As if often the case, I’m a few years behind in my rock-doc watching. I just watched The Minutemen documentary, We Jam Econo. As Laugh-In’s Artie Johnson character would have said, Verrrrrrry innnnnteresssting.
For about 25 years I’ve been interested in and respectful of the music and ways of The Minutemen. There may be a half dozen songs by them that I actually like on a visceral level, probably a little less, but I’m not complaining. Tonight I tried real hard to like their music more than I have, but no dice. Their vocals rarely did anything for me other than on the songs in which they talk-sang, and the linear nature of their songs, as always, brought to mind some of the same things I’ve always found unsatisfying in early Wire. That’s cool, though, and it was cool that Colin Newman spoke of his band’s influence on The Minutemen in this doc. Very interesting.
Along with who they were, which always seemed VERY COOL, there were things about the music of The Minutemen that should give me a toehold in eventually liking their music, perhaps that day will yet come. I’m attracted to their physicality, for instance. D. Boon‘s burst of guitar soloing was always cool. George Hurley’s lock of hair was amazing, for another example. They talked a great game about Creedence Clearwater Revival and The Common Man. All cool stuff.
But the point of me sharing isn’t so much about me expressing my unsatisfied interest but, instead, hearing from YOU on what the band meant/means to you. I know some of you saw them. Did that physicality – in person – make up for the lack of vocal hooks? Did the physicality justify all the chopped up, short songs? Did the scene itself play a big part in what you were seeing/hearing?
Do Townspeople under 35 dig The Minutemen? What do they mean to you, Younger Townsperson? Would I get them more readily had they been British and from an artier background? What the hell is my problem?
I’m sure there are answers to questions I’ve not even answered. This rock doc was very well done. Watt’s total lack of eye contact didn’t bother me one bit. Modern-day Hurley was amazing! What an embodiment of a drummer!
I trust you know what I’m getting at here. Are you up for some free-form chatting over the legacy of The Minutemen? And while we’re at it, how are those fIREHOSE records holding up? I remember kind of liking the music musical vocals but being put off by the REM-isms that Ed guy brought to Watt and Hurley.
Very interesting. I want to feel more.
My longtime frustration with the Minutemen is that they ended right on the verge of a major shift in their music, and I always wanted to know what that was going to be. If you look at the next-to-last record the Minutemen released in Boon’s lifetime, the highly underrated EP PROJECT MERSH, they were already heading in the direction of writing more “normal” songs of regular length and less manic intensity for its own sake. (Hell, “The Cheerleaders” even has a horn section!) Now, it’s entirely possible that the band’s new direction would have completely sucked. (I never liked Firehose, personally.) But the fact that Boon was killed before they had a chance to head further down that road has always seemed like a shame to me.
As for what appeals to me about the records that there are: well, anyone who’s heard any of my regular rants has already heard the one about how few people seem to understand the concept that songs should only be as long as they need to be. The Minutemen, like early Wire before them and Guided By Voices after them, were unafraid to recognize that a song that was awesome at 75 seconds would not necessarily be three times as awesome at 3:45. That cannot be discounted.
And on a personal level, the message behind the phrase “We jam econo” has always had an important resonance for me in my everyday life, and it, no kidding, has been one of the two main adages by which I’ve tried to live my life. (The other being a line I once saw the Scottish comedian Billy Connolly use: there’s no such thing as bad weather, just the wrong clothes.) Stripping out unnecessary things like owning a car or making a mortgage payment on a big-ass house out in the burbs has allowed me and my wife to both make a decent living and have a happy life on frankly not a whole lot of money. Of course, I recognize that we’re also lucky to an extent that would cause uncharitable folks to resent us horribly. (We get to not own a car because we have easy 24-hour access to both public transportation and a car-share service, and believe me, I’m reading about the mortgage-lending meltdown every day with a silent prayer of thanks to my wife’s late parents for buying a lovely house early in their marriage and then having the foresight to put it into a real estate trust before they died.) But still, the message of ignoring what isn’t important to you so that you can focus on what is, no matter what those two things may be, is far more meaningful than most of the more overtly political or sociocultural statements other bands have made.
