watching videos of my favorite skatersMike
Vallely, Matt Hensley, Mike Frazier, Neil Blenderwhen I
finished. The old Santa Cruz skateboard films turned me on to
tons of great music on SST Records. I remember being
particularly impressed by this one song that played while
Jason Jessee skated a halfpipe. The song was called Paranoid
Chant. I tracked down a copy of the song on one of my
record-buying trips to Newbury Comics in Harvard Square.
This is all before the internetI really had to dig to find
information about stuff back then. We all did. I went through
microfilm at the school library during free periods, looking
for catalogued articles about the Dead Kennedys, Clash, and
Sex Pistols. At one point, I found a clipping that talked about
what an amazing record Double Nickels was, and made a
mental note to buy it the first chance I got.
After I finished my SATs, I went down to Warren Street, first
to the comic shop, then to the record store directly across the
street. A cassette of Double Nickels was there in the small
23
import/punk section. I bought it and drove home listening to it
in my 1981 Volkswagen Rabbit pickup.
For the first few months that I owned Double Nickels, Id start
at the beginning of side one and listen for awhile, mostly
when driving, then rewind back to Anxious Mofo and start
again. The thought of listening to the whole record from start
to finish every time was way too intimidating.
It makes sense, then, that I know the first batch of songs on
Double Nickels the bestIve listened to them the most.
Some of the records most silly, catchy, and intense songs are
on D.s side. As I listened to the record more and more, I
came to appreciate the fact that the Minutemen had this goofy
sense of humor that set them apart from other bands. They
had their own style and werent afraid to be self-deprecating.
Take #1 Hit Song, for example. I was charmed by D. Boon
singing this seemingly by-rote ditty about love and tapering
off halfway through, going so far as to spell out the letters to
et cetera. If the Minutemen were going to sing a love song,
I quickly realized, they would never be so direct, so cloying.
Stopping halfway through made #1 Hit Song that much
funnier: We know that you know were winking.
Awesome!
I had listened to and enjoyed SSTs cassette reissues of the
first batch of Minutemen EPs and long players, but as
wonderful as some of that early stuff was/is, the songs tend to
blur together. Burst after burst after burstit was hard to
catch up. Theres always talk of the Minutemen being
iconoclasts, writing these short, intense songs with an
unwavering ferocity and dedication to their craft. The talk, of
course, is all true. Thing is, though, that there were also all
24
these other bands who were writing really, really short songs
and playing them at blinding speeds. A lot of the hardcore
records I was listening to at the time, like the seminal This Is
Boston, Not L.A. compilation, featured ridiculously fast, angry
songs. I thought the Minutemen were good, but I wasnt sold
on their greatness until I heard Double Nickels.
The onslaught of short, blazing songs the Minutemen were
known for was replaced by a greater sense of texture. Take
D.s side, for example. After three songs, the shimmering,
gorgeous Cohesion gives a listener the space to breathe a
little bit. The complete change in musical gears that
Cohesion provides recontextualizes the beginning of the
album, making Anxious Mofo, Theater Is the Life of
You, and Viet Nam into a block of listening, a unit of
measurement. It was like the band was demarcating
easy-to-digest segments. Three songs, the pretty instrumental,
three more, the pretty song with the funny title, three more,
the weird one that mentioned the bass player by name, then
the car noise that signified the beginning of side two.
The sequencing was something of a happy accidentagain,
the band had their own fantasy draft to determine the records
running orderbut it all worked out for the best. The
segments on Ds side of the album, with their bursts
and pauses, pulled me in, allowed me to keep listening to this
monster of an album, left me excited to return and keep
learning more about both the bands songs and the reasons
behind them. A goofy, varied introduction to their spiel, one
that proved to be warm and inviting enough to keep me
coming back.
25
D. Boon had the most trebly guitar sound, totally scratchy
and everything, says Mac McCaughan, owner of Merge
Records and singer/guitarist of Superchunk and Portastatic,
but the songs are so catchy it was like they were ... making
this super catchy, memorable music. Its totally in your face
in a lot of ways, and definitely lyrically, but at the same time
there was this pop side to it that was awesome. They
managed, in a forty-second song where thirty seconds of it
was scratchy guitar and crazy rhythms ... to have ten seconds
of it be this super catchy chorus.
Anxious Mofo starts the album out (after, of course, the
sound of D. Boon starting his van). The Minutemen were
democratic in their songwriting. Someone would bring in a
riff, a bridge, some part of a song, and the rest of the band
would write around it. Drummer George Hurley wrote the
lyrics to Mofo. Its a bold way to start an album, with the
lyric Serious as a heart attack / makes you feel this way.
The listener is struck with a gravity thats
nonspecificyoure not sure exactly what he wrote the lyrics
about, but they impact you nonetheless. Hurleys lyrics tend
to be dense to the point of being almost indecipherable, but,
somehow, they dont lose any immediacy because the listener
can still find something in the words to latch on to.
At the time the album was being written, Hurley was
working early in the morning at a factory job, which informed
his songwriting. [I]f you know the situation, Watt says,
you know the environment that bred it. The only time
[Hurley] ever explained a song to us was our first song that
was over two minutes. On What Makes a Man Start Fires, it
was called The Anchor. He said, This ones about a
dream. Okay, but all the rest are about work. I know cuz
26
thats when hes writing em. But thats when theyre really
loose, too, because you cant concentrate on songwriting in
this big horizontal mill, running in needles for needle valves.
Cant give too muchhell hurt himself! Minutemen, were
always servicing expression, not really trying to pay tribute to
a form, in a way. Not at all, because we didnt really know
about songwriting. Wed never done it.
The lyrics that follow the introductory salvoNo device to
measure / no words to define / I mean, how can I express / let
alone possess?can apply to some unspecified instance in a
listeners life. Or, if youre feeling literal, its easy to picture
Hurley, bleary-eyed and sleepless from playing a show the
night before, reluctantly settling into a day of repetition. The
devices mentioned in the lyrics can be metaphorical or
actualit could be George at the factory, or it could be the
recurring Minutemen theme of language coming into play, the
thought that theres not a specific word to discuss the
situation at hand. (As the record progresses, multiple
instances of rumination on the topic of language will be
discussed.)
Mofo also features one of the sparsest guitar solos on the
record. D. Boon was an amazing guitarist, incorporating
elements of funk, jazz, and flamenco into his style, sometimes
using all three in the course of one song. At the end
of Mofo, he uses fewer notes than usual. Watt calls Boons
guitar playing on the song econo, one of the Minutemens
catchphrases (as discussed in the song The Politics of Time,
on Hurleys side of the album). The notes that are played all
count. Theres no filler.
27
The words to Theater Is the Life of You, according to
Watt, are just a spiel. Watt found notes, ramblings written
on scraps of paper in D. Boons van, and brought them to
practice to be used as lyrics. Boon was never embarrassed,
never ashamed or anything, never changed [the words], says
Watt, because he understood the thing with epiphanies.
Boon and Watt had played together since they were boys,
and, as such, were keyed into each others styles and nuances.
A single listen was generally all it took for one dude to link
musically with the other. More of the practice time was spent
working Hurleys drums into the mix, Watt says, because we
didnt want him to be just the backbeat shit. Thats the whole
idea of the band, not just economy in the material sense, but
makin it like conversation. Making this an interesting
conversation. Were going to have Georgie in here, man.
Were going to make space for him, hes going to come in
here and speak, spell his name with his fuckin fills, so that
would take a little of the time. That wasnt really that
traditional, but luckily, Georgie didnt have reverence for
what was tradition.
Musically, Theater is dense. There are many instances on
the album where members of the band will advance or retreat
their playing to allow for the other instruments to come to the
top of the mix. On Theater, though, everything collides a
bit, doesnt have room to breathe, like the
part of the conversation where everyone talks at the same
time. Hurleys drumming, heavy on crash cymbals,
occasionally overpowers D. Boons treble-heavy guitar work.
The listener gets a nice dichotomy right at the beginning of
the record: the intense focus of Anxious Mofo, with its
democratic arrangement, versus the focused intensity of
28
Theater Is the Life of You, with all three dudes howlin at
the same time.
The three Minutemen were inspired by different things at
different times, which is reflected by the variation in both
their music and lyrics. Boons words in Theater, much like
Hurleys on Anxious Mofo, arent sweeping; they rely
instead on impressions of a specific moment, without context
provided, to form a narrative flow. The moment that Boon
was writing about has been lost to history, but the lyrics are
universal enough to be easily applied to some instance in the
listeners life. Elsewhere on the album, like on Corona,
Watts homage to spending Fourth of July on a Mexican
beach, the lyrics are more anecdotal.
Viet Nam is a song that shows the influence of the Pop
Group, a band that, along with Wire and Creedence
Clearwater Revival, was a huge influence on the Minutemen.
The Pop Groups music integrated elements of funk, reggae,
and jazz into a post-punk framework. When the Minutemen
started playing, punk rock was still loose, undefined, and
relatively free of stylistic codes and taboos. It was the
influence of the Pop Group, says Watt, that helped bring
home the point that the Minutemen could mix their copious
influences however they saw fit. The members of the Pop
Group were all fiercely well read, erudite, and full of ideas on
literature,
politics, and seemingly everything else. The Minutemen were
the same wayalways reading, always trying to learn more
about the world. We can put anything with anything! says
Watt. Anything goes! Take pictures, dont take pictures,
gigs, flyers, all these things! All up to us! World of
possibilities!
29
The Pop Group has a song called Blind Faith that
influenced the structure of Viet Nam. Watt describes Blind
Faith as kinda disco. Prior to starting research for this
book, I had never listened to the Pop Group, so I tracked
down some of their albums. The Pop Groups sonic influence
is easily audible in the Minutemens recordingstrebly
guitar, off-kilter rhythms, bubbling bass.
Viet Nam is funny, at least initally. The songs first lyrics
are Lets say Ive got a number / that numbers fifty
thousand / thats ten percent / of five hundred thousand / oh,
here we are / in French Indochina. To a contemporary
listener, the words sound like a bunch of non sequitors strung
together to fit the meter, a trick used to best effect by
Pavement in the early 90s. I was doing a lot of my initial
listening to the record while I was driving, and, as such,
didnt pay a whole lot of attention to the names of the songs.
So, for me, Viet Nam was the 50,000 song, #1 Hit
Song was the E-T-C song, stuff like that.
I did eventually get around to looking at the track listing on
my cassette tapes cover. Once I did, Viet Nam was put into
context, and didnt seem as funny any more: 58,148
Americans killed, and an estimated 500,000 North
Vietnamese dead. The reason for all of the atrocities is
outlined in the last lyric: not one domino shall fall, a
reference to the American anti-Communism campaign that
was used,
to similar results, during the Korean War in the 50s. (The
Minutemen often sang about the effects of American foreign
policyelsewhere on Double Nickels the theme is revisited
on both West Germany and Untitled Song for Latin
America.)
30
The lyrical gravity of Viet Nam is put into relief by the
musical form the band chose. The main guitar riff sounds
kinda silly, not unlike a scale as it slides up and down the
guitars neckthe kind of stuff that you try to play the first
day you figure out the shape of a barre chord. Watts bass
punctuates, adding ringing twangs to silences like hes trying
to get a word in edgewise, and Hurleys drums are
unrelenting. The songs this all-out assault, poppy and busy,
and its about American foreign policy. Its like, who the hell
are these guys?
That was the thingthe Minutemens juxtapositions added
import because they were so jarringly original, following the
Pop Groups stylistic lead of mixing improbable genres,
taking it to the next level. Again, the Minutemens
unorthodox habit of putting anything with anything recurs
throughout the record, one of many underlying themes of
Double Nickels.
The first instance of the bands recurring Ummagumma-
themed instrumentals is Cohesion. As Watt and Boon were
growing up, they were both influenced by a San Pedro
musician named Roy Mendez-Lopez. He was an incredible
virtuoso on the guitar, says Watt, with a Coltrane-esque
practice regimen, spanning an incredible number of hours a
day. Mendez-Lopez lived in his cartalk about econo, says
Wattbuilt his own guitars, learned Vivaldi pieces, and
played intricate flamenco songs. He was an inspiration to
Watt and Boon, encouraging them both to play along with
their favorite records, then put their own personal spins on the
material after they had it wired. Mendez-Lopez often played a
flamenco classic called La Linda, a song later appropriated
31
by the Doors in their song Spirit Caravan. La Linda was
also an inspiration for Cohesion.
The Minutemen thought that the records themes would be
readily apparent to listenersthe respective record sides
named after band members, the obvious 55 miles per hour
imagery, the Floyd-esque solo songs. No one got it. No one!
Zero! Stuff that was so obvious. [W]e were in our own world
so much. . . . How could you see that, not being us? says
Watt.
The references that might have been obvious to the band, who
grew up in the thermos bottle of San Pedro, were often lost
on the punk rock public, whose knowledge of music and
history was generally far more limited in scope. Initially,
punk rock was a reaction against the status quo, and part of
that reaction was carving out a new path and forgetting the
past. There wasnt hardly anyone doing it in San Pedro,
says Watt, but the scene in Los Angeles was only a short
drive away. The relative isolation of playing their blue-collar
port hometown ensured that their style, though influenced by
others, would remain their own thing. They were always
happy to map out the geneaology of their own group via the
bands and people that influenced them (and did so at the end
of Side Watt, on History Lesson, Part II. Skip ahead, if you
like).
When the Minutemen first got into punk rock, things were
wide open, undefinedpart of the reason why they
liked the new thing so much. As time passed, a sort of
musical and stylistic orthodoxy came about, due in part to the
emergence of hardcore as the next extension of punk.
Suddenly, this umbrella, under which all of the weirdos
32
gathered and did their thing, disappeared, and a strict code of
rules took its place. Coloring inside a set of lines took the
place of creativity.
Part of the problem with hardcore, says Steven Blush,
author of American Hardcore, is that it kinda wanted you to
stay the same. And as you grow, you expand and you
experiment, and hardcore stood in opposition to their
experimenting.
Students in my History of Punk Rock class at Tufts
University were very fond of the Minutemens music. The
bands ability to take risks and to draw influence from many
different styles and genres went over very well with them.
The scene police, Im sure, would frown, and heavily, on a
flamenco instrumental being included on a so-called punk
album, but the Minutemens insistence on not giving a shit
and playing what they wanted to play was universally well
received by a bunch of kids who had little prior exposure to
the band. Punk wasnt a style of music, says Watt, it was a
state of mind, and the style of music was up to each band
doing it.
Its Expected Im Gone starts with a slow drumbeat (for
the Minutemen, anyway), no bass or guitar. Over the years,
the song has been a popular one for other musicians to
sample/cover: Jawbox, Sublime, and, most recently Bonnie
Prince Billy with Tortoise have all tried it.
The songs relative slowness was the Minutemens
attempt to change their dynamic. Playing a bunch of songs of
the same speed and length wouldnt make for a good show,
they realized, so the tempo was slowed to a more relaxed pace
33
to try and replicate the way thoughts occur. [W]e changed
gears a lot because thats how it seems the mind would work,
from there to there to there to mere, Watt says.
After Hurleys drums start things off, Watts bass line and
Boons guitar weave around each other through the songs
verses. Im inclined to say that its the bass line that provides
the lead part of the song, but both sets of strings wind up
balancing out pretty welltherere bursts of treble from
Boon, with Watt adding coughs of bass as the waves of guitar
subside.
Structurally, the guitar solo doesnt have a lot to do with the
rest of the song. What had been a very calculated,
thick-sounding number suddenly veers off course and
becomes the platform for one of Boons prototypical
blues-tinged solos, with Watt punctuating, this time using a
jazz framework for his bass playing. The two parts, guitar and
bass, dont sound like they should fit together, but somehow
they dothe Minutemen, once again, trying to replicate how
the mind works. Then its suddenly back to the beginning, a
repeat of Hurleys drum intro, then the verse.
The lyrics to Its Expected Im Gone are very
self-referential, an instance of impressionistic thoughts that
refer back to a specific moment in time. The lyric I dont
want to hurt / see, my position was here / I mean, as it was, I
was could be talking about anything, really. Its up to the
listener to try and find a situation in his or her life to apply the
words to.
The last lyrics of the song, No hope / See, thats what
34
gives me guts / big fucking shit / right now, man, were
written specifically because Watt thought it would be funny
for D. Boon to shout big fucking shit onstage. Seriously. D.
Boon was picked on a lot as a kid because of his size, and
developed both character and self-confidence as a result.
When he strapped his guitar on, he was determined to play
without any inhibition. He would get so into it, man, I just
wanted him to say that, just the feelingno meaning or sense
of the word, Watt says. I never really told him that until
later.
