Nov 222012
If watching my beloved Lions lose to the Texans is not the ideal way of spending your Thanksgiving night, feel free to watch this decent documentary on The Minutemen. I’ll keep the lights on in the Hall along with our British and Australian townsfolk. Gobble, gobble.
Damn! Sorry about your Lions. We were pulling for them in PA.
Damn goal post.
There is a real dumb/naiveté about The Minutemen, but it’s infectious. I like Mike Watt’s revelation about how he didn’t exactly know what a bass was even though he was the bass player and that they didn’t know anything about tuning. They would just play the strings loose or tight.
This just doesn’t happen in rock anymore. And, you can’t manufacture this DIY attitude. A band plugging away at nothing ’cause they have nothing else to lose. I think we’ve lost something these days when a band of average Joes with a great attitude and limited talent can’t make an impact on the scene like The Minutemen did back in the 80’s.
“Limited talent”? I always thought these guys were extremely proficient players (Watt may not have known anything about the bass when he picked it up at 13, but he certainly learned pretty f-in’ fast). They were disliked at the time by many in the hardcore scene for that very reason…they knew how to play.
I had the same reaction as Bobby. Boon sounds dexterous and inventive to my ears. I think Watt’s humility is admirable. I believe the gist if what he’s getting at is true. I can are them feeling that way compared with what turned them on as kids.
Damn, I just read my last sentence and that’s not what I meant by limited talent. I was threading together my first statement about how they used what little talents they had at the beginning and worked hard to put together something memorable. D. Boon was certainly a standout guitarist of that L.A. scene.
Jazz, funk, hardcore and country. These guys might have been the most technically proficient musicians of their generation.
And, if I may toot my own hipster cred — I’m in this movie!!! In the audience at one of the 9:30 shows. Along with my good buddy Tom Roth and I believe HVB is there too! We’re at the very front of the stage (where else!)