Good stuff, Great One. You get what I’m after. I agree that the later recordings were giving me a little more to dig into.
I have too much to say. The This Ain’t NO Picnic video on youtube is great. A lot of the live stuff has terrible sound quality and doesn’t give you the feel of those shows.
I don’t think I would have accepted such a lack of melody without everything else they bring to the stage. Their absurdity and political outlook was always very appealing to me but you can’t hear what D’s saying a lot of the time anyway, still, they give the oddest passages the chance to breathe on their own, and no idea was too small to include. Which also left you wanting more, but hey, just play the track again if that’s what you want.
They were a powerful live band that I am very grateful to have seen twice – just amazing chops done frenetically without stepping all over each other. Boon was a cannonball yo-yo with those fat fingers forming those angular, crazy, guitar figures, no sustain, lots of string bending. Watt was having a war with his bass making Harpo Marx gookie faces while performing some kind of combo of Coltrane, Bootsy Collins, and John Entwistle. Hurley gave you those floor tom fills and marching band snare rolls with the hair “unit” flying with the beat tighter than a gnat’s ass. Or he could just lay a groove down, no sweat. Those guys grabbed you my the neck and shook it. Tension, release, over and over. Was their sound a punch in the gut or a chuck on the arm? They’d play several songs back to back, probably the only thing slowing down the set was broken strings. Who needs lots of refrains, more songs, dammit! The “scene” didn’t enter into it, I have no idea what you could compare them to, which would probably be my own ignorance, but many people in those audiences applied the same tired punk shite. Slamdancing, shouting like idiots, positioning their impossibly high coiffs in in my sightline, etc. Nothing unusual for any show at that point I suppose.
But the egalitarian nature of it was just too cool for a scene beacuse anything could be a song, and they used lyrics from many other people, so it wasn’t even just their own viewpoint they were airing. A note about a leaky bathroom was a song! But they tore thorugh amazing covers as well, certainly they were not limited to the present.
I see Watt in every incarnation whenever he’s in town, it’s the least I can do, you can still sense the emptiness Watt has without Boon all these years later, and that’s true in the documentary too. The guy can’t sing worth a damn, puts occasionallly strange combos out there with him, but it’s never a rote experience, the dynamics and sincerity are always refreshing. Plus, he can still play like a MF. Start your own band, write your own poetry, make your own art.
I like fireHose, and I still play and enjoy it, although Ed doesn’t compare to D Boon, the “singing” often comes at the expense of nuance and intelligence. The same earnestness from Crawford that got Watt and Hurley back into it, lessens the impact, even though the band’s sound was seemingly more commercial, more structured. They were pretty great live though, too. At one of their shows, when Watt broke bass string, Crawford did a memorable solo cover of The Who’s I’m One that nailed that song forever in my head.
I’d echo 48’s comments also, of course.
I know D would also be walking the talk.
22 years since D died coming up, I fucking hate thinking about that day. Gets to me even worse than last Saturday.
I love that band. I thought the film was helpful too. The genuine friendship built up by these guys showed the ways in which music isn’t simply just entertainment, but a way of making something out of a life that wasn’t going to offer that much otherwise.
Mr. Mod’s gonna try to dissect them with some of his make-it-more-normal pablum, with his ultimately keen insight that he would have liked them better had they produced three minute pop gems with no discernable sign of originality.
The stance was cool, the lyrics were cool, the short songs and stripped down sound did something entirely original with the limited vocabulary of cut-the-crap punk, and led to maybe the single most compelling statement about DIY of any band before or since. On Double Nickels, almost everything they did counted; the album is a genuinely major statement in the history of rock and roll, one of the last moments of rock turned into a total art form not bogged down into entertainment crap. What would anybody on THIS list know about how to do that? Of course D Boon can’t sing well in any conventional fashion, but never once did it cross my mind to care about that; he was playing music that was genuine in a degree few have matched.