On a record as long as Double Nickels, there are going to be
peaks and valleys, ebbs and flows. On each of the albums
four sides, there are lulls in the action before the intensity
begins anew. Sometimes songs contain many different,
disparate parts. #1 Hit Song is an example.
The tune starts off with something resembling a tidethe
band builds to what seems to be a crescendo, retreats, builds
back to almost the same point, stops. As the intro notes fade
away, the main riff of the song kicks in: this very
rock-sounding guitar lead. From there, Hurleys drums propel
the song along at an even, radio-sounding pace, far less
frantic than his usual fare. D. Boon sings Hurleys lyrics, in
what Watt describes as a caricature of being smooth: On
the back of a winged horse / through the sky, pearly gray /
love is leaflike / you and me, baby. The listener is set up for
the punch line, the final lyrics: twinkle, twinkle / blah blah
blah / E / T / C. The last bit, the et cetera, acts as a sort of
surrender, like all right, we tried to play it straight. Were not
buying it, and we know you arent, either. We hope you
enjoyed our little experimentnow were going to go back to
doing what we do. What D. Boon does, of course, is kick
35
into a typically blazing guitar solo, one of the few overdubs
on the album. D. Boon only used an effect on records. He
would overdub with his green Tube Screamer, 909. Worth a
lot of money now, econo shit [then], says Watt. He used
this hollow body Gibson ES 120 that had to have the cord
soldered right into it. He used that to overdub leads. Never
played it live, hardly.
Its interesting to note that after Double Nickels was released,
the band decided to release a follow-up album that utilized
more traditional song structures and lyrics, kinda similar to
#1 Hit Song. It was a bit of a goofwe made fun of
ourselves really heavy, says Wattbut it was an attempt to
see what could happen if the band played music that was
geared toward a wider audience. The follow-up, titled
Project: Mersh, contains songs that eschew the Minutemens
formula (or what passes for one), taking on the more familiar
trappings of rock music: verse-chorus-verse song structure,
songs between two and a half and four minutes in length,
fadeouts. Mersh still sounds good after all this timethe
horns!but its not a record I pull out all that often. When all
was said and done, it sold half as many as Double Nickels did.
Minutemen songs sometimes had a certain musical gravity to
them, a weight, but not because of the use of power chords.
D. Boons guitar playing seldom relied on standard chugga
chugga punk riffage. His chords were thirds, or ninths,
thirteenths, says Watt. On Two Beads at the End,
though, Boon uses standard punk chord shapes, making the
song sound more like a pop norm than usual. Of course, the
Minutemens idea of a pop norm was often
pretty far from pop, as is the case here. The standard chord
shapes are only used for the half of the song that features
36
lyrics. Theres the songs introduction, a reprise, and then an
extended, repeated outro which takes up the other half.
David Rees, the artist responsible for the comic strip Get Your
War On, is a huge fan of Two Beads at the End. Its . . .
funky and rhythmic without sounding like funk music,
which I dont really like, he says. Its just bad-ass and
original. Its physical, in a way, because Boon is obviously in
total control of his instrument. The world I always think of for
that lick is jabbing. Like its jabbing at the other
instruments. The quick slide down the neck . . . sounds so
casual, with so much panacheI love it! Then, a few beats
later, the song opens up and the verse begins. Two Beads at
the End is an original, sophisticated song.
Hurley wrote the lyrics for Two Beads. As per usual, when
Boon and Watt asked what the song was about, Hurley said
he couldnt remember. Georgie said a lot of times hed write
[lyrics] and then right away forget what they were about. So
[we] never had any inkling to that one. [T]he songs would
sometimes be little babies, little creatures of their own. It
came from us, but now its gone. [Two Beads] was like that.
He never told us about . . . feel like a poker in someones
fireplace, Watt says. Despite the obtuse nature of the lyrics,
though, Boon was able to sing them with conviction. Theres
an urgency to Boons delivery that makes a listener identify
with whats being said, even if the lyrics are indecipherable.
Do You Want New Wave or Do You Want the Truth? is
one of the angriest songs on the record. Its also one of
the prettiest. Upon initial listen, the song seems gentle. The
first few lyricsa word war / could set off the keg / my
words are war! / should a word have two meanings?feel
37
innocent, but the first cusswhat the fuck for? / should
words serve the truth? ends the verse. Something is going on
here.
New Wave was written as a pause, a breath. Watt thought
of Minutemen albums as big landscapes, and intended
New Wave to be a valley, despite the quiet rage that seethes
throughout it. Boon plays his guitar quietly, Watt chips in
with drone, and Hurley contributes guitar, as well as drums
that recall the stand-up style of Maureen Tucker of the Velvet
Underground.
Artist Raymond Pettibon turned the band on to the language
and semiotic theories of Ludwig Wittgenstein and Umberto
Eco, which the Minutemen referenced in the song. The songs
lyrics deal with the duplicity of wordswondering if there
are still sensations that have not been strictly defined by
language, and reflecting on anger in the ways that words can
be twisted around to be used as weapons. Ruminations about
language are another recurring theme on the recordon the
first song, Anxious Mofo, the question how can I express,
much less possess? is posed, and later on, in The World
According to Nouns, the theme is revisited once again.
As New Wave winds down, the multiple narrators state
their opposing views: I stand for language / I speak for truth
/ I shout for history. The very last lineI am a cesspool /
for all the shit / to run down infinds the multiple narrators
united as they swap lyrics. Its a shocking end, alarmingly
immediate, as the song itself glides in for an easy
landing. Finishing on such a lyrically jarring note provides a
good counterpoint to the shimmering beauty of the rest of the
song.
38
How does the genre of New Wave tie into the notion of
language, semiotics? Through record sales and marketing.
The first batch of CBGBs and London bands didnt sell as
well as the record companies had hopedthey were a little
too edgy and inaccessible. In an effort to try and boost sales,
bands that werent altogether mainstream in approach were
marketed as New Wave. When we remember New Wave
now, twenty years later, the tendency is to think about
synth-based stuff, the kind of songs that are played at retro
80s nights at dingy scenester bars. At the time, though,
anything that was remotely left of center was being marketed
as New Wave to try and capture the attention of the
record-buying publicthrowing a bunch of shit at the wall to
see what would stick. As the music was codified, it became
easier for bands to tailor their sound and image to the trends,
which resulted in a more homogenous sound. Happens every
couple of yearsdisco, grunge, swing, shoegaze, et cetera.
The music that was the inadvertent spawn of punk rock left
the Minutemen wondering what had happened, how words
had been twisted to betray.
Dont Look Now is the only song on Double Nickels on
the Dime that wasnt recorded at Radio Tokyo. At the
suggestion of former SST co-owner/rock critic Joe Carducci,
the Minutemen used a cassette tape of the song, a Creedence
Clearwater Revival cover, that was recorded at a live show at
Hollywoods Club Lingerie. They had [Dont Look Now]
recorded [in a studio], says Carducci, but I liked my version
with the first bunch of casual knucklehead fans talking over
the band and that lyric. So I explained what it added to the
song to Mike and he said, Yeah, switch the versions,
without even hearing it. The Minutemen were always brave
like that.
39
Sonically, the song sounds pretty good, especially considering
that it was recorded live to cassette. The band is a little
distant, like theyre playing at the end of a long hallway, and
there are musical intricaciesfills, licksthat are lost in the
tapes muddiness. Carduccis point wasnt really about the
bands performance, but what was going on in the audience
while the song was being played.
The Minutemen were big fans of CCR for several reasons:
their politics, their music, the everyman approach they took to
playing (Watts well-documented love of wearing flannel is a
direct result of seeing John Fogerty decked out in checks on
Creedences artwork). In the case of Dont Look Now, the
emphasis is on politics. Whos going to take care of all the
things that are usually taken for grantedfood, shelter,
clothing? Not the band, D. Boon intones from the stage, and
not the audience, eithertheyre not even paying attention.
Theyre busy talking.
Singing, Watt says, is one thing, but actually doing is another,
something that CCRs singer/songwriter John Fogerty had to
deal with in the sixties, a decade rife with slogans and
patriotism. [Fogerty]s like, whos going to grow the food,
whos going to do this or that, you know? You talk the
fuckin talk, but whats real? By using Carduccis tape, the
onus is thrown direcdy on the listener. Its not the people
gossiping at the show who are going to take any sort of
responsibility. Is it you, the listener? Are you even paying
attention? All the stuff you take for granted, says Watt.
The theme of responsibility recurs on the third side of the
album, on the song Themselves, which is a much less
rhetorical, more hands-on take on the same issues. The
40
Minutemens working-class background is as much of an
influence on their songwriting as any of the groups they
citetime and again on Double Nickels (and in the rest of
their catalogue), lyrics are drawn from the band members
experience and perspective. We didnt make enough to live
on [playing music] even living econo, says Watt, so were
always working the whole time. So we never had lack of stuff
to write about.
Shit from an Old Notebook is a song Watt built around
some writing Boon had done. To keep me from getting in the
ruts, Id ask those guys to give me words, Watt says. So
that was actually an old notepad. Not even haiku, just
thinking out loud, not rhyming or anything.
Notebook is the last song Watt played with a pick (though
he sometimes uses one now, after an extended layoff). On the
early records, the Minutemens breakneck tempos rendered
Watts bass playing down to something resembling rhythm
guitarhe played lots of chords. As the band began to
diversify a little, adding more space and time to their songs,
Watts bass lines began to breathe more. (Plus, Watt got a
Fender Telecaster bass, which he wanted to play with his
fingers.)
I went back and listened to Shit from an Old Notebook
more critically after Watt told me that the song was his last
use of a pick. With that nugget of info in mind, I could hear
how his bass sounded restrained and less funky
than on some of the albums other songs. But maybe, I
thought, I was a victim of suggestion, filling in gaps that
werent really there. I dont play bass, after alldont play
anything; I just listen. Ryan Gear, who runs the Watt/
41
Minutemen/flREHOSE mailing list, plays bass, so I asked his
opinion on the matter.
[I]t does sound a bit flatter than some songs written later not
played with a pick, Gear said. Its still one of my favorite
Minutemen songs, more for the lyrics mainly. Instead of
Watts bass lines anchoring the song (pardon the pun), I get
the aural feeling thats led along by Georgies drumming and
D.s voice. . . . Also, in regards to playing, I could never
really play bass that well with a pick, mainly because I never
learned with a pick, and didnt even try playing with a pick
until after Id been playing for five years or so. So whenever I
play/try to play with a pick, my playing feels more forced and
robotlike and I dont really have the feel like I can flow
through notes than when I just play with my fingers. Thats
another impression I was just getting from Shit from. . .
from hearing it again now.
The song itself is a screed against advertising. Psychological
methods to sell, sings D. Boon, should be destroyed. The
lyrics are rattled off in a rapid-fire staccato of fury, syllables
crammed up against each other. The thought of promoting the
art in question, whether its writing, painting or music, gets
more thought and effort than the art itselfthings get too
commercial (or, in the Minutemens slang, mersh) and the
focus gets lost. Notebook is a cautionary tale, a reminder
that the business aspect of art shouldnt get in the way of its
creation. The last lyrics of the songMorals, ideas,
awareness, progress / let yourself be
heard!provide a counterpoint for D. Boons guitar solo,
which runs for the second half of the songs ninety-six
seconds. Not only is Boon doing what he was just singing
about, letting himself be heard, but hes letting the product (in
42
this case, the song) sell itself, through its passion and its
nonreliance on traditional structure. A fifty-second guitar solo
to finish the tune off is a giant middle finger to the suits the
band is singing about/againstfuck advertising indeed.
The Minutemen wrote a lot of material. (Maybe youve
noticed.) They were afraid of falling into ruts, writing songs
that were similar in style, like tract housesput the garage
on this side, says Watt, the porch over here. In an effort to
keep things fresh, the band often asked their friends for lyrics/
songs, and the remaining songwriting duties were divided
among the three guys. Not assigning songs, but rather writing
them when muse struck kept the pressure low. Nature
Without Man is one of two songs on the recordalong
with Little Man with a Gun in His Handwith lyrics
penned by Chuck Dukowski, bass player for Black Flag from
1977 to 1983, and former manager of Global Booking, the
agency responsible for booking the tours of many bands on
the SST label. While Black Flag and the Minutemen were on
tour, Mike Watt found the lyrics to Nature Without Man
penned in a little notebook Dukowski carried around and
asked Chuck if the words could be used in a song.
I was thinking about morality and the intellectual
impositions we place upon an existence that I feel is without
purpose, or morality, Dukowski said. I was saying that
humanity is inherently self-conscious and self-important. We
think our morality is universal when in fact its all in our
heads. Were trapped inside ourselves. Our feelings are what
offer us our grounding and our core intellectual and moral
direction. The heart and mind, the pied piper in the poem,
exact their payment from humanity for their gifts of
self-consciousness and the rushes of fulfillment and
43
understanding. But the main point is that these things exist
only for us and have no reality outside of us.
Watt describes Nature Without Man as mechanical. D.
Boon begins with this sorta rolling guitar riff, which, after
two repetitions, is augmented by a typically inventive Watt
bass line and a Hurley drumbeat that incorporates a series of
seemingly disparate stutters and fills that hang together and
form a steady backbeat.
When the verses kick in, Watts bass provides the main riff.
D. Boon sings Dukowskis lyrics, and Hurley adds tight,
varied drum fills in behind every bleat of Boons guitar.
When hes not filling, Hurley plays the cymbals to fill the
void left by Boons guitar. After the verses, the main riff is
repeated, and a section that would be the solo in any other
song comes around, featuring diis mechanical main guitar
line. The line is reminiscent of both Gang of Four and Wire,
and reminds me of stuff that would later come out of the
Louisville sceneSlint, Rodan, Crain, et cetera. The pinpoint
precision of the solo part of the song acts as a nice
counterpoint to the rolling, comparative looseness of the main
riff.
Theres also the gag that this mechanical-sounding song is
being used to describe the state of mans consciousness. It
took me a jillion listens to tap in, get the joke, another layer.
One Reporters Opinion is a collection of slights and
slags on Mike Watt. I, had always assumed that one of the
Minutemen had lifted the lyrics from some rock critics
scathing fanzine review and set em to music. Not the case at
all, as it turns out: Watt wrote the song about himself.
44
Watt had been reading James Joyces epic Ulysses on tour
and was smitten with the way the book was written. The
action of Ulysses takes place over the course of twenty-four
hours, a single day, during which Joyce shifts his writing style
to fit the mood of the main character, Leopold Bloom.
Watts lyrical style veered toward the obtuse. D. Boon
sometimes said that the words Watt wrote should be more
concrete, more inviting to the listeners. Watt decided that he
would shift his lyrical perspective, as Joyce did, and use a
song as a vehicle to pick on himself. He was relating
expression to a personal experience by putting his own name
in the song. D. Boon included One Reporters Opinion on
his side of the record as a validation of the form (and perhaps
in the same humorous light that Watt used when he wrote
lyrics like big fucking shit / right now, man specifically so
that D. Boon would yell them during a performance).
D. Boon delivers the lyrics to One Reporters Opinion over
a hi-hat-driven Hurley drumbeat and a jazzy, inventive Watt
bass line that caroms all over the place. Boons guitar fills in
gaps where there are no vocals, culminating in the songs
outro, during which the whole band plays together. Boon spits
the words out as he begins his bursts of stun guitar.
The lyrics to One Reporters Opinion are downright clever.
Watt observes that at the end of Ulysses, the book got
skeletal, [Joyce] is doing question/answers. The first
lyricWhat could be romantic to Mike Watt? / Hes only a
skeletonplays on that notion and pays homage by asking a
question, then referencing the aforementioned
ques-tion-and-answer form of Ulysses as the answer. Watt is a
45
skeletonno meat on him, no substance, just a series of
points / no height, length, or width.
The next lyricIn his joints he feels lifeis a double
entendre. Watt either feels life in his joints, where points
meet, thereby reinforcing the previous lyric, or in his joints,
the dope that he smokes. Pain, the song goes on, is the
toughest riddlenot a feeling, but something that Watt has to
ponder, ruminate on, because hes so dumb.
The final lyrics outline all of Watts shortcomings:
Hes chalk.
Watt says that chalk dont break easy ... it crumbles. When
used the wrong way on a blackboard, of course, chalk
screeches and sends chills to the base of your spine.
Hes a dartboard.
What do you use a dartboard for? As a target, or course,
something to throw projectiles at.
His sex is disease.
Another double entendre herehe either needs to go to the
free clinic, or he has his own horrible gender.
