Bandsplain - Minutemen with Joe Gross

Episode Date: February 10, 2022

Minutemen from San Pedro, CA were a band of childhood soulmates whose experimental sound, working class roots, and lucid politics made them all-timers in the history of punk. Joe Gross returns to highlight Minutemen’s DIY ethos of “jamming econo,” and the timeless influence they had on the whole of independent music that came after them. Follow Joe Gross on Twitter at @joegross and pick up his 33 ⅓ book on Fugazi’s In On the Killtaker wherever fine books are sold. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello, hello and welcome. I don't get it. Can you please explain? Hello and welcome to Bansplaine. Hello and welcome to Bansplaine. I am your host, Yossi Sallick. This is a show where I invite an expert guest on to explain a cult band or iconic artist to me and to you. Today's episode is about the Minutemen. If you've never heard The Minutemen, it's not Borge and it's not Mersh, but it is Econo.

This is what the Minutemen sound like. We learned punk rock in Hollywood, drove up for Pedro. My guest today, repeat bands planner, Joe Gross. Since 1997, Joe has written about culture, popular and not for outlets such as The New York Times, The Village Voice, Rolling Stone,

Decibel, and other places. He was a music, books, and film critic at the Austin American Statesman for 18 years. He wrote a 33 and a third book about Fugazi's In On the Killtaker, and he has a known Lulu by Metallica Apologist. Welcome to the show. Welcome back, if you will.

Thank you. Let's just start. Why don't you tell me why you're the guy to talk about the Minuteman? There are many people who could talk about the Minuteman. I am extremely glad you chose me because this is a band that I've thought about in somewhere or another from the first time I heard them. and I it was absolutely one of those I mean there are about 10 bands in my life where I can tell you exactly where I was and what I was doing when I heard them and the Minutemen are one of those bands where were you and what were you doing I was at my house I was probably about 14 or 15 years old and I had gone to smash in Washington DC which is where you got things like band t-shirts and Doc Martins and records every town had one of those until they were all sort of replaced with hot topics, I guess, at some point that I wasn't paying attention.

I screwed up. I meant to buy double nickels on the dime because I heard that was, you know, quote unquote, the best one. And I bought the politics of time instead, which is sort of the opposite end. That's the one that's like... I was wondering why you had so many songs from Politics of Time on your playlist, but now I know why. Yeah, I'm sure you did. And I brought it home, and I thought it was incredible. And it wasn't until, like, two weeks later that I ran into my friend who suggested that I check him out. I told him what I bought.

He was like, no, that's not right. Well, I love it. And he was like, well, that's great, but they get much, much better. I think that's a testament to the minimum though, right? Like, even their album of, like, throwaway songs and, like, whatever's, is, still so fucking good that like it inspires you to be like what is this band totally incredible i mean i had never well the funny part was that that one you know they're they're described as very very low-fi in a lot of places or you know the production on their records is very spare and not you know

not a lot of overdubs and stuff like that sure and then you hear the politics of time and it sounds like it was recorded you know in a shoe or something some of it was recorded in a show or something some of it was recorded in a shed. So maybe that's what you're hearing. Well, that, you know, the fact that, like, tune for the wind god was recorded literally in the desert. You're like, all right, this is as low fidelity as it gets. And so, I mean, the punchline is that every subsequent minute men record that I heard, you know, sounded mid to high five to me. It was just like, oh, that sounds kind of in comparison. In comparison, yeah. But, yeah, I mean, they are a band where no matter how bad a I am in, I can put on a Minuteman record and I feel better of like immediately.

That's an interesting reaction. I love the Minuteman and I think I do think double nickels on the dime was my first album obviously because someone recommended it. I was you know five, no, three when it came out. So it's not like I was cool enough to know what was up or sentient enough. But to this day and it's not something I dislike. I like it. But I find the music challenging, but I like that. I like the challenge of listening to it, where I think that's not true of a lot of music, but like specifically for the Minutemen, like, for example, like, it's widely known that I love bands like the Google Dolls, for example.

Not a challenging band to listen to. Don't you fucking say it. I know what you're thinking, but you know what I mean. Yes, yes. Every song delivers on its promise. Every song has a resolution. It's like watching Gray's Anatomy or something, right? Like, they're going to help you,

they're going to tell you how to feel with the music. They're going to, like, wrap it up in a bow. There's a nice moral. Here's the part where you cry. But the men of men, obviously, they do not make songs like that. Like, they do not resolve. They do not come in pretty packages. They're extremely short, which we'll get into,

for the most part, it changes a bit a little bit later. But it's unexpected. Just, just a little different. Yeah, no, you're right. You know, the go-go-go-dolls go from A to B absolutely brilliant way. The Minutemen, the first time you hear them, it's a jolt for a lot of reasons. But one of the reasons is they're very short, but they're incredibly dense. Totally.