So go ahead, Mr. Mod. Take their sound, unforgettably distinctive in all its parts, and explain how its personality would have been better if it had been more like the retro personality you would have imposed on rock if anybody had been listening to you.
I hope you won’t take any of the above more personally than you should. It’s just that as far as I’m concerned, you’re so far on the wrong side on this one it’s like you’re not anywhere at all.
I purchased the DVD of “We Jam Econo” as soon as it came out.
I understand the Minutemen aren’t for everyone but to the young DM they were looked up to. As the great 48 mentions, the “we jam econo” was kind of a maxim to us. Touring in vans and the DIY punk attitude was in full force with those guys. I think they also meant a lot to us because they were doing their own thing inside the Southern CA punk scene and not just another thrash band.
Plus they could all play like motherfuckers. If you’ve heard my early 80’s band Narthex you can probably see why I liked Hurley’s style. [http://narthex.ookworld.com/]
The Milkmen were thrilled to play a show with the Minutemen once (and later we played a show in LA with Firehose too). Mike Watt is one of the nicest fellows you’ll ever meet.
Mrclean makes an important point. It’s crystal clear in that documentary, as it was in all of the interviews I ever read at the time, but I think you can tell this from the music too: Boon, Watt and Hurley just seemed like really genuinely NICE guys, who actually cared about each other and their friends. You don’t get a lot of that, in rock or out of it. Hell, you can hear it in Sonic Youth’s “Providence”! Watt isn’t scolding Thurston in those messages, even when he’s pointing out that if he hadn’t been high, he would have remembered what happened to the bag of cables. He sounds genuinely apologetic when he says the bag isn’t anywhere in the van. Every time we hear that song, Charity mentions how weirdly sweet and endearing she’s always found it, and I totally agree.
To mockcarr’s side note, I’ll add only that the December day that still gets to me is when Kirsty MacColl died. It was so pointless, and I’m still infuriated that the guy who did it was never charged.
Mwall wrote:
No, I’m not. Sorry to disappoint. I shared how I felt and asked to hear how you felt. I have no interest in posing as “right minded” on this matter. I’m sincerely open to hearing more about what mattered to those of you who loved them. I’m also curious to hear if they’ve made any impact on younger generations, the likes of rock footnote-obsessed types excluded. If I wanted to use this space as some set up to demonstrate how “wrong” the rock world is in its collective thinking, I would already be heading that way. Despite the limited appeal the band’s music has for me, I honestly don’t feel that anyone’s “wrong” here, and I also don’t think I’d get any kicks out of picking on either their legacy or anyone’s feelings regarding their legacy. You were wise to suspect these sort of intentions on my part, Mwall, but in this case you are incorrect.
First of all, their music was pure hook. It wasn’t a hook and then a space-filling verse while we all wait for them to get around to the next hook because they had to because it had to be three minutes, they just played the hook. And if they were done, they were done. No idea too small, like mockcarr said.
And yes, they could play like crazy. They wrote complicated hooks and they could play them.
Also, without taking anything away from their music, which was great, there were extra-musical reasons too. They were relentless tourers – who of a certain age never saw them? And they were accessible – who HASN’T met Mike Watt and found him to be a great guy? It doesn’t help the music, and the music doesn’t need help, but let’s face it: It does cement them in the pantheon.
I (mostly) don’t dig their music on an emotional level: I dig it on a musicological, technical and intellectual level. Their ethos, I dig on an emotional level. I have no problem saying this, and I don’t think it diminishes them musically in any way.
Mrclean, I’m sure you noticed the old flier for your show with The Minutemen as the opening credits rolled! I was psyched when I saw that.
Rick said:
Thanks for articulating this. This is the best I can lean. Let’s hope Mwall doesn’t jump down your throat and attack the entire membership of “THIS” group.
(Don’t worry, my friend, I’m not taking Mwall’s words personally, nor should he take my use of the word “attack” personally.)