Hes a stop sign.
He causes things to screech to a halt.
46
Punk Rock Is the New Nostalgia: Side
Watt
A couple years back, I decided to get serious, stop calling
myself a writer and actually do ittry and sit down at the
same time, every day, and work on craft and self-discipline.
The vehicle I chose was my CD collection. My New Years
resolution for 2005 was to listen to and review every compact
disc in my rack.
Somewhere in there, probably summer, around the time I was
on the letter P, I got the notion in my head that I should write
a book about Double Nickels for the 33 1/3 series. Its my
favorite record.
I knew that simply submitting clips from my blog wasnt
going to cut it, in terms of the application process. I had to
find something concrete that would help me out.
My idea was still in its early stages when We Jam Econo
screened at the Coolidge Corner Theater in Brookline. Me
and my then-roommate Stoops walked over. Before the film
started, we checked the merch booth as the Minutemen
played over the P.A. I bought a brown econo shirt. The
woman behind the table thanked me and said that buying
T-shirts live saved them a trip to the post office.
*Ding!*
You did the film?
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No, my husband did.
Is he here? Id love to meet him!
She stepped away for a sec, then returned with this guy Keith.
He was very nice, and took relish in answering all my dorky
questions about making the film, doing the interviews, all
that. I mentioned to him that I was going to write the Double
Nickels book for Continuum, and he said Great! Let me
know how it goes.
Cut to a few months later. The due date for book pitches was
looming. I found Keiths email address online and sent him a
message explaining we had met and talked about my book at
Coolidge Corner. Could he hook me up with Watt?
A few days later, an unfamiliar email address in my box.
Watt.
He had been impressed by the Pink Floyd book, and was
amenable to being interviewed.
Holy shit.
Holy shit.
Holy shit.
I made some calls, and booked tickets for California that
night.
48
Come January, my friends John and Kimmee dropped me off
in front of Watts place, this big stucco apartment complex in
San Pedro. Within minutes, we were in his van, driving
around town.
I couldnt believe it.
This guy whose music had been so inspirational to me was
showing me the sightshis sights. Thats where D. Boon
used to live, he said, pointing to an apartment window. Thats
where Minutemen played their first show.
As the afternoon wore on, the amazement, the Is this
happening? wore off. Something else took its place. My Watt
interview was conducted in front of this coffee place on San
Pedros main drag. People recognized him, had questions,
wanted records signedhe was humble and appreciative
about everything. Watt has been a boisterous proponent of
punk rock since he discovered it, but theres more to it than
him talking (and believe you me, dude talks a lot!). Hes
always saying that everyone should start their own band, paint
their own picture, write their own book. It wasnt a speech to
me, thoughit was action. He was helping out, taking an
active part, even though we had never met before I flew out
there. Real names be proof, you know?
I think that somehow Watt manages to . . . see the current
scene as though it was still 1985, says Mac McCaughan.
And I dont mean it in a retro way ... back then if you were
into punk rock you were part of this community because
everyone wasnt into [it], and you couldnt just ... go online to
find out about punk rock. You had to go to a hardcore show . .
. you had to go see bands in the basement of a church or
49
whatever. So it created like a bond between people, I think ...
it was like an extended family, really, and I think that Watt
has managed to keep that kind of perspective on things when
I think its easy for people to kind of grow out of that or
something, you know?
Yes, I do.
* * *
For me, the biggest surprise about Double Nickels was Watts
admiration/integration of stylistic elements drawn from James
Joyces epic Ulysses. I had never thought of the novel and the
record in the same mental breath, but it makes sense: Ulysses,
like Double Nickels, is one of those grand, commonly
referenced pieces of art (uh-oh, here he goes talking about
art!) that sits on the shelf unappreciated because of the
intimidation factor.
Ulysses takes place over the course of a single day. The
writing style varies from chapter to chapter as multiple
narrators and perspectives come into view. Watts side of the
record liberally borrows from Joyces novel, using a number
of different lyrical and narrative devicesa real literary
record. Its not a song-by-song/chapter-by-chapter likeness,
by any means, but the influence can be felt most keenly (but
not solely) throughout Watts side.
It seemed to me then, and still does now, Watt says, that
[Joyce] was trying to write about everything. And in a way
the Minutemen were trying to do the same. Never sat down
and agreed to do this or anything, but it seems like were
trying to write about everything. The whole world, the
50
history, the future, what can be, could^ be, would be, what
might have been. So, were overreaching, and this is the thing
we get out of itbasically, [Ulysses is] about one fuckin
day! Guy goes to a funeral, takes a bath, beats off on the
beach. You know, so like Minutemen, we were writing
things, and therefore trying to like ... we were obviously
overreaching, so I felt a sympathetic chord, for some reason.
Patterning an album after one of the masterworks of literature
is certainly overreaching, but the only way progress is ever
made is by challenging oneself. The songs that are on Watts
side of Double Nickels succeed way more often than they fail,
even if youre not into the whole Joycean theme. There are a
bunch of different styles and sounds that come up over the
course of the side. The more you listen to the record, the
deeper into the songs you can get.
Ive heard Double Nickels a zillion times, and half of that
zillion has been over the last year or so, in researching and
writing this book. When I listen to the album now, I tend to
think of Watts side as my favorite. Sure, I listened to D.s
side the most back in the day, but knowing the story (okay,
stories) behind Watts songwriting changed my view. Double
Nickels, obviously, is a long-ass album, and the way that
everyone seems to get through it initially is by picking
favorites and using those songs as touchstones. (Okay,
Political Song is on, then theres a few until Toadies, and
then . . . ) My recent immersion in the album allowed me to
spend time with some of the songs on the record, Watts side
in particular, that I had previously skipped over while I was
waiting for the next immediately poppy, catchy song to come
up. There are ebbs and flows that add up to this fantastic slab.
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Political Song for Michael Jackson to Sing has always
been among my favorite Minutemen tunes. Its a perfect mix
of poignant and silly, with great stop/starts and sing-along
parts.
Watt wrote the song for Michael Jackson, no joke. Wrote a
letter to him, with the lyrics, never got an answer back, Watt
says. But actually, thats why [the song is] called
that, I actually thought of him to sing that song. I thought,
Man, if he would sing this song people would think about
sending people off to war.
The lyrics for Political Song reflect on experiences that
Watt had during his time in the Boy Scouts. The town of San
Pedro was heavy on blue-collar traditionthe men went to
work; the women were homemakers. Watt was put in the Boy
Scouts, like many other young men, to help fill the hole left
by his father working all the time. His first Scoutmaster, Watt
says, a man named Riley, was great. Hiking up the
mountains a lot, lot of nature, learned a lot about the Indians. .
. . They were teaching us about the nature, the traditions, all
that.
When Riley retired, though, another Scoutmaster took over,
one that shifted the focus from learning to regiment, from the
outdoors to a more militaristic approach. Instead of going on
hikes, the boys in the Scout troop were made to dress
identically and drill. Watt grew up with the Vietnam war on
the news every day, watching ships depart from his Naval
home town, but none of it had as much effect on me as how
the Scout thing went from going out there on bigass hikes,
really strenuous, learning stuff about Indians, which the only
other way to learn about was the movies, which the guys
52
making those movies knew nothing about themTonto,
Tonto means idiot. This guy says, No, this is the way you
drill, everybodys uniform, you cant wear your special little
patches, my Order of the Arrow thing, conformity,
conformitywere going to make it the military.
Watts hope was that Michael Jackson would use the lyrics
and make people think more about war, the prospect of
sending boyssome of them just a few years removed
from their Boy Scout experiencesoff to fight and die.
The music on Political Song is fairly standard punk fare,
atypical for the Minutemen. Riffs are straightforward,
allowing Watts lyrics to come to the forefront. As the song
builds, the Minutemen set the listener up. Prior to the music
kicking in, D. Boon intones the words List monitors arrive
with petition, then the song immediately revs into high gear.
As the music tapers off at the end of the verse, theres a pause
reminiscent of the way the song starts, during which D. Boon
immortally says I must look like a dork. (The song was
always a favorite during my years working on staff at
Wah-Tut-Ca Scout Reservation in Northwood, New
Hampshire. Short shorts and knee-high wool socks during the
middle of summer? We all knew a little something about
looking like dorks.) Then the song starts again.
So, after two instances of vocals over silence, the listener
expects a third. Instead, the Minutemen deliver a joke. If we
heard mortar shells, Boon sings, Wed cuss more in our
songs / and cut down on guitar solos.
Pregnant pause.
53
Ridiculously over-the-top guitar solo. There are no mortar
shells to be heard.
Then, back to vocals over silence.
So dig this big crux: ten years after the war, theres no
worry about the draft, the big sweat point, but kids in the
Scouts being made to act and dress the same is downright
wrong. Boys shouldnt have to glimpse into a wholeness
thats way too big. They should simply be allowed to be
boys.
Check out the bass line on Maybe Partying Will
Helppretty funky, eh? Its not hard to envision the likes
of Flea and Les Claypool perking up their ears upon hearing
the song. When Watt was growing up, the only records with
bass lines that werent buried deep in the mix were funk
albums, so he played along with them. It shows.
When the song starts, all thats audible is the bass, which
sounds lighthearted. In typical Minutemen fashion, the song
becomes at odds with itself very quickly. The whole band
plays at the same time, not taking turns or creating a whole lot
of space for each other, similar to Theater Is the Life of
You.
As I look over this beautiful land, D. Boon sings on
Partying, I cant help but realize that I am alone. From
there, the lyrical stakes get higher as the guitar drops out and
the song slows down, gets more reflective: Why Im able to
waste my energy / to notice life being so beautiful / maybe
partying will help. The contradiction is deep: the narrator,
who is alone, wants to party with other people so that he will
54
stop noticing how beautiful everything is. Its a bit of a
knotpartying as an antidote to solitude is one thing, but to
eradicate beauty? The lyrical narcissism of these lyrics suits
the quiet mood of the choruss music, but then, once again,
the funk bass kicks back into party mode.
The next verse contains an instance of the printed lyrics being
at odds with whats sung. The albums sleeve contains the
lyrics What about the people who dont have what I have? /
Theyre victims of my leisure. Makes sense, right? For
years, Ive been hearing What about the people who dont
have what I aint got? / Are they victims of my leisure? The
double negative makes zero sense, and is certainly
arguablebecause of D. Boons inflection, its possible that
hes dragging the I out and not saying aint at all. Thing
is, though, that it does make sense in the context of the
song. In the first verse, the narrator has been talking in
contradictory tones about not wanting to notice the beauty
that surrounds him. The seeming nonsense of dont have
what I aint got fits right into the theme.
Perhaps the third verse will offer some kind of lyrical insight
to help clear up what the intent of the song is. If the lyrics are
positive in outlook, maybe D. Boon did say have what I
got. But there are no more verses. The songs second half
features some slap bass from Watt, and a minute of D. Boon
soloing. Theres no resolution to the tension created by the
song, which, in turn, makes the song even more (in)tense.
The song Toadies, says Watt, was written after reading the
memoirs of Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich. His work
is considered to be some of the most vital and lasting of
Russian music history, despite the fact that his work was
55
twice denounced as too formal by Josef Stalin, in 1936 and
again in 1948. The cat, Watt says of Stalin, surrounded
himself with toadies. Stalins denouncements dried up
Shostakovichs commissions and grants, leaving him to
scramble for piecework to pay his rent.
The Minutemen didnt spend a lot of time working in
officesthey were, after all, blue-collar dudes from a
working-class townbut the whole concept of toadyism
should ring familiar for anyone who has. Its human. This
dick is not the boss, but hes a little bit above you. Thats all
he needs, says Watt. You know the type. Theres the guy
whos been at the office for a month longer than you. He
always comes by at five of five to drop a stack of work on
your desk that needs to be done ten minutes ago. In the case
of Shostakovichs Russia, the consequences were more dire
than a talking-to from the boss or having to stay late at work.
According to Watt, The whole C.Y.A.cover your assits
just the way humans organize. Then, humans are funny.
Theyll organize against it, maybe. The last lyrics of the
song, though grim, do symbolize some hope (though it might
not be consoling as you sit in your cube): We are cusswords
/ nearly illiterate / dedicated / to fighting toadies. Its the
word we that does it. Maybe its just the listener and the
singer, or maybe the singer has a bunch of people there with
him, ready to rise up against toadies.
Toadies is a great example of the Minutemens attempt at
making all of their songs into musical conversations between
band members. The song is introduced and then driven by
Watts bass line. When D. Boon starts playing his guitar riff,
it adds texture, but leaves room for the song to breathe. The
56
guitar is never in any danger of overshadowing the bass line,
and it interacts well with Hurleys drums. Hurley is fairly
restrainedhe plays some big, punctuating torn hits in the
spaces left by Watts line, and uses his hi-hat to keep time and
accent Boons waves of guitar. Its always amazed me that
the Minutemen operated with such a small amount of ego. So
many times you hear of an act with a few people struggling
for power and creative control. Ive never heard anything of
the kind about the Minutemen. In fact, all the people who
knew or worked with the guys in the band have gone out of
their way to tell me how thoughtful and considerate the
players were, both in their songwriting and day-to-day lives.
Im not sure if they sought to construct an active, working
model of socialismthe opposite of working with a bunch of
toadiesbut, in retrospect, it seems that they managed it
pretty well.
When Retreat begins, it sounds as if maybe its a
continuation of Toadies, another movement of the same
song. The first dozen or so times I listened to the record, I
thought Toadies was a long song with more parts than
usual. The similarities are derived from their respective bass
lines. As Retreat plays through the differences appear:
Toadies doesnt have the same level of dynamism that
Retreat does. Aside from the quiet bit in the middle,
Toadies maintains an even keel, whereas Retreat is
symphonic, both in dynamic structure and sound. Its easy to
imagine an orchestras string section playing the opening riff.
Watt characterizes his bass line on Retreat as kinda
classical in nature. Its far less funky than some of the other
songs on his side, and far more subdued and muted than
Toadies is. As the song progresses, there are these
57
freak-outs that act as the songs chorus, massive shifts in
sound that jar the listener. The symphony metaphor extends
throughout the blasts of noisea string section could be
playing the choruses during a performance. Watts scalelike
run of notes during the skronk is stylistically similar to the
line he plays on Martins Story, found on Side Chaff.
The origins of the song are varied. Part of the impetus for
writing Retreat was Watts reading of Ulysses. Watt was
inspired by how the book discussed things beyond being
analyzed. Dream sequences, unconscious things. Sensations,
you feel em and stuff. I was trying to get those into songs.
Much like Its Expected Im Gone (and Ulysses), Retreat
reflects on a days specific impressions. Watt characterizes
the song as the reverberations from dabbling with
hallucinogens. Hed sit by himself and wrestle with his
thoughts for twelve hours at a time. A lot of this ... is about
sensory stuffI hear the toilet flushing, reactions of people,
says Watt. Its all a perception kind of thing. A lot of this
shit, you turn on your own values of yourself, especially
insecurities, stuff like this. Voice is a tape recorder,
thundermy head is a tape recorder, your voice is a
thunderclap. The songs symphonic elements were the
bands attempts at approximating the emotions felt when, in
altered states, things would set his trip off in unexpected
directions. Retreat finds Watt in the middle of confronting
inner demons, only to be set off in a tizzy by the toilet
flushing in the next room over.
The Big Foist starts off with a familiar, poppy four-note
figure that repeats a few times through the song. While the
Minutemen were on their European tour with Black Flag, they
58
played London, and picked up the figure/riff from the
chiming bells of Big Ben. Listen to the song againhear it?
The Big Foist is sequenced after Retreat because of their
respective bridges. Ones classical, Watt says, referring to
Retreat, the others this corny-ass prog rock cuz I was
being satirical. I was actually laughing at us, because when
we made a song it was kinda a big foist. The bridge in The
Big Foist that Watt refers to features a Boon guitar solo
which, honestly, I never thought of as remotely proggy prior
to conducting the interview. Which, I suppose, makes sense in
the context of the song. The lyrics, though minimal, reflect on
the nature of art, how interpretations change once something
is released for public consumption. A richer understanding /
of whats already understood is a rumination on how once
something is created, the viewer is able to interpret the
pieces
meaning any way s/he wants to, even if the original intentions
of the artist are lost. When you lay something on someone,
says Watt, youve got good intentions, what if . . . the guys .
. . gonna put on a brown shirt and march behind you? In the
case of the song, the thought of a prog-influenced bridge
never even occurred to me. I thought that the solo had more to
do with the Minutemen using the trick where they jar the
listener by adding a seemingly disparate part to a song.