I bought the DVD not long ago, but so far I’ve only gotten around to watching the bonus disc only, the one with the performances. Now I really have to get down to seeing the other disc.
I did see them play lo these many years ago, but it was not a good gig, partly because it had horrendous sound. After storming into the first few songs, they slowed it down for a stretch and played weird/offbeat/slow for a while, which had the effect of allowing people like me to think they should move closer to the band. Then, when they broke into a fast number, the moshers went wild and hurt a bunch of people, including me (not seriously, but I was so angry I thought my head was going to explode). So a memorable, but not great, gig.
I don’t know how to answer the modish questions, other than to say I liked the way they sounded — the guitar all treble, the bass all bass, the drums all … drums. They played those chopped up songs with incredible sharpness and intensity. I liked the funk influence not because it was new or influential, but because it gave their rhythmic attack more flexibility. Same with the free jazz influences.
I like their ethos too, though I admit I have mixed feelings about the ‘get in a van and sleep on floors and starve’ approach as an influence. I think it has had the effect of limiting who makes music to who is willing to live like that. It almost got Watt killed when he was in an accident while touring with J Mascis. The law of averages says you’re going to get hurt if you spend that much time driving around without enough sleep.
All right, Mr. Mod, I’ll take you at your word here. I’m just not willing in this instance to turn this thread into “explain to me why The Minutemen don’t suck when all intelligent people know they do.”
As for Rick’s comment, I feel differently, but it doesn’t irk me. The relation between their music and their ethos is complicated for The Minutemen, who have a lot of power both in the realm of music and in the realm of culture.
Of course, what usually happens on this list is that any discussion of the cultural issues raised by a band is taken as an implied put-down to their music, an attitude which we both know lurks behind your smirky references to the concept of “the scene.” One of the things that was great about the band was that they could both play and have a powerful effect on the way their fans felt about the world.
I’m not sure I buy this description of their ethos, Steve. Partly maybe, but it’s hardly the whole of it. The point was to get out and make something, music, art, whatever, instead of sitting around waiting for the world to help you out, which we all know it wasn’t going to do. A lot of the people it spoke to were running around in their vans already, of course.
The Minutemen were one of the bands (along with the Dead Milkmen, mrclean!) that made me think I could be in a band, too.
Everything about them suggested that it was possible for anyone to do it.
-normal guy look
-populist lyrics
-stripped down sound
-willingness to try different musical directions
-DIY jam econo ethos
-embodiment of the idea that being punk didn’t necessarily entail sneering…
they were a real inspiration.
by “double nickels on the dime” they had *already* moved away from the early chaotic period. by the time we get to “mersh” and “3 way tie”, they had already shifted their approach into more musical areas without ever ramming it down our throats.
that album gave d.i.y. punk more dimension, depth, and thus more humanity than it normally had, even in the music of the dischord scene.
they were like a little, revved up, mini mc5, retooled for the 80s.
Mwall, I don’t think my question regarding “the scene” is out of line. I phrased it in a way that probably echoed how members of their, what should I call it to not sound snarky – milieu? – referred to themselves. Don’t we have our scenes and have better understandings of/appreciations of certain things because of it? One of the reasons I’m curious to hear from ANYONE UNDER 35 is to see how not in any way being part of the ’80s underground rock scene may or may not have influenced how people feel about the band. Again, I’m ruling out any footnote-obsessed “feelings” that someone might cut and paste into a post. The fact that anyone’s love for The Minutemen may have been partly the result of having lived through them doesn’t necessarily reflect badly on anyone. I am honest about the suspicion I have that had they been part of another scene, say one that I had experiences and bonds with, I might have liked them better than I do – even if they didn’t change one thing about their music, their production, etc. These are fair questions, and I’m not going to judge anyone any more harshly than I judge myself.
Erm…not to put too fine a point on it, but at 38, I’m one of the youngest members of this community. ARE there RTHers under 35?
I believe I am one of about four RTHers who are under 35. However, I believe that there are no longer any RTHers under 30.