Which, again, ties right into the gist of the song. Ive got my
opinion, which is valid, even though the bands intent doesnt
match up with my interpretation. (Heady theory stuff, I tell
you!)
The Big Foist also features one of those lyrics where D.
Boon gets all mad and shouts expletives at the end of the
song, much Else in Its Expected Im Gone. Foist
59
concludes with the lyrics What gift could be the work of art?
/ Can You call it the Big Foist / Im fucking overwhelmed!
Again, try and picture this huge dude, face beet red, shouting
those lyrics. Awesome!
The last bit of trivia about the song has to do with the cadence
of the vocals. Listen to the first few lines: A richer under
stanging / of whats already understood / no meanings from
the here and now. The vocal emphases are overexaggerated.
The syllables that get the stress in each lyric are drawn out to
the point of breaking. Watt and the band were trying to use
the rhythm and pronunciation scheme that made the vocals of
the Dead Kennedys Jello Biafra so distinctive. The
Minutemen were big DK fans, and thought their lyrics
sounded like something Biafra would sing. The listening
public didnt pick up on the nuance, though, despite the
Minutemens assumption that the joke was pretty
obvious. (I never heard it until Watt mentioned it to me. Now
that Ive been told, it makes perfect sense.)
God Bows to Math is another of the songs that, in Watts
words, the Minutemen outsourced to keep things fresh. The
lyrics were written by Jack Brewer of Saccharine Trust, a
band on the SST roster that the Minutemen had a deep
kinship withWatt produced two of Saccharines albums and
played on another.
The lyrics to Math refer to the broadcasts of Gene Scott, the
deceased Howard Stern of televangelists. Scott was
considered to be highly unorthodox in his methods, often
skating on the edge of profanity during his broadcasts,
smoking cigars, telling viewers he wantonly spent the money
they sent in to him. During his shows/sermons, Scott would
60
veer off onto subjects that were a little cultish: UFOs,
Atlantis, and pyramids. Part of Scotts teaching was that
numerology could be used to ascertain that the pyramids were
in fact giant monuments which depicted the history and future
of Christianity.
The lyrics goof on the topic of maththe Queen is buried in
the tomb, all her life spent guarding the holy cubit, the unit
of measurement based on the space between the elbow and tip
of the middle finger, and the sacred inch. The idea of the
queen basing god given accuracy, measuring untold
prophecies on a unit of measurement as arbitrary as the
length of an arm (whose arm is it?) adds a subde humor to the
song, as the math thats being bowed to fluctuates wildly
from person to person.
The band wrote the music for Math as if they were, in
Watts words, taking a trip through a tomb, like a pyramid.
The main repeating guitar line is sparse and creepy, not
terribly Western-sounding. Watts bass locks in nicely with
Hurleys drums, and, as on The Glory of Man, later on the
side, the sparse guitar gives the rhythm section the space
needed to rise to the forefront of the song.
D. Boons guitar solo on Math is reminiscent of the one on
Anxious Mofo, the albums first track. Both eschew the
fast, loose, bluesy style that Boon often played with, choosing
instead to focus on a more minimal, impactful style, played
with more precision and less speed. Theres hardly any
notes, Watt says. Just the right notes, theyre beautiful.
The same can be said of the songs outro, which sounds more
in line with Boons usual bluesy style of playing, except
slowed down. Theres an ominous feeling to the songs final
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seconds, as if a new tangent is about to be expounded on.
Boon finishes the bit instead, and the song abruptly ends.
Its worth noting here that the creeping feeling of doom at the
end of the song isnt as prevalent any more because of our
modern gadgetry. If youre listening to God Bows to Math
on a CD player or iPod, chances are theres a digital readout
telling you how long the song has been running and/or how
much time is left before its finished. Any anticipation is
being killed by visible math. Bow down!
Listening to the record on vinyl didnt produce such an effect.
You could peek in to see where the needle was, but there
wasnt as much precision. The original release of Double
Nickels presaged CDs by a few years, so the Minutemen
didnt intend to comment on the way we listen to music, but,
as it happens, they did. Funny that I would notice such a thing
on a song titled God Bows to Math. Its like rain on your
wedding day, dude.
Corona is the most recognizable song on Double Nickels.
The opening bit was used as the theme song for MTVs
wildly popular show Jackass. Spike Jonze approached Watt
with the shows pilot and asked if Corona could be used as
the nascent shows theme. Watt is a big fan of
skateboardinghe likes the vibe and the way it keeps people
humble. [I]f you fall down, Watt says, you cant talk your
way out of it, youve gotta get back up. You dont need a lot
of equipment. You can totally open it up, make your own
styles. Its populist, you know? Jackass, he reasoned, was
over the top the same way skateboarding was, and he was a
fan of Spike Jonzes work.
62
Corona as the theme of a popular TV show, Watt reasoned,
would be a good chance to expose new people to his friend D.
Boons music. [P]eople get to hear D. Boon play, Watt
says. This way, were going to let everybody hear. He cant
do gigs. He cant be here to tell you about this stuff, and I
cant do a good enough job for him. Thank God the music is
here. We recorded that, you can hear him play. So thats why
I put that in there. The money that came in as a result of the
songs use was given to D. Boons father, who used it to help
treat his emphysema.
The Minutemen spent Fourth of July in Mexico. The holiday
was on the same weekend as the countrys general election.
Right before the holiday, they had shaved their heads as part
of a performance art piece in which they painted their bald
noggins black to look like matches in a book. It didnt occur
to them to apply sunscreen while they swam in the ocean. The
results were predictable. The next morning, the three dudes
woke to hangovers, huge sunburns,
and, in the distance, clanking. There was a woman walking up
and down the beach, collecting empty Corona bottles to
deposit.
The same trip was also the catalyst for the song I Felt Like a
Gringo on the Minutemens 1983 Buzz or Howl Under the
Influence of Heat EP. Upon waking, Boon, Watt, and Hurley
went to a cantina, where teenaged soldiers entered and passed
out bread to the customers. Watt asked the soliders about the
election, and they laughed at him. He must have been a sight,
bright red, sand on his face, hung over and stinking of booze.
During live sets, Watt would sometimes refer to Corona as
a cowboy song. It has a do-si-do square-dance vibe to it.
63
Watts bass line, simple and driving, takes precedence over
Hurleys crash-heavy drums and D. Boons mosquito drone
during the verses. During the choruses, the now-familiar
guitar phrase takes the front.
(Quick story: the Minutemen had a whole class devoted to
them in my History of Punk Rock course at Tufts. When I put
the syllabus together in the fall of 2005, I slated ten minutes
of in-class time for viewing clips from We Jam Econo, which
I figured would be available before the allotted class period
rolled around. It wasntproduction was delayed. The kids
were stoked when they got to watch clips from Jackass
instead. During my second semester of class, I showed both.)
The Glory of Man, by Minutemen standards, is an
epicalmost three minutes in length! Look out!
Part of D. Boons brilliance as a guitar player was in knowing
when to reel it in a little bit. Glory is a fine example.
Watts bass linethe best kind of disco, he saysand
Hurleys drums, more kick-heavy than his standard fare,
could have easily been drowned out by some crazy guitar
lead. Boon keeps it econo and plays a textural line instead,
allowing the rhythm section the space it needed to be heard.
Do a two-note verse that stays like that because if he
bog-arts there you wouldnt hear that drum, you wouldnt
hear that bass, Watt says of Boons guitar. Watts bass line
doesnt sound particularly airy, but the few aural spaces he
leaves are filled in immediately by Hurleys kick drums.
Lyrically, Glory is, according to Watt, the most overt of
the Joyceans, except for June 16th. Theres some lyrical
metacriticism going on in the song. As D. Boon sings each
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lyric, parenthetical asides comment on what was just said.
Glory begins with this heavy bit: Starting / with the
affirmation of man / I work my way backwards / using
cynicism. Then, in parentheses: (the time monitor / the
space measurer). The narrator of the song is commenting on
the song itself and the thought process involved. We invent
units of measurement to assume ownership of space and time.
The line I live sweat / but I dream light years embodied the
Minutemen well: throughout the course of the band they all
worked jobs, living sweat, but their aspirations were well
beyond the walls of the factory. And again, in parentheses:
the laugh child, making the best of it, one of many dreaming
light years.
Watt remembers The Glory of Man being one of the second
batch of songs recorded with Ethan James. Originally, Watt
had been slated for vocal duty, but playing the bass line and
singing was too prohibitive for him. D. Boon sang instead. If
you listen to his inflection, it becomes
obvious that he didnt really know the words well. He was
reading them off of a piece of paper in the studio. Listen to
how his says the word measurer, for example: MAY-surer.
Hes trying to cram all of the syllables into the meter at the
last minute. Political Song for Michael Jackson to Sing has
another such instance, too, on the lyric organizing the Boy
Scouts for murder is wrong. On tapes of live shows, you can
hear Boon truncate the lyric to something more manageable:
organizing Boy Scouts for murder is wrong. Omitting the
the makes for a better fit.
Take 5, D. is Mike Watts solo song, though its not solo
so much as it is a song that doesnt feature D. Boon. Instead
of relying on Boon to play, Watt busted out a twelve-string.
65
He also had a bunch of his friends come in and play guitar.
John Rocknowski was in Tragic Comedy, the band that
played with the Minutemen on the Project: Mersh tour. Joe
Baiza, a member of Saccharine Trust, puts down some tracks.
So does Dirk Vandenberg, the guy who shot the cover photo
for Double Nickels.
In addition to playing a little guitar and shooting the albums
cover, Vandenberg provided the note that Watt then turned
into the songs lyrics. Take 5, D. came from Mike and me
musing about how a note from my landlady telling me not to
use the shower because the apartment downstairs would get
flooded, would make a cool idea for a song . . . sort of a
haiku/poem type deal, Vandenberg says.
Boon often accused Watt of writing lyrics that were too out
there, so Watt thought he would use his solo song to sing
about something a little bit more concrete. D. Boon was
sayin Your lyrics get a little spacy, man. People dont
know what youre talkin about For me, you know, they
seemed kinda clear, Watt explains. So I thought, well, I
gotta be real, huh? Ill make em real real. It was the
landladys note!
The language in the note is tersemore command than
requestbut in the context of the song, spoken by Watt over
both acoustic and electric guitar, the note sounds both wistful
and mournful. Its a pretty little bit, followed by a
Jandek-sounding junk guitar bit, then a Greg Ginnsounding
wail.
My abilities as a guitar player at that time were, and still are,
limited, says Vandenberg, so I just sat there and finger
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tapped the fretboard fast and faster in a flurry of notes and
clunks. I had to invent something different to compete with
those two gunslingers.
Watt thought the joke would be obviousheres a song that
mentions in the title that D. Boon doesnt play on it, adding
more weight to the whole Ummagumma quasi-concept, but,
again, the humor largely went over the heads of the listeners.
The punk scene ... didnt really understand them, says Jack
Rabid, editor of The Big Takeover. They were too weird and
esoteric and unique for the loud fast crowd in the emerging
hardcore scene. And the old and new art rock crowd didnt
know them at first; they just thought they were a punk/
hardcore band since they were on the Black Hag label . . . but
it wasnt until some of the more mainstream writers started
mentioning the band that they really garnered a more
underground/indie audience while hardcore fans went up their
own butts in narrowing their vision.
My Heart and the Real World finds Watt using a bass
style that sounds like the Carswind-up toy shit, he
saysover a beat that references the early drum sounds of the
Jam, the punky British Mod band that started playing in the
wake of the Sex Pistols in late 70s London (think In the
City). My Heart and the Real World sounds pleasant,
upbeat, and remarkably poppy, even though the subject matter
is grim.
Watt was referencing Ulysses with his lyrics. [M]oving
through styles, through the journey, through the time of the
day, through the whole thing, Watt says. The fourteenth
chapter of Ulysses finds Joyce, over the course of sixty
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paragraphs, equating the birth of a baby to the birth of
language by parodying the development of both with
stylistics. The language in the chapter starts with a spoof on
Latin, moves through the Middle Ages, then, for the last ten
paragraphs, reflects on (then) contemporary Dublin slang.
Pretty intense stuff to work into a rock album, eh? Theres a
direct lyrical link to the language element when Boon sings
And if I was a word, could my numbers number a hundred? /
More likely coarse and guttural, one syllable Anglo-Saxon.
(My favorite lyric on the entire record, that.)
Heart doesnt get any lighter, despite the upbeat nature of
its music. The lyrics are riddled with loss: the narrators soul
collapses, the world is wrong, hes defeated, and, of course,
some big thunder law forces [him] to eat shit. Watt had
originally intended to sing the song himself, but found that
singing and playing the poppy bass line was too prohibitive.
D. Boon sang instead.
Watt was dabbling with the power of words, how speaking
certain strings of them can provide a kind of catharsis,
like when Masons do their incantations, or when the Pope
says Mass in Latin and everyone knows when to respond and
what to respond with. Conversely, though, there are times
when there are no words for certain sensations or situations.
The grimness of Heart is intentional, but at the same time,
its a critique of Watt himself. Im trying to talk about
something very bleak, a little bit, Watt says. But how dare
you get so carried away with yourself, with declaring things
so bleak, see? In a way, its an indictment on that, on myself a
little bit. Words serve as an example, kinda. Its
complicatedusing language to describe a situation that there
are no words for, but, at the same time, condemning yourself
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for finding the words to describe a situation so bleak. A hell
of a paradox.
Paradoxical, also, is the dark humor contained in the song.
Some big thunder law forces me to eat shit is a funny lyric
on the surface, even if the subject matter is grim. The vocal
inflections have elements of humor to them, as well. D. Boon
sounds goofy when he crams a zillion syllables into each line
to fit the meter. Finally, I felt like handcuffs / machines
disregard my pronouns zips by quickly. My initial listens
resulted in laughter and reminded me of fast lyrical songs like
R.E.M.s Its the End of the World as We Know It (and I
Feel Fine) and the Meat Puppets Sam. The silly-sounding
singing mixed with the bleak lyricism makes the song more
poignant.
A lyric from History Lesson, Part IIOur band could be
your lifewas used as the title of Michael Azerrads book
chronicling the careers of seminal indie acts. The Minutemen
continue to be an important band as much for
their way of looking at the world as for their music. They
were three guys, very intensely into their own things, who got
together and made it happen. Their message, spoken as often
as not, was that you didnt have to be _______________ to be
in a band (or write a book). You just had to be yourself.
Punk rock has always been reactionary. The initial wave of
punk came at a time when thickly produced dreck was
clotting the airwaves. Real people didnt play in bandsrock
music, or whatever it had turned into, was for rock stars,
another breed entirely. When punk happened, it dawned on
thousands of kids, Watt and Boon included, that music didnt
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have an elite ruling class. They could play however they
wanted.
Within years of the Ramones, Sex Pistols, and Clash, though,
punk was stripped down, sped up. The transition was made
from punk to hardcore, and, suddenly, kids who listened to
music reacted to it differently. Hardcore codified punk. When
the Minutemen started, they saw punk as a genuine outlet for
expression. I cant imagine us doing anything that we did
without the punk movement happening, Watt says. What
happened to us even back thenYou guys dont sound like a
punk band. Well, I thought that was the idea! Punk wasnt a
style of music, it was a state of mind, and the style of music
was up to each band doing it.
Lance Hahn, the singer/guitarist of J Church, says that
History Lesson sums up [the Minutemens] antihero status
in punk while at the same time using reverse psychology to
mythologize themselves. ... It was really one of those
epiphanies where I also started to realize that a punk band
could also have a hard hitting impact while playing slow.
In an attempt to document the roots of the Minutemen,
Watt paid homage to the main riff of the Velvet
Undergrounds Here She Comes NowIts pretty gende
in a weird way, he saysand told the bands story, starting
with their origins as fucking corndogs in their working
class hometown. They mentioned the musicians that had
influenced them: Richard Hell of the Voidoids, Joe Strummer
of the Clash, Xs John Doe, and Blue Oyster Cults guitarist
Eric Bloom, who is credited on a Blue Oyster Cult album as
E. Bloom on guitar. (A young Dennes Boon saw the credit
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and decided hed sign his nascent paintings D. Boon in
homage.)
The name checks were, and are, amazing. Information wasnt
widely available in the days before the internet. Trying to find
like-minded music in the early punk days wasnt easy,
especially if you happened to be a kid living someplace
remote. Often times, it came down to scouring an albums
liner notes for unfamiliar bands that were thanked. The
Minutemen take things a step further and say, Here are the
people who influenced us. D. Boon mentions that real
names be proof, then provides a list of influences. The
implication is that, as he says, our band could be your life. Its
a call to action. Start your own band, paint a picture, write a
book, build a sculpture, whateverand plug in the real names
from your life. Take your own mix of unique influences,
whether theyre obscure or common, and do it.
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Dance Rock Is the New Pasture: Side
George
Theres that discussion. You know the one.
Youre sitting on the back porch with your buddies, maybe
coming out of the basement, and the topic shifts to
superlative____________. Best working actor, Chris Rocks
best role, best solo album by a member of Steely Dan. The
inevitable bullshit esoterica. Whatever the topic of discussion
is that night.
George Hurleys name never comes up for most underrated
drummer.
Thats how underrated the guy is.
Its understandable. When you think of the Minutemen, the
tendency is either to think of D. Boon, with his bulky
urgency, or Watt, the rambling bass lumberjack. Hurley was
simply in the back, doing his thing. His haircut, certainly, was
well knownthe huge curly swath nicknamed The Unit,
which bobbed in time with his hyperkinetic drum fills. Aside
from the do, it was the other two guys who were the visible
ones.
Hurley was, in some ways, the most orthodox member of the
Minutemen. In high school, where Boon and Watt were
lumped in with the weirdos, Hurley was a cool kid, one of the
social elite. It speaks volumes of his character that he was
unafraid to align himself with these two complete geeks who
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asked him to be in their band. At the time of the Minutemens
inception, punk rock was not a fashionable subculture, as it is
today. Being a punk back then meant that you were one of
maybe a handful of kids who were into it. Dressing the part
meant that you were painting a target on your back. Hurley,
though, didnt care, and played with those guys anyway.
As I made my way through Double Nickels, I began to realize
that each side has its own character, a result of each band
member choosing the songs. D.s is the most welcoming, I
think, and Watts is the most literary. It took a while longer
for me to get to the heart of Hurleys side. Because Im a
writer, I tend to listen to lyrics first. A lot of the songs that
Hurley wrote words for were elliptical, open-ended affairs.
(Not all of them, of course. #1 Hit Song, one of my
favorites on the album, has lyrics penned by Hurleyits
totally dry, straightforward, and funny as hell.) My listening
style has changed a bit as Ive gotten older. Ive become more
aware of time changes, lead instruments, et cetera. (Q: What
do you call someone who hangs out with a bunch of
musicians? A: Rock critic.) Knowing the back story behind
the albums sequencing helps add focus to the side.
I think Georges side boils down to lyrics and drumming.
The Minutemen were no fans of the orthodoxy that began to
rule punk and hardcore in the eighties. Despite the bands
misgivings, some of their songs still had moments
that the Sid Vicious clones in the pit could easily understand
and mosh along to. Georges song selections feature some of
the most interesting and fun stuff. He puts on a clinic over the
course of his side, playing all these impossible beats and
insane fills at speed.
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As mentioned earlier, Hurelys lyrics could be hard to
decipher. Its no surprise, then, that he chose a lot of songs
with his own lyrics. Georges forays into writing were so
dense that most of the time he forgot what the lyrics were
about minutes after writing them down. Watt and Boon spoke
a secret language like twins, so it was only natural that many
of Georges transmissions would land on his own side.
I found the time invested in Side George to be well spent. The
side is off-kilter, a little prickly, and challenginga
microcosm, in other words, of the Minutemen.
When it came time to sequence Double Nickels, the
Minutemen drew straws to determine the order in which
theyd pick songs for their respective sides. George won the
draw and got to pick first, followed by Watt, then D. Boon.
With Georges first pic, he chose You Need the Glory, his
solo song, featuring a bunch of drums and a scat solo. Boon
and Watt were astounded. Out of all the songs Hurley could
have chosen, he picked his own, a song that featured him
pounding on oil cans and singing nonsense syllables.
At first Hurleys selection might seem a little bit silly, like
having the first pick in a baseball fantasy draft and selecting
Doug Mirabelli. The Minutemen had already developed their
dual themes for the record, so there was no danger of either
Boon or Watt selecting Glory. Hurley could have chosen
any of the songs in the pool, could have kept Watt
from choosing Political Song, say, but didnt. In retrospect,
one can almost feel a sort of competition between Watt and
Boon in their song selections, scheming and hoping to select
tunes they were both fans of. There are a number of hit
songs on Georges sideThis Aint No Picnic is one of the
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most recognizable songs in the Minutemen canon, and West
Germany isnt far behindbut some of the most out-there
stuff is included, as well.
Its funny to think of the three guys sitting around a table,
drafting their own songs, fantasy-league style. It provides
insight as to the relative weight of the songs. If you put the
three non-chaff sides back-to-back, you can determine the
draft order by alternating George/Watt/Boon, like so:
You Need the Glory / Political Song for Michael. Jackson
to Sing / Anxious Mofo / The Roar of the Masses Could
Be Farts / Maybe Partying Will Help / Theater Is the Life
of You / West Germany / Toadies / Viet Nam, et
cetera.
There are a few records with alleged alternate sequencings,
which are supposed to make the albums sound better. The
most famous is the Pixies Doolittle. The story, apocryphal or
not, goes like this: The Pixies wanted the record to be
sequenced differently than it ultimately was, and, as such, put
clues in their CD insert to provide the listener with a chance
to hear the record differently. The first page has the lyrics for
Gouge Away, track fifteen. You program in the numbers
provided on in the CD booklet, then, when the end of the
booklet is reached, you flip it over and enter in all the songs
with lyrics upside down, in reverse order. So, after Monkey
Gone to Heaven, the next track is Silver, followed by
Number 13 Baby, et cetera. Probably total bullshit,
but the new sequencing sounds goodmaybe even better
than the standard order.
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Another such record is Radioheads OK Computer. The
alternate sequencing isnt anywhere near as expansive. A few
minor changes in the order of the songs makes the narrative
more cohesive. The resequenced record begins with song
number two, Subterranean Homesick Alien, then skips to
the fourth song, Let Down. From there, its straight. When
the last song, The Tourist, comes up, the alternate
sequencing then switches the first song, Airbag, to the
penultimate position, finally concluding with Exit Music
(For a Film). As the title of the final cut implies, the alternate
sequencing is supposed to make the record more cinematic
and linear: Thorn Yorkes vocals on The Tourist plead for
someone to slow down. Then, afterward, an airbag saves his
life, and the film ends. Again, probably total bullshit, but
listening to a favorite record in an alternate order brings new
angles out.
Theres no urban myth (none that Ive heard, anyway)
regarding the sequencing of Double Nickels. I decided that
listening to the album in the order in which it was drafted
might be a fun exercise. I had heard the double album so
many times that I began to feel stuck in a rut (plus, honestly,
theres only so much to write about a drum solo with scat
breaks).
The complexion of the record changes when sequenced
differently, but not as dramatically as you might think. The
Minutemen wrote songs containing different dynamics and
styles in an effort to make the record flow from peak to
valley, one extreme to another. So, the stylistic similarities of
Toadies and Retreat are lost in the resequencing because
the two numbers are no longer back-to-back, but the alternate
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trifecta of Retreat into Cohesion into Themselves
works well, a little subdued but powerful nonetheless.
Give it a shotyoull hear things differently.
The Roar of the Masses Could Be Farts is another song
outsourced to Dirk Vandenberg.
The songs tide was provided by Watt, but Vandenberg
penned the lyrics. The Minutemen were very much into the
idea of giving their friends the chance to contribute. Its like
vox populi, everyones got an opinion, Watt says. Well get
the player piano.
Vandenbergs lyricssoft and understanding / eyes of the
young / moving with abandon / atop the green lawnsare
dense and cerebral. Its difficult for me say what that song is
about, says Vandenberg. Its mosdy wordplay, but it soon
took on a sense to me that it was describing how the personal
emotion and innocence of creation or the creative process in
general is easily taken for granted and/or ripped off to be
plagiarized and commercialized.
When the song was written, Watt brought his rumbling bass
line to practice, along with the words that Vandenberg had
penned. Hurley came up with a solid drum line, adding a little
flair with cymbal hits as accents, and D. Boon managed to
cram all of Vandenbergs words into something resembling a
traditional meter. A lot of people actually liked itmaybe it
has a good beat, maybe its the way D. Boon sang it, maybe
the words do have something, Watt says.
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As I was learning about how Double Nickels was written and
recorded, I was continually surprised to find that there were
plain-as-day factoids that had evaded my detection. Ive got
good retention skills, and usually only need one or two
tries to get something lodged in my head. How was it, then,
that basic bits, like songwriting credits, got by me?
It all goes back to my cassette copy.
Again, I learned Double Nickels as I drove around Concord,
New Hampshire. I remember the minimal cassette
artworkthe J card consisted of a photo of the album cover,
and a list of all the songs in teeny, teeny type (this is when
each side of Minutemen cassettes, rather than listing songs,
said something like, Do you really expect all of the song
titles to fit on here? Look at the cover.). I eventually wore
through my cassette copy and bought a CD, but by that time, I
had already listened to the cassette enough that I didnt spend
as much time with the album notes as I usually would have
(plus, said notes, in CD form, are tiny. I love the
Minutemens art, but the transition from twelve-inch to CD
has been brutalthe intricacies are lost. Its August 1, 2006,
as I write this, and the music industry is kinda buggin out
about record sales being on the decline due to the easy
availability of music through file sharing. Whatever. I have
bought more vinyl than ever before since songs became so
easy to download. CDs dont seem as permanent any more.
Anyone can burn one. Vinyl, though, makes me feel more
connected to the artist.)
Speaking of cassettes and CDs and LPs, Mr. Robots Holy
Orders is the song on the record I know the least.
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I bought Double Nickels on cassette, then upgraded it to CD.
The first side of the tape ran from Anxious Mofo to
History Lesson Part IID. and Watts vinyl sides on side
A of the cassette, with sides George and Chaff on the flip. I
listened to the second side of the tape a little bit, but spent
most of my time rewinding and listening to the first side over
and over again. I had bought the CD by the time I had
digested D. and Mikes stuff, and, as such, didnt really get to
know Holy Orders well. It was cut from the compact disc
reissue to ensure that the recording would be less than
seventy-four minutes long, a suitable length for all CD
players.
What a strange song! Hurley stutters out this amazing drum
line that implies (but manages to avoid) a beat as Boon solos
over Watts Morse code bass transmission to jazzy aliens.
Then, Boon solemnly intones haiku-like lyrics: Force fed /
sifted / tin can / turn handle, puppet / (pull toy).
Another one of George Hurleys early morning factory
screeds, underslept and working a needle valve press. How
old are we? Twenty-five? Gotta understand Minutemen
worked the whole time, says Watt. Even though we lived
very econo, still wasnt enough. Theres three pictures in [the
album insert] on the right when you open it up, eh? Starwood,
our first paid gig. It was about a hundred dollars. Tons of gigs
before that, but the point Im making is that we didnt make
enough to live on even living econo. Writing about what you
knewthe drudgery of factory work at fuck oclock in the
morningis a recurring theme, both over the course of the
record and on Hurleys side.
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There are no obvious clues that Holy Orders is missing
from the CD version (well, aside from the inclusion of the
songs lyrics in the album notes). If youre listening to
Double Nickels on CD, The Roar of the Masses Could Be
Farts, with its blazing D. Boon guitar solo outro, bleeds right
into West Germany, which begins with a typically busy
Hurley drum line. Both Masses and West Germany are
similar in tempo, so the transition is smooth.
Holy Orders, on the other hand, starts with Hurleys oddly
inflected drumbeat, which, honestly, would sound weird no
matter where it was placed on the album. The ending is pretty
rock, for lack of a better wordall three dudes hitting a note/
beat for a few repetitions, then one final time. Because of its
familiarity, the outro would transition well into pretty much
any song on the album. It should be noted, as well, that Watt
remastered the album when Double Nickels was initially
converted to CD in 1987. Watt acknowledges that his remix
was even a bigger nightmare. . . . Totally worse than the
Ethan James mix. Theres only like 800 of them, went back to
the other [mix]. Discussion about a reissue with the complete
track listing intact continues.
Musically, West Germany reflects the bands fondness for
label/tour mates the Meat Puppets. D. Boon wrote both the
lyrics and a lead riff that he thought sounded reminiscent of
the work of Meat Puppets guitarist Curt Kirkwood, so Watt
tried to put a Cris Kirkwood bass line to it.
West Germany is similar to Viet Nam in that both songs
are direct comments on US foreign policy. West Germany
is far more specific because the band got a chance to pass
through Checkpoint Charlie while on tour with Black Flag.
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They read the I laugh at you Yankee graffiti sprayed on the
Berlin Wall.
As boys, the members of the Minutemen had read as many
rock magazines as they could get their hands on. In their
reading, they had encountered passages that dealt with the
grim realities of being in a rock band on tour: the drudgery,
lack of sleep, shitty food, getting sick. In their band, though,
touring was regarded as the greatest side benefit in
the world. For a bunch of corndogs from Pedro, the chance
to seeactually seeall this stuff they had read about was an
amazing opportunity that might not have presented itself had
it not been for punk rock. Thats why I still keep touring,
Watt says. You get to see all this shit. We grew up sailors
sons. They didnt see this shit! D. Boon, his daddy put radios
in Buicks. A lot. For us to see these things, not just get them
from TV or even books or this guy telling you, to just go and
make up your own mind, thats whats the song was about.
The similarities between West Germany and Viet Nam
extend beyond political commentaries. The Minutemen didnt
always make their intentions clear to listeners, West
Germany, like Viet Nam, narrows the scope of
interpretation. When D. Boon sings a new kind of fascism /
here in West Germany, theres little doubt as to what hes
singing about. West Germany and Viet Nam both veer
toward the same well-tread political ground that scads of
punk bands were singing about in the era of Reagan, but
neidier song comes across as formulaic or preachy.
Watt doesnt sing a whole lot on Double Nickels, just on
Take 5, D., Dr. Wu and the first part of The Politics of
Time. Its funny, because the bass lines on the verses that
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Watt sings are some of the fastest and most complex on the
record, and the most difficult to sing over. By the latter part of
the song, with lyrics growing more wordy, Watt cedes singing
duties back to D. Boon.
There was always this sort of urban myth about the
Minutemen naming their band as they did because all of their
songs were going to be sixty seconds or less. Instead,
the name came from two different sources: there were the
peoples militias in the time of the Revolutionary War, and
the countercommunism group that formed in little cells, not
unlike the famous Weathermen. The name was also about
trying to stay humble, picking on themselves:
my-NOOT-men (and speaking of picking on themselves,
you can probably guess what else can last a minute or less).
Lyrically, Politics recalls the Joycean Glory of Man,
which, among other topics, discusses the need that we have to
affix names and measures to things. To them, Politics is the
only song on the record that comments directly on the band.
While the band did take time to comment on politics, their
lyrical content was far less ham-fisted than the typical
run-of-the-mill Reagan sucks hardcore song that was
prevalent in the early eighties. More than lyrically, though,
the Minutemens lifestyle was an example of making a
statement through actions rather than words, the personal
becoming political. The band was making a statement to
others that power could be redistributed. It was one thing to
say stuff, to preach, but the Minutemen did things their own
unique way, from touring to recordingjamming econo, as
the lyric saysright down to writing songs. The politics of
timewe made time a political issue. This is how the
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powers going to be distributed in this band, put the clocks on
us.
George Hurleys drums are all over the map on Politics.
The introductory bit (before the lyrics kick in) features
jazzy-sounding cymbal hits over a sped-up, obtuse Watt bass
run and a shrill D. Boon guitar line. Later in the song, after
the first instance of Watt singing, theres a little bridge during
which Hurley plays some tight, fast hi-hat lines, reprised
when D. Boon sings the bit about being time
Nazis. Hurley picked the song for his side, Id guess, because
he was fond of the challenge of playing the song.
Themselves is one of several instances of D. Boon singing
words that dont correspond exactly with the lyric sheet. On
such songs as Political Song for Michael Jackson to Sing
and The Glory of. Man, Boon was singing Watt-penned
lyrics in the studio. Themselves, says Watt, is a D. Boon
song from the get-go. His chords, his words, his vision.
Inside the record, the lyrics listed for the second verse are:
They keep themselves in the castles / they keep the workers
in the fields / afraid of the reality theyll have face / for all the
crimes upon their head.
The lyrics, as written, put a feudal spin on the song, making it
feel like a historic tale of medieval times. When D. Boon
sings the song, though, he changes the words, which makes
the song much more immediate: They keep themselves
hidden away / they keep themselves up on the hill / afraid of
the day theyll have to pay / for all the crimes upon their
head.