Wish I could participate in this thread more, but The Minutemen are one of my egregious blind spots. Meaning, I just haven’t gotten into them yet. We Jam Econo is somewhere on my kinda out-of-control Netflix queue.
Mr. Mod sez: “…One of the reasons I’m curious to hear from ANYONE UNDER 35…”
If my memory serves, aren’t the filmmakers of “We Jam Econo” both too young to ever have seen the band live? Doesn’t the existence of the documentary itself answer your questions?
Hey saturnismine – when is the “Tons of Nuns” greatest hits CD coming out?…I think I have a cassette of you folks still somewhere in my stuff 😉
I wonder if this is related to Mr. Mod’s age cut-off: now that I think of it, I mentally position the Minutemen as part of a trilogy. From my perspective (just 16 when D. Boon died, general middle class suburban malaise), the Minutemen, Husker Du and Squirrel Bait were The Last Three Punk Bands. Every punk band that came after those three were revivalists, and none of them were as good as the first decade’s crop.
Thoughts?
Well, since you put it that way, Mr. Mod, another thing that I liked about the Minutemen was exactly their relation to their scene – the way they stood out from it.
I already knew that there were these bands out there doing it for themselves, and from the very beginning of my musical “career” it was instantly clear that I was going to have to do the same thing, but I had no interest in following the musical models of the punk-hardcore groups that were my career models. Seems silly in retrospect, but at the time I thought I was stuck.
To wit, I learned from the Minutemen that you didn’t have to play punk-rock music to play music in a punk-rock way.
A couple of things:
There are many more people checking in and logged onto the RTH blog than there ever were on the old, restricted list. That doesn’t mean there are more participants day in and day out, but I do know there are younger entrants to the Halls of Rock, as we now know them. I also suspect a few of the daily participants beside Oats are younger than 35. And there’s nothing wrong with that!
Please don’t get too hung up on my motivations for the “under 35” question. Main motivation: I’m curious. I’m always surprised that a band as influential and iconic as The Minutemen seem to rarely get name-checked by bands today. You’ve got young bands in Williamsburg name-checking some obscure Rough Trade and Factory bands from the UK, yet I rarely if ever hear a new band say they were influenced by The Minutemen.
And Oats, I know you’re not much for Pere Ubu either. What about Captain Beefheart? I’m wondering if there’s a certain array of sounds you don’t dig, or if something else is at stake.
And this is maybe related to Mr. Mod’s most recent question. There’s something profoundly unique about the Minutemen in terms of sound, although their attitude is broadly applicable. Can we figure out what later bands, if any, have been influenced by that sound? Or are they, like Ubu, something of an anomaly? Which to my mind wouldn’t limit their greatness.
There’s a number of factors, although some of those bands interest me more than others. (I like the bits of Beefheart I’ve heard.)
It’s true I’m a bit of a song-structuralist in the Mr. Mod vein, although he likes Beefheart and Pere Ubu (I need to try the latter more, but David Thomas really rubs me the wrong way). Then again, when it comes to noisy stuff, I really love the sound of guitars losing their minds: Sonic Youth, Funhouse, etc. These bands you’ve cited strike me — fairly or not — as more into choppy bric-a-brac.
My personal rock needs swing back and forth between the need for regular-guy rock (certainly something the Minutemen fit into) and stuff with a bit more, shall we say, style. This war that rages within me may be elaborated upon in a thread of its own, should I find the time.
Not that I like the band that much, but the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Flea has espoused the Minutemen and Watt as a big influence.
Oats, I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a gently implied Throwdown. Be alert, old farts. You might lose this cage match before you even know you’re in one.
True, mockcarr, but Flea dates back to that, er, time and place, so I’m not counting him as a member of a “new band.” He’s a direct descendent.
Listen, this thread is not set up for anyone to feel they have to “prove” something to me. Don’t get off the main question: How do you feel? If I’m lucky, perhaps I’ll feel more myself.