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Putting the songs oppressors on a hill rather than in a castle
reflects back to the Minutemens upbringing in San Pedro.
The nice part of town was up on the hill. The people who
lived up there looked down on the rest of the town.
Themselves was inspired in part by The Sand Pebbles, the
only novel written by author Richard McKenna. The book
was later made into a film starring Steve McQueen and
Candice Bergen. Boon and Watt saw The Sand Pebbles many
times when they were boys. In the book and the movie, the
main character, Jake Holmann, loves working on his ships
engines, but has a hard time with the impositions that the
Navy and his fellow crew members have placed on him.
Holmanns desire is in direct opposition to what he is told by
his crewmen and superiors. Everyones talking the talk, but
he walks it, Watt says.
The structure of Themselves is something of an allusion to
The Sand Pebbles, as well. The song is written in waltz
time1-2-3, 1-2-3which, says Watt, always reminded me
of a whaling song . . . but dirgey. The songs meter,
sounding like a sea shanty, references the nautical nature of
the novel.
Hurleys drums have a very jazzy feel about them, start to
finish. Before the bass and guitar parts kick in, he plays an
intro bit that has always amazed mehis drums are so
specific, so precise. Its an interesting way to start the
songupon an initial listen, theres no indication of which
direction Themselves might go. Its a moment full of
potential. When the guitar and bass finally kick in, each part
is given enough space to be heard and appreciated. Hurleys
intro repeats and turns into the main drum line, intricate under
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the broad strokes of Watts comparatively simple bass line
and Boons tinny, driving guitar chug, punctuated by big,
ringing chords.
When the chorusand all the men who learn to hate
themkicks in, Hurley shifts gears and plays a series of
drum rolls that sound more like Neal Peart from Rush than
the informed-by-jazz stuff that dominates the verses. His rolls
dont sound at all out of place in the context of the songhe
seamlessly shifts from rolls back to the main drum bits.
The lyrics to Please Dont Be Gentle with Me were
outsourced to Joe Brewer, cousin of Saccharine Trust guitarist
Jack Brewer. Joe wrote the lyrics after he heard the songs
bass line, which Watt describes as being in the same funk
model as Maybe Partying Will Help. Gende isnt terribly
concerned, with the notion of space. You have to strain to
catch everydiing mats going on. Boons guitar playing is not
concerned with the rhythm section. Watt and Hurley are in
the pocketcheck out the stutter drum hits mat emphasize
Watts funk slaps at the end of each repetition. (The
description could easily be reversed, described as Watt
punctuating Hurleys playing rauier than vice versa, but hey,
its Georges side of the record, right?)
Gende is another song, like Its Expected Im Gone,
where the humor lies in whats being said by D. Boon. The
thought of a rock singer writing a song tided Tlease Dont Be
Gende with Me is pretty funny, but the mought of D. Boon,
this huge guy, saying it. . . mats really funny.
Funnier still is the fact that the song, all forty-seven seconds
of it, has a traditional (diough abbreviated) structure. The
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song opens with Boon singing Brewers lyrics: Just wake up
/ and tug my hair / and let me know / all the outside of the
wodd and you are mere / and never be too gende wim me.
After uiat, theres a little break, what passes for a solo in the
song, before the verse kicks back in. Usually, anodier verse
means more vocals, but theres only music Presumably,
whoever D. Boon was speaking to in the first verse is not
being to gende with him, which keeps him from singing.
That was a provocation, Watt says, the push to try and get
the listener to envision what happens next. The familiarity
implied by the very first line in the song (just wake up)
leads a listener to believe mat the lack of gendeness is part of
the relationship uiat is being described. Yow!
Please Dont Be Gende with Me, at forty-seven seconds,
is the shortest Minutemen-penned song on Double Nickels
(unless you count Three Car Jam, which wasnt penned so
much as revved). I did a quick check to try and place the
length of the song in context and found some cool ephemera:
Sickles and Hammers also weighs in at forty-seven
seconds. The band has no fewer than seven unique songs that
clock in at forty-one seconds. By the time Double Nickels
was written, the Minutemen had already written The
Anchor, their first song longer than two minutes. Songs were
starting to get longer, more developed, so Gentle was
something of a throwback.
Nothing Indeed is a prototypical Minutemen song.
Hurleys lyrics are nonspecific in such a way that a listener is
able to easily plug a distressing situation (in the case of this
song, some moment or instance that took the listener aback
when it shouldnt have) from his/her life into the context of
the tune: Interruption went / small snag in life / pothole in
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the road / (its only a detour). The song is about the mental
highlight reel that plays in your head after something
happens. The singer walks away unscathed but is thinking
about reacting differently the next time the situation comes
around: There is no cause / no cause at all / for my hesitation
/ nothing indeed.
Watts bass line on the song was influenced by the work of
Tracy Pew, the cowboy bass player of the Birthday Party. The
songs shuffle beat, the only one of its kind on the album, was
something of an abnormality for the bandNothing Indeed
has a groove thats more traditional than a lot of the bands
work, and, as such, the Minutemen sometimes had a hard
time playing the song. We barely hang on to the
groove. Watt says. Its hard for the Minutemen to hold on
to a groove. Another song, in other words, which must have
been both challenging and fun for George Hurley to play.
Hurleys drums open the song, with Boon and Watt
alternating licks before coming together for what passes as
the songs chorus, the musical interlude that repeats between
sung verses. The songs lyrics, internal as they are, pertain to
the thought process. The structure of the song reinforces the
lyrical theme. The musical gaps between singing, for
example, echo the thought processinitially, theres some
structure before the song (and the mind) go off on a tangent.
An extended guitar solo, complete with key change, works as
a kind of epiphany, as if the thought process is expanding to
include a conclusion. In typical fashion, though, you can
listen to Boons guitar playing and Watts bass line
independendy of each other. They fit together in the context
of the song, but born dudes are playing these disparate lines
that somehow manage to link together. Watt somehow fits his
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cascading bass into spaces at the end of D. Boons lead
phrase.
When asked directly about the meaning of the words, Hurley
demurred with his typical ambiguity. The bottom line, Watt
says, whatever the particulars involved, is that its about our
band, its about us playing for you. So [D. Boon is] going to
sing my fuckin heart out even though its about nothing
indeed. Nothing? Indeed nothing!
Got any Wire albums in your collection? If you have Chairs
Missing, their second long player, throw on the song
Mercy. Check it out. Close to six minutes long, wave upon
wave of bombast buttressed by little pockets of calm.
Now listen to No Exchange.
Along with Creedence Clearwater Revival and the Pop
Group, Mike Watt cites Wire as one of the Minutemens main
influences. As Wires career progressed, their music made
turns into new directions. The shift from their first album,
Pink Flag, to Chairs Missing, their second, made enough of
an impression on Watt so that he modeled a song after it.
Pink Flags influence on the Minutemens work is audible in
several ways. Initially, Wire wrote short songs. Traditional
verse-chorus-verse structure was largely eschewedsongs
lasted as long as they had to, ending with no warning. The
Minutemen grew up listening to prog and classic rock,
thinking that musicians were this elite class of people far
removed from everyday life. Hearing Pink Flag further
emphasized the fact that anyone, even them, could be in a
band.
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Chairs Missing, the follow-up to Pink Flag, was something of
a revelation to Boon and Watt. Wires songwriting had
changed. Gone, for the most part, were the really short
numbers, replaced by a more prominent, layered synth/
key-board sound. The new instrumentation allowed Wire to
experiment more with tension and release than their previous,
more rudimentary sound had allowed.
No Exchange opens with a subdued, palm-muted guitar riff,
accented by Watts bass line. The main bass and guitar riffs,
with Hurleys punching drums, continue along for a full
minute, until the song apparently ends.
A minute long, you think when you first listen to it, another
concise gem of a song. Strangely, though, when the song
appears to be over, D. Boon slides into a classical-sounding
guitar figure with no drums or bass to accompany him. From
there, the song starts again, gaining steam as Boon
removes his palm from the strings of his guitar. The classical
figure and the introduction of Boons regular guitar tone at
the end of the song work in such a way as to symbolize a final
movement, a tension release, emulating the symphonic form
of Mercy and its waves of buildup and frenzy.
Couldnt really tell you what its about except, again, its the
Minutemen playing for you and heres one from the
drummer! Watt says. [Hurley] channels eternities and goes
into punk. It is, its almost like that, its really passionate, but
musicwise, I wanted to get symphonic for a minute and a half.
We used to like to play that one live a lot. It had a weird
tension it would build.
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There Aint Shit on TV Tonight is a song that Watt says
shows uncharacteristic restraint for the Minutemen. The
song is sedate, with a sound that borders on bossa nova. Its
a real gentle one . . . having fun with forms, Watt says.
Theres no big boom at the end of the song, no dynamic shift
to resolve tension. Hell, theres not even a guitar solo. The
song is steady, with pretty vocals. D. Boon could certainly
sing, but his delivery, even on subdued songs like History
Lesson, Part Two, could border on a speaking/singing
hybrid. His vocals on TV show an uncommon
vulnerabilityD. Boon challenging and extending himself
(though he does slip back into the familiar hybrid at points
during the song).
The lyrics, written by Hurley, arent nearly as obtuse as some
of his other offerings. His words are introspective. He
wonders about the nature of self-awareness, how the sense of
self is shaped, and the accountability of outside forces on
ones image.
Watt came up with the title of the song, describing that
moment when youre sitting on the couch, flipping channels
with the remote, complaining that theres nothing on the tube.
You dont get up, thoughyou sit there and keep bitching,
unwilling to do anything else. There aint shit on TV!
says Watt. You know how people say that but still watch
TV? It was that kind of ennui. The notion of channel-surfing
boredom is directly linked to the last lyrics of the song: Im
worried / worried but I feel guilty / the media / robs and
betrays us / no more lies! / we are responsible.
Those lyrics, out of context, sound as if they could be from
any of a zillion lockstep eighties hardcore bands. When such
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rhetoric is applied, though, to a sleepy, quiet song, the
sentiment has more impact. Its not a dude with a mohawk
shouting at youits a guy on the couch, trying to come to
shake his life up. Hes having a tough time of it, though,
because hes still looking for something good on television to
take his mind off of his situation.
The very last lyric, we are responsible, shifts the onus from
the narrator of the song to the listener. Wethe narrator,
everyone whos sitting around flipping channels, youare
responsible for the apathy. Its not the networks, not the
advertisers. Sure, the television networks are owned by the
corporations who foist their multinational interests blah blah
blah, but ultimately the responsibility rests on the viewer who
makes the decision to turn the tube on in the first place. No
more lies to ourselves, no more placing the blame on big,
faceless entities. Its us.
The Minutemen knew that some of their songs would leave
the audience scratching their heads. TV is one of them.
Maybe its a retreat song, Watt says. It gave itself a
good dynamic to the set. Whoa, are these guys playing this?
and then they didnt last too long, so it didnt bring people
downit was just a weird segue for them. We had a sense we
were big enough to see outside ourselves and look down at
the thing, and it wanted the gig to be a journey.
This Aint No Picnic is one of the most recognizable songs
on the album, due in large part to its anthemic nature.
Picnic features a chorus that not only repeats itself, but
works well in a show environment as a fist-pumpin
sing-along. If you were new to the band, you could see them
play and hear everyone shouting This aint no picnic!
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before the guitar solo; then you could join the crowd after it
was finished.
The songs lyrics discuss working a nine-to-five job, presided
over by an asshole boss. (Years later, its interesting to note,
Watt, Hurley, and Ed CrawfordfIREHOSEwould cover
anodier song about working for an asshole boss,
Superchunks Slack Motherfucker.) You can hear how
pissed off D. Boon is as he sings the lyrics Ill work my
youth away / in the place of a machine / I refuse to be a
slave. The universal nature of the song also contributes to its
popularity. Chances are diat you, the listener, have had a job
that youve hated.
The specific situation that was the catalyst for the song came
when D. Boon was working a job at the parts department of
an auto supply warehouse. He had the radio on, tuned to a
soul station, when his boss walked by and told him, I dont
want to hear any of diat nigger shit. Boon was outraged. He
kept his mouth shut at the job, choosing instead to channel his
frustration into music (and choosingwisely, I thinkto
keep the specifics out of the final
composition. Boon originally put the name of his boss in the
song, then changed it before it was committed to vinyl. This
is before the age when bosses fire employees based on what
they say about their jobs on blogs, but still).
In addition to its anthemic chorus, Picnic features
recognizable verses that boast guitar lines which, once again,
sound like some of Wires stuff. Once the song starts, theres
no picking until after the shout-along chorus, when D. Boon
lets loose with a sick solo. During the verses, Hurleys drums
are relegated to the background a bitmostly cymbal hits up
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higher in the mix than the guitarbut they take the forefront
during the chorus, when both Boon and Watt stop playing
their respective instruments.
The Minutemen separated their band into two different
categories: gigs and flyers. Anything that wasnt a
gigT-shirts, interviews, recordswas a flyer, designed to
get people to come and see them play. Picnic was the first
instance of the band making a video, recorded by a UCLA
grad named Anthony Johnson for the princely sum of $450.
This new telephone pole is up, says Watt, called MTV.
The video, which starts with some Grapes of Wrath-looking
Dust Bowl farming footage, features the band (including
Hurley, playing a snare drum strapped to his body) playing
amidst rubble as a fighter plane piloted by none other than
Ronald Reagan takes shots at them. The video is available on
the We Jam Econo DVD.
The Minutemen were good friends with the guys in the
Descendents, a band that famously used the suffix -age in
their song titles: Myage, Tonyage, Bikeage. In fact,
several of the Descendents records were originally released
on Boon and Watts New Alliance label. The song Spillage
nods to the Descendents and their method of song titling.
Lyrically, the song seems to be all over the place. The phrase
to pay attention to is My stoned mind just spilled that line.
The band is letting you know that all of the lyrics are being
writtenspilledafter getting stoned. Using that framework,
its easy to decipher some of the more nonsensical-sounding
portions of the song.
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Clear and dusty day in June / (my stoned mind just spilled
that line) starts the song off. The immediate statement that
the narrator is high makes the listener wonder if it is actually
June as the song is being written, or whether the phrase just
popped into his head as a passing grass-induced fantasy. The
parentheses denote an aside, breaking the third wall to let the
listener know the narrator is in on the joke. Describing what
its like describing / believing that the sum is yes refers
back to the first lyric and the discussion of the day in June.
The narrator is realizing that hes describing things as they
happen in a stream-of-consciousness manner. (Your guess is
as good as mine about the sum.)
The narrator refers to his peers as comrades, which makes
him think that of fascism, Stalin, and maybe a day when
everyone refers to everyone else as comradevery
paranoid stuff (it happens). The recognition that the word
comrade started the narrator off on such a paranoid tangent
is acknowledged in the next lyric, (my police state mind just
spilled that line.) Its also a reference, of course, to a few
lyrics back, when the narrator initially mentions that hes
stoned, the way that smokin dope can make time fold back
on itself. Once again, the parentheses denote an aside,
an elbow in the rib of the listener.
The narrator struggles to find words to describe the bonds,
real or perceived, of his friends/comrades. Said struggle
continues the theme of language that runs throughout the
record, the realization that there are still situations that have
not yet had words attached to them.
As hes thinking things over, the lyric But what makes my
heart run / why all the thunder in my thighs? comes up.
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When you read the lyric sheet, this lyric appears in quotes.
The use of punctuation obfuscates things a little bitis the
narrator speaking out loud, rather than just thinking, or is he
thinking of something that someone else said in the past?
Could be either, but Im inclined to think that as hes sitting
there, he feels his heart racing, then speaks out loud. Its a
metacriticismhes commenting on himself.
The next lyric, the last one, is My body / my mind / the idea
of my life / seems like a symbol. The narrator has been
referring to all this stuff going on in his head for most of the
song. Then, presumably, he has spoken out loud to call
attention to his physical being before concluding the song
with mentions of both mind and body. As the song ends, there
are two distinct guitar lines: ones choppy, and the other is
more solid, a wall of sound. The two lines contrast the body/
mind dichotomy that has been put forththe introspective
and the physical.
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Chump Rock Is the New Cool: Side
Chaff
Side Chaff, the fourth side of the record, is the resting place
for all of the songs the Minutemen didnt pick in their draft.
Its understandable to assume, before listening, that the fourth
side sucks. Why not? The three guys in the band didnt select
any of the songs, after all. Side Chaff consists mostly of
goofy covers, instrumentals, and song with lyrics outsourced
to someone else.
Thing is, it works.