Mr Mod, what I meant to say about their ethos was that I questioned the ‘get in the van’ part of it. Other parts I like fine — the idea that you shouldn’t have to go to or have gone to college to play indie music, for example. I just read Our Band Could Be Your Life, and the working class/union man thing was supposedly a big deal for the Minutemen.
As usual, I think slogans get misinterpreted. How many people ignored the ‘punk rock can be anything we want it to be’ sense of sonic freedom? And you could get together with friends and have a band and never play outside your basement, hell even just play by yourself at home, and you’d still be jamming extremely econo, though that’s not how it caught on.
Instead, according to Azzerad’s book, Black Flag went out there and played places no one had played before, and a circuit developed that the Minutemen and Husker Du and Fugazi etc took advantage of. This circuit of crash pads and clubs eventually got codified into ‘college rock,’ which was never its intention.
It wasn’t I who questioned your “ethos” point, BigSteve. I knew what you meant. I must ask you, however, by use of the term “circuit” are you suggesting a snarky relationship to my supposedly snarky use of the term “scene”? I’m concerned.
I’m 34 and I like Solo Mike Watt more than I like any Minutemen or fIREHOSE songs albums.
I understand their appeal fully, but for pure listening enjoyment, I gotta go with the Mike Watt 3 piece.
Also: Sugar’s Copper Blue and Bob Mould’s Black Sheets of Rain both rock my world and I couldn’t care less about Husker Du.
Further alienating myself: I like Last Splash by the Breeders more than any Pixies album.
Mr. Clean, I never put 2 and 2 together. Just allow me to say that yours was the first Punk Rock I ever actually heard, and it fucked up my life forever.
Thanks
I can’t help you much in the ‘feel’ department, Mod. The best Minutemen songs were good in a low-rent Gang of Four way. As for the assumption that they were doing a great service by keeping their songs especially short and sweet, I’d agree that 3 minutes of some of those disjointed tunes would be hard to take, but I rarely heard anything that astounding in even the 45 seconds they’d deem worth our hearing.
I did like the movie a lot. There was a real warmth amongst the musicians that reminded me of some of the best parts of the alternative scene back in the day. The Minutemen’s connection Pettibone and other illustrators may be a way into understanding the appeal of their short songs: they function like a single-frame comic strip, don’t you think? I’m not a ‘comic guy,’ so maybe that explains why the music often left me cold. The ideas were there, though.
I love:
BLACK FLAG
DK
MISFITS
BIG BLACK
CHRISTIAN DEATH
DAG NASTY
AGNOSTIC FRONT
FOD
BORN AGAINST
CRIMPSHRINE
STOOGES
SONIC YOUTH
THE GUN CLUB
XMAL DEUTSCHLAND
FEAR
TSOL
i hait:
FUGAZI
BAD RELIGION
SOCIAL DISTORTION
FRACTURE
MISSION OF BURMA
STIFF LITTLE FINGERS
BAD BRAINS
GBH
Now now, don’t get defensive because I called you on your smirky half-put downs of a great band. You need to feel more.
Eight years ago, I posted a review of “Double Nickels” on a distant Web site, and what I said then is still true today:
There are a few albums which — I’m ashamed to admit — really did change my life: “All Mod Cons” by the Jam, “Radio City” by Big Star, “Pet Sounds” by the Beach Boys, and, somewhat incongruously, this record. To be honest, the first five or six times I heard it, my reaction was more along the lines of “what the f*ck is this?” than the gushing praise you’d get from me today. The fact, however, is that this album has the rare ability to transcend musical genres and burrow its way into your brain, infecting/liberating the way you think as it goes. High praise? A bit weird? Yeah, but true. I find myself wanting to reprint the album’s entire lyric sheet just so I can convince you — but that wouldn’t work, either. You need to listen to it yourself.
That line about “liberating the way you think” is *so* important to my reasons for placing the Minutemen in the pantheon of Great Bands. I don’t get that from Lou Reed, Bob Dylan, or any of the other Great Rock Artist Suspects — I just don’t. Perhaps that’s because the Minutemen were the first band in my young adult “now” that actually wrote about things and in styles that were completely new and downright revolutionary to me. It’s certainly because they did it in a fashion (or lack thereof) that seemingly didn’t give a shit about anything other than the message and the music. And the words they sang were *wonderful*. Seriously, drop a needle anywhere, on any Minutemen record, and you’ll hear a series of words that have more power and beauty than anything I hear in (insert favorite HVB rock pinata here).
I gotta try this experiment myself, in real RTH time, right now. I’m heading out to http://jeremy-siegel.com/Mojo_Rising/minutemen/lyrics/master_alpha.html, then hitting the “page down” key a few times to see what words pop up.
…
How about this?
The people will survive
in their environment
The dirt scarcity and emptiness of our south
The injustices of our greed
The practices we merit
The dirt scarcity and emptiness of our south
I could see it in my eyes there on the beach
I only had a corona
five cent deposit
FUCKING BRILLIANT! Now *that’s* speaking truth to power.
On a completely different level, let me note that mockcarr, kcills and I were all at the show from whence the footage you see at the top of this post came. That’s old 9:30 Club footage, and I remember that guitar and the band’s lack of hair.
I also have a story about the Minutemen that I’ll share later — gotta run now.
HVB
The development of the punk ‘circuit’ was a central idea in Azzerad’s book, and I’m still assimilating what he said. And scene that had Husker Du and the Minutemen in it is ok with me.
And btw anyone who doesn’t have any or enough Minutemen can get it all at emusic.com (use the link to your right) though the short songs work against downloading by the track. I wonder why their stuff is there and other SST stuff is not.
HVB, I was at that show too, damnit. You can try to excise me, but I’ll keep coming back. I wonder who else of our crowd was there that particular night.
With the possible exception of John Lennon, no rock related death ever hit me like D. Boon’s. I remember hearing the news on Second Street right below Spring Garden as I started my car on the way home from work. At the time, the band still seemed to have so much left to do as evidenced by the little blurb on “Three Way Tie for Last” that requested fans to vote for their favorite songs to be included on their next planned record: “Three dudes, six sides, three studio, three live.” So much left to say.
The last two records were not my favorites, I preferred Double Nickels, but I had no sense that they had lost their way, only that they continued to move forward and would probably hit a spot more to my liking down the road a bit.
The Minutemen had a solid winner rock streak. They were genuinely ambitious where it counts, in the work they were doing. Their goal was to take their talent, their ideas and the principles of rock as they received them from their heroes, and carry on the tradition as they saw it. Mr. Mod should certainly appreciate that.
To my mind, The Minutemen were the American Band of their time. Their blend of rock tradition, Beefheart abstraction, political commentary and genuine personal reflection was an extremely rich mix; it could never have been marketed to the masses, but it had something truly valuable to say to everyone. It wasn’t elitist, just great.
With all the heart that Watt has, it bears reflection that Boon was the Heart of the band and Watt more the brain. To criticize Boon’s singing as bellowing or off key seems completely beside the point. These very qualities conveyed an emotional depth that is right there on the surface in the documentary when you hear Watt talk about his friend.
History Lesson Part II is one of the most heroic, heartwrenchingly true songs I have ever heard. It captures the dichotomy that this little band could somehow be so GREAT.
Geo said:
(The Minutemen’s rich mix) wasn’t elitist, just great.
I say:
You just said a MOUTHFUL, Geo! Thanks for such a concise, moving explanation of the MM’s greatness.
Sad that Monsieur Mod’s rigorous aesthetic concerns could stop him from feeling the genius of something as undeniable as the Minutemen.
Being a hick town kid (there is a friggin’ weekly rodeo in the county fer chrissakes) something about their whole improbable and skewed vision seemed familiar to me. The whole working class political thing, the unashamed BOC and Van Halen covers and the unpretentious poetry of “History Lesson 2” felt way more like my world than boho X & R.E.M. or the exotic wordplay of Elvis Costello (though I dug them too). How Boon sells his vocals despite having an “instrument” that sounds like a leaky trumpet is just part of what made them unique.