Side Chaff is a little bit more threadbare than the first three
sides of the album, but the relative lack of cohesion can be
attributed to the fact that there was no unifying force behind
the (non) selections. George, Mike, and D. all chose their
sides. Through repeated plays, a listener can start to make
sense of the respective running orders, see themes, make
connections. Side Chaffs scraps have none of the
cohe-siveness of the other three sides.
More than any record of that time, Double Nickels seems
to capture the pathology of being in a punk rock band, says
Lance Hahn. On the one hand, sure, its art. You cant avoid
that its art. Its a beautiful expression. But its also totally
personal. I like that there are a few fuck ups. I love that the
vocals dont stay in key. Theyre just belting it out from the
heart. But theres something pathological about the whole
enterprise. Its like going on a three-month-long tour that you
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know will lose money. You do it because youre a punk band
and thats what you do. The length of that album and the
intensity of that recording captures that feel for me. I
appreciate what other critics say about the variety of
influences and styles. But Im mostly drawn to this idea that
theres no financial or, really, logical reason to do a record
with that many songs. But its there and in its entirety, even
the mistakes sound fucking fantastic to me. If you break it
down into its various parts, you can probably find faults here
and there. But this record demands patience and if you let the
whole thing affect you in its entirety, every moment is
perfect. There are very few records like that in the world. I
used to think Exile on Main Street and maybe the White
Album were the only ones. But Double Nickels, for me
personally, far surpasses even the Stones and the Beades.
It was art first, says Steven Blush. It was success in
noneconomic terms. It was the idea that you could be broke
and successful.
To me, what makes it more amazing is that... when you hear
that story [about the Minutemen being inspired to make a
double album by Hsker D] and listen to the record ... its all
so quality, says Mac McCaughan. Like, all the stuff is so
good, and when you think about the fact that so much of it is
stuff that they went back and . . . wrote and recorded in a
short period of timeno filler, you know? And the songs are
so short, imagine how many songs they had to write to make
a double album. So that makes it even more amazing.
Boon, Watt, and Hurley were never afraid to show their
influences. Van Halen was one of my favorite bands
growing up, says McCaughan, and now heres my new
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favorite band doing a Van Halen song, and Im like, thats
awesome, you know? Im a litde bit less embarrassed to be a
Van Halen fan.
In addition to the covers, the songs with lyrics written by
friends and associates served to further the Minutemens
belief that they were a part of a community. All told, the odds
and ends of Side Chaff cohere and make for interesting
listening.
Untitled Song for Latin America, a song by D. Boon,
reflects on his time as a member of CISPES (Committee in
Solidarity with People of El Salvador). The USs foreign
policy was similar in both Latin America and Southeast Asia.
The prevalent school of thought, called the Domino Theory,
was that one country would fall to communism and then
cause a chain reaction in the rest. Rather than waging a war
with US troops, as they did in Vietnam, the United States
funneled influence, money, and weapons into Central
American countries.
Untitled Song is cut from the same cloth as both Viet
Nam and West Germany. D. Boon wants you to know
whats going on, so his lyrics are straightforward. In addition
to boasting unveiled lyrics, Untitled Song features more
traditional song structure than many Minutemen songs.
Theres not a lot of repetition in the lyricsBoons words are
more of a narrativebut there are identifiable verses and
choruses.
The Minutemen want you to focus more on whats being said,
rather than how, so there arent a lot of curveballs being
thrown. Pay attention to the message, the Minutemen are
telling you. I dont think Untitled Song would sound out of
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place on D.s sideits populist. Neither would it be wildly
out of context on Georgessome fine drum rolls during the
songs choruses sound like a lot of fun to play, as do the huge
crash cymbals during Boons guitar solo.
Watt attended CISPES meetings with Boon, and began to get
some understanding of what was going on in El Salvador. The
members of CISPES were against the United States sending
money and arms to the Nationalist Republican Alliance, the
right-wing faction fighting in the Salvadorian Civil War. The
left-wing faction, called the Farabundo Marti National
Liberation Front, was fighting against a right-leaning
dictatorship that was funded by the American government.
Watt didnt need to be persuaded that the United States was in
the wrong. He did have some questions, though. I went to a
couple of meetings and I asked the dude Where do they get
the guns? That was kinda strange. But I really agree with the
sentiments. Whered they get the guns? Whos giving it to
em? Is it China? Is it Russia? I didnt have to be convinced,
the Contras, that shit, was illegal and disgusting, okay, so I
didnt have to be convinced of that, but I had other kinds of
questions. It wasnt like I was the brave guy to ask em, I was
just blurting out what was on my mind.
You can see Watts involvement with Boon and CISPES on
the cover of Three Way Tie (For Last). The albums cover
features a D. Boon painting of each members head mounted
on a wall like a hunting trophy, with an engraved plaque to
describe each member. Boons says singer/activist, Watts
reads anti-war sympathizer, and Hurleys says dude local.
Jesus and Tequilla was another outsourced song, with
lyrics written by former SST honcho Joe Carducci.
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[D. Boon] was living at SST while Black Flag and Spot and
Mugger were out on tour, and I had the radio on the country
stations then, Carducci says. So we thought about doing a
Boon solo album we were going to call Hard Working Man,
mostly because he kept calling in sick and then going back to
sleep. I wrote three lyrics for him. When Mike was turning
Double Nickels into a double album he pushed D. for new
words and [D.] told him he had one of those [three] songs
done. The lyrics that Carducci wrote and gave to D. Boon
drip with the stereotypical hallmarks of country musichard
times, booze, romantic trouble. Thing is, though, that the
stereotype is buckedthe songs protagonist has found
solace, despite all of the tough times that are being sung
about.
D. Boon showed me that song, says Watt, and I thought,
right away, Crazy Horse, Neil Young. Maybe a little more
notes than [Neil Young would] play, but something with that
kind of feel. Thats what I was thinking of.
Jesus and Tequilla is another one of those Minutemen
songs that has achieved favorite status among fans. Its got a
catchy title, juxtaposing religion and booze to humorous
effect. The songs structure is even more orthodox than
Untitled Song for Latin America. In the case of the latter,
the repetitions are only musical. Jesus and Tequilla boasts
music and lyrics that repeat, making it even easier for casual
listeners to hear and remember the song.
For fans in bands of their own, the song is a favorite
because its relatively easy to play. Watts bass line is catchy
but remains steady throughout the song and isnt terribly
funk-inflected or spazzy. D. Boons guitar is played at a less
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breakneck pace than usual, with a heavier reliance on
finger-picking than weirdo skronk chords. Boons solo is
relatively subdued, too. (Hurley, as per usual, is playing the
hell out of his drums. Not hard to imagine a drummer in some
garage trying like hell to play a passable, slightly easier
rendition of Georges line. The song itself moves pretty
slowly, but all of the cymbal hits, I think, are deceptively
difficult and fast.)
In addition to the structure and the relative ease of play for
geeks in bands, the song is catchy. Jesus and Tequilla was a
harbinger of what was to come on Project: Mersh, the
follow-up to Double Nickels.
The instrumental June 16th is commonly regarded as one
of the albums highlightsthe song is a little bit more
accessible than the records other compositions, and boasts a
deceptive elegance. June 16th doesnt sound like it has
much going on, but the musicianshipparticularly Hurleys
drums, which might not be the listeners focus the first few
times throughpay dividends upon repeated listens.
June 16th, also known as Bloomsday, is the date on which all
the action in Ulysses takes place. Its also Raymond
Pettibons birthday. Next to D. Boon, Watt says, [Pettibon
was the] biggest influence in my life. Guy was very subtle in
some ways, but his art is totally bold-ass! His mind, huge
leaps. He can retain incredible amounts of information, very
humble, very funny guy in a dry way. Incredible guy.
The Miriutemen were always big fans of the Urinals, often
covering their song Ack Ack Ack Ack both live and on
their
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records. The Minutemen had the work of the Urinals in mind
while writing June 16th. According to Watt, They were
such a fuckin elegant band! Like Ack Ack Ack Ack, its
only one chord, then the big change comes and its only a
half-step away! So econo! Much more econo! So I was kinda
thinkin about that. And D. Boon, beautiful lead guitarjust
enough notes! So econo! Beautiful!
The instrumental is very sparse, driven mainly by the rhythm
section. D. Boons guitar line was written after hearing Watts
bass line once. Boon adds sharp flourishes here and there, but
never actively forces himself to the top of the mix. Despite
the airy feel that the song has, its verses still feature intense
drumming on the part of George Hurleyhes using his
whole kit, making a lot of hits, though not as hard as usual.
Hurley fills the space that would normally be taken up by the
guitar, but does so in a manner that is more calm than
frenetic.
The chorus part of the song, at the dead center, is all
Georges. His torn hits drive the bit, which is never repeated
(again, its tough to name the respective parts of Minutemen
songs because of their non-reliance on traditional structure.
The part that Im calling the chorus starts at about 0:36). On
Hurleys side of the record, he picked a lot of songs that were
fun to play on the drums, often songs that he wrote the lyrics
for, as well. June 16th could have easily fit onto Georges
side of the record because of its reliance on drumming. The
song, with its Ulysses theme, also could have fit onto Watts
side.
Storm in My House features lyrics outsourced to Henry
Rollins. Henry was the longest tenured singer for Black Flag
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(since then, hes fronted several incarnations of the Rollins
Band, as well as pulling numerous acting jobs and, more
recently, hosting a self-titled television show on the
Independent Film Channel). A pre-Rollins Flag lineup met
the Minutemen in San Pedro in 1980, and the two acts
became fast friends through their various jncarnations. Black
Flags guitarist, Greg Ginn, was responsible for releasing
many of the Minutemens albums on his SST Records
imprint. (Michael Azzerad does a fantastic job chronicling
Black Flags history in his wonderful Our Band Could Be
Your Life)
By the time Rollins joined Black Flag, both bands were
rolling. Flag was one of the first punk groups to tour heavily
(along with San Fransiscos Dead Kennedys and Canadas
D.O.A.), inspiring countless acts to do the same, the
Minutemen among them.
The Minutemen and Black Flag played many shows together,
and toured crammed in a rickety van. The event that Watt
remembers fostering an even greater degree of closeness
between the two bands was Rollins and D. Boon building a
house owned by Regis Ginn, father of both Greg Ginn and his
brother, Raymond Pettibon. [Regis] was building this house,
and he had Henry and D. Boon working together, Watt says.
And I think thats when D. Boon asked him [to contribute],
and Henry wrote that song.
In the narrators house, theres wind tearing at the rafters /
howling through the timbers. The lyrics evoke a state of
unfinished constructionwood still exposed for all to see,
bare like the lyrics. The song concludes with the lyric hope
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the storm doesnt rip my roof off / my skin keeps the storm
inside, letting the listener know that the use of the
word house isnt literal, despite the use of construction
terms earlier in the song.
The action of Storm in My House is taking place as the
narrator speaks to someone: Tell me its not always going to
be like this / the world is surely the coldest place. The
narrator is asking for a reassurance that theres someplace less
inviting and chilly than his head, his house.
Despite the ruminations on the storms violence, the song
comes across in a gende fashion, atypical Rollins fare in
1984. Musically, Watt says, the tone of the song is similar to
Two Beads at the End. D. Boon singing Rollinss lyrics
gives a shift in perspective. [E]ven though theyre Henry
words, Watt says, the way we make em gives Henry a
different perspective, I think. I think we could have made a
good team. He coulda probably written us a lot of good words
because it put a spin on em people werent aware of. . . . He
helped us out there in a strange way, because it gives the
record a new facet, a new shape, but it helps him, too, because
it helps people see . . . Henry has a lot of dimensions to him.
And D. Boon was sensitive like that where he could pick up
on people.
The lyrics to Martins Story were provided by Martin
Tamburovich.
The members of the Minutemen were well known for flying
the flag of their hometown of San Pedro. Despite their
shout-outs, though, none of them had been born in the
townHurley was originally from Brockton, Massachusetts;
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Watt was born in Portsmouth, Virginia; Boon was from
nearby Napa. Tamburovich was born and raised in San Pedro,
which endeared him to the Minutemen even more. We lived
together in this apartment building we called the ManBoat,
Watt
says, had all these old retired sailors. And one plug. Each
apartment had only one plug, everything had to go through
the one because it was built before electricity, when they put
it in they just put in one each.
One of the Minutemens inceptions had been a four-piece
actBoon, Hurley, and Watt playing their respective
instruments, with Tamburovich as the lead singernamed the
Reactionaries. Tamburovich remained tight with his
ex-band-mates. He worked for the band as a roadie, and,
along with Boon and Watt, was one of the owners of the New
Alliance record label.
Tamburovich wrote the lyrics for Martins Story with the
Minutemens history in mind, reflecting the slow but steady
progress that the act showed as they continued refining both
their sound and approach.
The song has a very terse, almost mechanical feel to
itTakes time, I guess it sounds like how to bake a cake,
Watt says. The repeated mentions of time go well with the
main riff of the song, propelled by Watts run of bass notes.
The song moves at a hectic pace, pausing a few times to let
the listener catch breath before reembarking. All of the lyrical
mentions of time ring with patiencewhat you makin, man
/ takes time / a little bit / a little bit more / the efforts worth
it, for examplebut the song itself is anything but patient,
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feeling more like a ticking bomb than an exercise in restraint.
Its a nice contrast.
One of the reasons that Boon and Watt pulled in their friends
to write lyrics for them was to make sure that they never got
stuck in ruts. Repeated listens to Double Nickels confirm that
each member of the band had a sense of style that was unique
and noticeableonce youve got a basic understanding
of each band members particular brand of song-writing, its
fun to put the album on shuffle and guess who wrote the
lyrics for a particular song (geeky, I know, but so is writing a
whole book about one album). Tamburovichs lyrics dont
sound like anything else on the recordthe goal of trying to
keep things fresh was nicely realized by the contributions of
all of the Minutemens friends. I know in a lot of music they
do shout-outs to people, says Watt. Its important. It gives
Double Nickels a lot of strength, too. Like a flannel. Its in all
the threads
Aint Talkin Bout Love is a cover of a song off of Van
Halens eponymous 1978 debut. Van Halen was the last
nonpunk rock band that I regarded as my favorite. When
my folks and I moved to Concord, New Hampshire, in the
summer of 1987, I found myself friendless and lonely in my
new rural setting. I immersed myself in music, and decided
the Halen would be a logical choice for my study. I procured
cassette copies of 1984 and 5150 from one of those
mail-order record clubs. I meant to backtrack and learn all of
the early stuff, but my plans on absorbing more of the bands
catalogue were interrupted by my discovery of the Sex Pistols
and Dead Kennedys. (For whatever its worth, I have started
to listen to the old Halen stuff, almost twenty years later.)
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I was surprised to find a thematic link between the
Minutemen and Diamond Daves crew When Van Halen was
recorded, they were, of all things, econo about it! Youd think
that David Lee Roths flamboyance and excess would have
carried over to a studio experience full of mountains of coke
and stereotypical writing in the studio stories, but no!
Instead, Van Halen did without needless overdubs, left
mistakes
in the recordings, and generally conducted themselves in a
focused manner that was more similar to the Minutemens
attitude than that of the excess-laden Sunset Strip scene of the
time. Right on!
The Minutemens Aint Talkin Bout Love cover was
omitted from the track listing when Double Nickels was
pressed to CD. The cover was available on two other
releasesSST Records Blasting Concept Two, and as a live
recording on the Tour Spiel EP. There are differences in each
version, little flourishes and changes, but all three follow the
same basic formula: The Minutemen start their cover at what
is about the halfway point of the original, two minutes in. Its
that part of many Van Halen songs when the band brings it
down a litde bit so that Dave can do his gravelly/sexy/silly
monologue (like on Panama, when he does the whole bit
about barely being able to see the road because of the heat
coming on). Hes lost a lot of friends, Dave deadpans, and
doesnt have time to mess around. D. Boon, though, is totally
going for it, full tilt, when he sings the same lyrics. (On the
version found on Blasting Concept Two, he full-on screams:
Got no time to fuck around! Fuck you! AAAAAAAGGGH!
Its that bit that makes the BC2 cover my favorite of the
bunch, even though its slower and longer than the other two.)
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The Minutemen omit Van Halens chorus, a repetition of the
songs tide, choosing instead to go right into one of D. Boons
trademark blues-tinged solos. They cut out everything except
for the campiest part of the song, then go straight for the gut.