They had ideas where so many other bands just have a sound. Still, I would have minded it somebody other than Spot had produced their stuff. They’re one of my last holdouts on the vinyl vs. CD sound argument, all that Spot stuff is best heard on vinyl for me.
-db
(sorry for the cursing model train lovers)
db wrote:
Why do Townspeople feel the need to bring my “rigorous aesthetic concerns” into this discussion? Have I said anything that tells you that that’s a real concern of mine in the case of wanting to give you an opportunity to pay homage to this band? I think the only thing I said up front was that I don’t like the vocals of D. Boon and Mike Watt. I don’t care how much fucking “emotional depth”, as Geo pointed out, they have in shouting that way. I don’t like the way it sounds and that IS the point, at some point, when listening to music, isn’t it?
Listen, I’ve stayed true to my pledge not to make this post into some “I’ve got better taste than you” exercise. I really don’t find it to be a fun exercise in the case of this band that I respect yet simply don’t get much pleasure from. I’ve got the Quiet Storm sending me offlist e-mails of imagined support. I’ve got you guys poking at my exquisite taste. All I have asked is for you to tell me how The Minutemen makes you feel. In reading your stories, I hope that some of those good vibes rub off on me next time I pull out my small Minutemen collection and try to dig it on a deeper level. Can you guys handle that, or will you not be satisfied unless I show you how I would go about ripping this band apart? You want the blood on my hands, don’t you? Look at your own hands once in awhile!
They’re just needlin you Mr. Mod.
Don’t play into their hands.
Be strong.
Stay cool.
hey, are we all gettin together for xmas?
Tying together the Minutemen and zen koan threads, I can only offer this Alan Watts/South Park youtube link to explain my constant ribbing towards Mr. Mod’s structuralist leanings.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXi_ldNRNtM
Good question regarding a holiday get-together for those in the 215/267/856/etc area code, shawnkilroy. Yes, I think we should. I need to get back to a friend regarding an idea we’ve kicked around for too long. Stay tuned!
I played Double Nickles on the Dime last night. What I admire the most about it is that it doesn’t buy into trying to be cool in any way. Thus it will never sound dated. I also noticed that both the lyrics and D.Boon’s delivery are coming out of a poetic tradition, ranging from Homer to the Beats.
I guess my feeling is the record is academic in a good way, as Howard Zinn’s History of the U.S. is. I also noticed there are some beautiful, more quiet, almost pastoral pieces on it.
Don’t be having no Philly RTH get-togethers until after 12/28 or there’s going to be a dick-ton* o’ trouble.
*A term allegedly spoken by the lead vocalist of My Morning Jacket at a sound check as part of the Sentence: “Give me a dick-ton of reverb on my vocal.”
Not sure about the hyphen.
Tvox
Dr. John wrote (emphases mine):
Very interesting!
Well, I’ll take another shot. (Thanks, by the way, for making me put into words my feelings about the Minutemen more than I have done in a long time.)
My posts of yesterday didn’t touch on lyrics, but after reading Hrrundi’s points, I realize that’s a big mistake. Let’s take a lyric from the video posted at the top of this thread: “Logic is the course that instinct betrays.” Now, I think that’s a pretty good little kernel of insight. In the hands of Lou Reed or Elvis Costello or anyone else who is supposed to make Important, Smart Rock Music, it’d be insufferable. But the fact that they shouted it over this piece of linear, cheaply-recorded chatter and bonk makes a big difference.
The idea that wisdom not only can but sometimes should come in rather shabby packages was another thing that I heard from them at a time I needed to hear it. They’re not the only place you can learn that from; they’re not the only place I learned that from. But it was an important thing to hear.
i hereby motion that the RTH holiday get together is before or during the show at JB’s on the 28th!
T-vox, I also require your band to do a minutemen cover!
Well, I did slip in an homage to their tune “Tour Spiel” in one of the new Tvox tunes.