D. Boon doesnt try to sound like Eddie Van Halen. He
sounds like himself, playing a solo that wouldnt sound out of
place anywhere on Double Nickels. I get the feeling, listening
to the song, that the Minutemen felt like the songs hook
was way at the end, the bit where everyone goes hey hey
hey! The rest of the cover version hangs on that part, builds
up to it, then delivers. The listener expects many repetitions
of the climax, but since when have the Minutemen done
anything by the book? You might not expect as many
repeated instances of the hook as Van Halen gives you, by
any means, but an even number doesnt seem that far out of
the realm of possibility. Instead, the Minutemen give you
three repetitionsthree!before abruptly ending their
forty-second cover of a four minute original.
We had a lot of fun doing [the cover], Watt says. A lot of
people think were mocking. Its not like that. The
Minutemen grew up listening to classic rock before punk took
hold, and had an appreciation for all forms of music. They
were never too cool to admit their non-punk influences. Its
still a funny cover, though.
There are these little phases, tiny epochs, when certain bands
get name-checked a lot in a small period of time. In recent
years, more and more bands have been citing Steely Dan as
an influence, to the point where the Dans Donald Fagen has
become a figure of speechdropping a Fagen is to make
some obscure cultural reference that alienates at least half the
people in the room. The first such instance I can remember
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was when the Dismemberment Plan said that their Emergency
& I album was informed by the Dan (easily heard in the first
song on that record, A Life of Possibilities). After that, it
seemed that the floodgates opened.
George Hurley was a big Steely Dan fan, so Mike Watt
brought a cover of Dr. Wu to the practice room, thinking
that George would get a kick out of it. When the Minutemen
were on tour, listening to tapes in their van, we had these
cassettes with like two of [Steely Dans] albums on cassette,
so we musta heard em each five thousand times, Watt says.
What were their words about? Drugs? I dont know. We
thought they were all about drugs.
The Minutemens take on Steely Dan is fairly
straightforwardless stripped down, certainly, than their Van
Halen cover, similar to their interpretations of Creedence
Clearwater Revival songs. I had assumed for years that D.
Boon and Mike Watt shared duties on the cover, with Mike
spieling in the front of the mix and D. singing in the
background. However, Watt said that he did both set of
vocals. When I listen now, I can hear why I thought what I
did: Watt and Boon have similar vocal inflections, for one,
and two, the sung vocals sound a little bit strained. I guess I
was under the impression that it was D. Boon singing,
reaching for a higher range than he was generally accustomed
to. My old theory, of course, is blown to hell by the last sung
lines in the song, where the singing Watt says Are you with
me, doctor? Can you hear me, doctor? Those sung lines are
very obviously Watt and not D. Boon. (Another instance of
me knowing the fourth side of the record less well than the
other three.)
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I dont know whose idea it was to have the two voices,
Watt says. We never really did that one live, just for the
record. I remember I brought it to the band kinda for Georgie
cuz I know he loved the Dan, just loved the Dan. So I dont
think it goes any deeper than that.
The World According to Nouns returns to the theme of
words and their meanings. D. Boons side contains several
mentions of the nature of words: in the Hurley-penned
Anxious Mofo, the lyric how can I express, much less
possess? ruminates on the notion of naming and posession
through languageputting a word to something that hasnt
been stricdy defined implies a sort of ownership over
whatever has been named. The whole of Do You Want New
Wave or Do You Want the Truth? deals with words, as well.
In fact, the lyric do words serve the truth? is repeated
almost verbatim in The World According to Nouns: the
how, the why, the where, then when, the whocan these
words find the truth?
New Wave is one of the angriest songs on Double Nkkles.
Nouns shares some of the same energy, but is much more
streamlined lyrically: the first verse asks, The state, the
church, the plans, the votewhats the verb behind it all?
I had stumbled onto Wittgenstein and this idea of
semantics, Watt says. The world according to nounsare
there any thoughts left in the head that dont have a word
assigned to it? He had this argument, I think it was with
Moore. Moore says, I know thats a tree. Well, no, you can
only believe its a tree because a trees a word. Some people
think its kinda corny and cheesy, having to talk about it in
the first place with the language and that shit. You should be
110
aware of this, especially when youre a young person. To find
out where a wall is, you push. Youve heard so many people
talk about where it is. Youre like I wonder if it really is
there. So youre pushing. And that wound up on the fourth
side. I liked it later.
Nouns starts off with an ominous Watt bass line and a slow
roll of Hurley drums. Boons guitar is downright eerie, and,
for me, conjures up this image of wind pushing around
masts on a ship, pulling the rigging taut. At 0:33, things
become slightly more straightforward, with Boon soloing
sparsely until the original figure is reprised at 0:53. The
reprise only lasts for about ten seconds before Boon starts
hollerin. Since the creepy intro part was initially very long,
the listener expects a similar figure to repeat, making the
abrupt segue into lyrics even more jarring. When the phrase is
played yet again as the songs outro, its disorientingthe
Minutemen are making you wonder what theyre going to do
on the third time through, winding you up for some
unexpected new twist. Instead, the song simply ends.
Little Man With a Gun in His Hand is a song that also
appears on Buzz Howl Under Influence of Heat. Its not on the
CD version of Double Nickels, which I always thought was
strangeits a good song, anthemic, with lots of buildup.
When Litde Man was recorded for Buzz or Howl, the
Minutemen had just gotten back from touring Europe with
Black Flag. While on tour, they had written the song with the
help of Black Flags Chuck Dukowski (more on that in a sec).
They liked what they had enough to record the song with
Spot. Thing was, they didnt know how to finish the song.
The Buzz or Howlversion of Little Man ends with a
111
fadeout (the first such instance on a Minutemen record), as
well as Watt shouting Is that good enough?
The band had written an ending for Little Man by the time
they recorded the songs that would become Doule Nickels
with Edian James, and decided to rerecord the now-complete
tune for the album. We recorded it again, says Watt. It was
really shitty. Terrible! We liked the Buzz or Howl one way
better. Spot recorded it better, too. So, despite the
songs anthemic outro (used to great effect in We Jam
Econo), Watt decided that the inferior version of Little Man
would be a logical omission from the CD version of Double
Nickels.
A popular rumor about Little Man was that Chuck
Dukowski had written the song about Mugger, who did
double duty as Black Flags roadie and as the singer of the
vile/funny Nig Heist (Muggers bit in the American Hardcore
film, just released as of this writing, is pretty damn amazing).
The Mugger theory is incorrect.
Little Man is about the fruits of jealousy and envy,
Dukowski says. Its about the kind of person who will take
(or destroy) what they desire and someone else has. Theyre
little because of it. They become pitiful, ugly, and
uninspiring. They will lose what they thought they took in the
end. Sophocles wrote: Proceed but dont forget. For the
trappers in the trap, the looter has been looted, and stolen
goods soon spoil.
Dukowski carried a little notebook with him on tour, taking
time to jot down observations, phone numbers, little bits of
song inspired by what he was seeing and reading. Little
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Man, as a song, came to be when Boon and I were talking
before sound check in Hamburg, Dukowski says. We were
sitting around waiting for the soundman to arrive and Boon
asked me if he could look in my book. He asked if Id like it
if he did some drawings in it and I told him of course. He
drew these great pictures in the book and then suggested
writing some music to the Little Man poem. He started
playing, he said had an idea for some music for it. It was
great. Its worth noting that D. and Chuck drew the attention
of Mike Watt, who wandered over and checked out Chucks
notebook. Watt found lyrics written therein and asked if he
could use
them in a Minutemen song. Dukowski agreed, and that song
eventually became Nature Without Man. Crazy!
Love Dance, an instrumental, is the final song on the
record.
The song starts off with some Hurley drums that are
reminiscent of the stuttering precision he displays on
Themselves. Watts bass line percolates behind as Boon
plays some faint hammer-ons before playing this very
animated, bluesy guitar line. Theres none of the tension and
release that is one of the records hallmark, no theatrics. The
band simply plays until the song fades out with Boon doing
more hammer-ons.
We thought it was a metaphor for infinity, Watt says. For
one thing, Minutemen songs did not fade out. That was really
weird. Theyre all designed for live playyou cant fade out
live. Thats the big joke with Project: Mersh, because we
have all these fadeouts. But you can do it there, and we make
113
it like infinitysupposed to be like infinity. Theres only one
part, but the chord just changes the key.
Watt explained that Love Dance was recorded in the
basement of Ian MacKayes Dischord House. When asked,
MacKaye said that he had heard the story from Watt, but
didnt specifically remember the events around the song being
writtenit was probably in February of 1983, when Black
Flag and the Minutemen were touring. Alas, MacKaye did not
start keeping a daily journal until March of that year, when
his Minor Threat went on tour.
Love Dance could have fit well on Watts side of the record
because of the songs Joycean elements, but Watt felt the
placement of the song at the end of the record made the
infinity metaphor all the more poignantpresumably, the
record starts again, and will play for an eternity. [Its]
supposed to be infinity. Like Bloom and MoUy sleeping in
bed head to tail, like yin and yang. So I made sure it was
last.
Making sure that the song was last turned out to be an easy
task, as the song was not selected in the fantasy draft by any
of the three members of the Minutemen.
114
Real Names Be Proof
My mom and dad, Kathy and Ray Fournier, have always been
supportive of my choices, even the dumb ones (lord knows
there have been plenty of those). I cant thank them enough.
Same goes for the rest of the family.
My aunt, Kathy Lacroix, can finally put my book on her shelf.
I am grateful for the opportunity afforded to me by David
Barker and the rest of the gang at Continuum Press.
Mike Watt has been an inspiration for so long. His
involvement is an honor.
Thanks to Robyn Gittleman, Cynthia Stewart, Howard Woolf
and the staff of the Experimental College at Tufts University
for taking a chance on me.
During my stay in Los Angeles, John LeBlanc and Kimee
Balmilero went above and beyond every expectation of
hospitality. I couldnt have done this without them.
Leslie Brokaw cheerfully endured my questions and
occasional panic.
Ned Greene, Duane Gorey, Terry G. Lorber II, Ed
McNamara, Tommy Pichette, Brendan Emmett Quigley,
Frank The Bank Trippi, and other assorted drunks Make
Mondays Tuesdays. (Quick, write that down.)
115
Dr. Damian Adshead gets stuff done.
Big ups to the folks who contributed their time and thoughts:
Steven Blush, Joe Carducci, Clint Conley, Chuck Dukowski,
Ryan Gear, Lance Hahn, Ed Hochuli, Ian MacKaye, Mac
McCaughan, Kara Nicks, Dale Nixon, Jack Rabid, Paul
Rachman, David Rees, Bruce Siart, Dirk Vandenberg.
Don Cheadle is Americas actor.
When it comes to editing, Howard Martin III is number one in
Easton! Southboro! West Northborough! Framing-ham! New
Brunswick!
First readers: Pam Ginzler, Rebecca Griffin, Simon Joyce,
Rich Ladew-tang, Miriam Leibowitz, Honor Moody, Jay
OGrady, Patrice Taddonio.
The academy: Austin Bagley, Matt Barre, Don Bixder,
Campaign for Real-Time, MK Carroll, Giordana & Peter
Chipcagni, Marc Gus Desgroseilliers, the Fagen High
Council, Shelly Fank & Jacob Meyer, First Strike, Michelle
Fournier, Everyone at Gargoyles on the Square,
god.fires.man, Joseph Grillo, Lake Effect, Dennis Livoli,
Brian Lobao and the Key Foundation, Zeke Mermell,
Menendez and Mendoza Oblongata, Q, Rideside, Andy
Rubenstein, John Straub, Ryan Tacy, all my friends and
brothers at Wah-Tut-Ca Scout Reservation, Public Emily
Weinsinger, and you.
Oh, and to the Fight for Times Right: Youre not fooling
anyone.
116
More praise for the 33 1/3 series:
We . . . arent naive enough to think that were your only
source for reading about music (but if we had our way . . .
watch out). For those of you who really like to know
everything there is to know about an album, youd do well to
check out Continuums 33 1/3 series of books.Pitchfork
As individualistic and idiosyncratic as the albums that
inspired themRob Trucks, Cleveland Scene
The best albums ever madeturned into books!Blender
magazine
This is some of the best music writing going on right
nowPulse of the Twin Cities
Music writing done rightTape Op magazine
Admirable. ... 33 1/3 has broken new groundTHES (UK)
The series quietly breathes some life into the world of music
fanaticism ... an explosion of sincere, humbled
appreciationThe Portland Mercury
The series represents the Holy Grail of millions of late Baby
BoomersAll About Jazz
InspiredDetails
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NeatNick Hornby, The Believer
A much-needed reprieve from the bite-size capsule reviews
that rule much of todays music criticismSan Francisco
Bay Guardian
Informed, fun and personalPaste Magazine
The series tries to inject new life into a tired formNewsday
All [these] books revel in the distinct shapes and benefits of
an album, its ability to go places film, prose or sculpture cant
reach, while capable of being as awe-inspiring as the best of
those mediumsPhiladelphia City Paper
These first few installments set the bar pretty high for those to
comeTangents
At their best, these Continuum books make rich,
thought-provoking arguments for the song collections at
handThe Philadelphia Inquirer
A really remarkable new series of booksThe Sunday
News-Herald, Michigan
A brilliant ideaThe Times (London)
The series treats its subjects with the kind of intelligence and
carefully considered respect they deservePop Culture Press
Lucid . . . each volume provides insightful commentaryThe
Paper, Central Illinois
118
Idiosyncratic, pocket-sized monographs done with passion
and insight . . . the analysis is both personal and
articulateHarp Magazine
The series delves as deep as its possible to go without
resorting to padding ... 5 stars eachClassic Rock Magazine
(UK)
Passionate, astutely written, and they lend real
insightAmplifier Magazine
If an enterprising college professor were to put together a
course on pop criticism and classic rock n roll records, the
textbooks could clearly be found among the ... 33 1/3 series
presented by Continuum Books. Each book delves deeply into
an iconic album of the past 40 years, with a variety of
approachesSt. Louis Post-Dispatch
Informative, thought-provoking, creative, obsessive and
moreAlbany Times Union
Articulate, well-researched, and passionateLibrary Journal
A cracking good idea, and if you like the albums in question,
youre sure to love the booksLeaf Salon, New Zealand
Eclectic enough that there should be something for
everyoneMaxim
A nifty little string of books that deserves more
attentionColumbia Daily Tribune
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These little tomes have captured me in a gobsmacked haze. . .
. These writings are so vivid and upliftingCincinnati City
Beat
Cultural elitism never had it so goodLouisville Eccentric
Observer
Praise for individual titles in the series:
Meat Is Murder
My personal favorite of the batch has to be Joe Pernices
autobiographic-fiction fantasia. . . . Over little more than a
hundred pages, he manages a vivid recollection of a teenage
New England Catholic school life circa 1985, in all its
conflict and alienation, sexual fumblings and misplaced
longingTangents
Pernices novella captures these feelings of the despair of
possibility, of rushing out to meet the world and the world
rushing in to meet you, and the price of that meeting. As
sound-tracked by the SmithsDrowned in Sound
Pernice hits his mark. The well-developed sense of character,
plot and pacing shows that he has serious promise as a
novelist. His emotionally precise imagery can be bluntly,
chillingly personal the Boston Weekly Dig
Continuum ... knew what they were doing when they asked
songwriter Joe Pernice to pay homage to the Smiths Meat Is
MurderAustin American-Statesman
120
Pernices writing style reminded me of Douglas Couplands:
the embodiment of youthful vitality and innocent cynicism,
clever, quickwitted, and aware of the ridiculous cultural
symbols of his timeStylus Magazine (University of
Winnipeg)
Forever Changes
Love fan Andrew Hultkrans obsesses brilliantly on the rock
legends seminal discVanity Fair
Dusty in Memphis
Warren is a gready gifted good heart, and I love him. Read his
book, listen to his record, and you will tooStanley Booth,
author of the True Adventures of the Rolling Stones
Warren Zanes ... is so in love with Dusty Springfields great
1969 adventure in tortured Dixie soul that hes willing to
jump off the deep end in writing about it. Artfully blending
academic citation, personal memoir and pungent commentary
from Dusty in Memphis principals such as producer Jerry
Wexler, Zanes uses the record as a springboard into the myths
and true mysteries of Southern lifeRolling Stone (4 star
review)
James Brown Live at the Apollo
MasterfulThe Big Takeover
Exemplary. ... Most astonishing, however, is Wolks
conjecture that to avoid recording distortion, the riotous
album captured James Brown holding backMojo (UK)
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Let It Be (Replacements)
These are solid short-short stories with bona fide
epiphaniesthat they shed light on Meloys past only makes
them more engagingVillage Voice
For reviews of individual titles in the series, please visit
our website at www.continuumbooks.com and
33third.blogspot.com
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