And you're just like, what the, did I just hear? I think it's really wonderful. Before we dive into telling the story of the Minuteman, I need to say that the story of the Minuteman is a love story. above all. Yeah, absolutely. And we're going to go on an adventure, and it's very emotional. Yeah. I also really feel some connection, I think, to the music of the Minutemen and the ethos of the Minutemen,

maybe just because, like, I'm from Torrance, which is like a stone's throw from San Pedro, and, like, not exactly the same, but similar, like, spiritually similar. I think the original, wasn't the SS. to office in Torrance. I'm pretty sure it was. It's a, you know, not completely but largely working class. At the end of the day, San Pedro is a port, right? It's a port town, exactly. And it was, you know, port towns are always interesting. Yeah, it was a naval base. I'm not sure that it is anymore. It just became more of, you know, a great harbor for shipping and stuff like that. Dennis Boone and Michael Watt. Dennis,

with an E, two E's, met at age 13 in San Pedro. Mike Watt had moved to San Pedro from Virginia at the age of 10. His father was in the Navy. I think it's had something to the Vietnam War. D. Boone's father was a Navy veteran who worked putting radios into Buick. So, you know, they had a lot in common from Jump. Very famously, everyone knows the story, right? Mike Watt's first memory of meeting D. Boone, he was at a park

in St. Pedro walking around and D. Boone jumped out of a tree on me and said, I thought you were Eskimo. You're not Eskimo. And Michael Watt was like, no, I'm not Eskimo. And then they just started like talking. And I really loved this that De Boone started like, it's such, this is such like a teen boy thing to do, like started reciting all these George Carlin jokes because like it was the only record or one of the only records that he owned. And Mike Watt thought he was like the small. smartest, funniest person he had ever met because he didn't realize that he was just like eeping George Carlin jokes. And like he was just like, yeah, I think I read some interview where he said I was smitten by De Boone, which I thought was so sweet. So De Boone had learned guitar from his mom.

De Boone's mom is like a really pivotal figure, I think, in the formation of the Minutemen, because she pretty wisely, I mean, San Pedro especially, I think, in the parts that De Boone and Mike What lived in was a bit cutty. And Deben's mom to protect her son was like, you stay inside. So you start a band. You play music inside. And then when Mike Watt joined the picture, she was like, you play bass. He'll play guitar, you play bass.

It's amazing. It's really, and like the idea of just like, you know, this mom being so supportive of her child, you know, starting a band, even though she didn't probably give a shit about that kind of music or whatever. But, you know, it's very sweet. Yeah, she seems like a linchpin in this story. And it's, it's funny how moms will come up in like stories of bands, you know, minor threat and discord, you know, the discord office or the discord mailing address is still like Ian's childhood home.

And when his, you know, when his mom was alive and still lived there, like people would show up. like thinking it was, you know, the Discord house. And she would sometimes invite him in and they'd look around and be like, well, this is just somebody's house and leave. That can be incredibly important. And it clearly was for Mike and Dee. Yeah, it's very, I don't know, I found that very moving. Also, hilarious, which again, part of the known mythology of Minutemen, you know, D. Boone's mom said, Mike Wat, you should play bass.

Mike Wat said, yes, ma'am. He did not know that a bass was different from a guitar, neither did De Boone. They couldn't see when they would go see, like, arena shows. Like, you couldn't see the bass, really. And then on the cover of albums, they just saw that it had four strings.

So for a while, Mike Wat was simply playing a guitar with four strings. That actually, like, explains certain things about that band, but we can get into that way. Yeah. Apparently, Mike Waude did not see a real bass. still he was 16 years old.

They also... It happens. It happens, sure. I mean, this is, this is, you know, the early 70s, late 60s, early 70s. It's not like there was like, you know, fenders lining the streets of San Pedro to be seen. They also didn't know about tuning. And they just thought it was either you like your strings looser or tighter. I love that.

That's amazing. I love it, too. It's everything about the Minuteman is just so pure and earnest and it's just just really touching. So sorry, Joe, I'm just going to get through this historical formation and then we'll get into it. In 1973, they formed the bright orange band with a Dibun's brother on drums. I think their whole thing was like, they didn't think to write their own songs. Like it didn't even occur to them.

Like, all they did was, like, play covers of the bands that they were really into, which was, like, Blue Oyster Cult, T-Rex, Alice Cooper. And they would just play those for hours and hours and hours. They were really into Blue Oyster Cult. That kind of stuck around. Which kind of makes sense, I guess. I mean, like, in terms of, like, what was happening in rock music in the early 70s, like, Blue Oyster Cult was, like, fairly interesting and, like, kind of, like, light.

lightly metal, would you say? Blue Oyster Cult was both heavy-ish and smart, kind of dorky all at the same time. And that was what they were after. I mean, if punk isn't there, then you can't listen to that. Sure. But Blue Oyster Culp, like, seems spot on. Yeah, and I think D. Boone famously took his name, I mean, partially because he, D was his slang for marijuana, but partially because it sounded.

like E. Bloom, which is the guy from Blue Oyster Colt. Which is also hilarious. That dude inspired Dee Boone's street name or whatever. That's great. I love it. So in 1976, they're both 18 years old. They graduate from high school and D. Boone's mom dies. And it's like a devastating blow to both of them. It's just like a really rough time. It's also coincidentally the same year they discover punk rock. So like, you know, again, speculation. Like there's not a ton of De Boone interviews.

Like there's some that you can look up on YouTube and like a couple of fanzine ones if you can find them. But, you know, a lot of punk rock is a place to channel anger, feelings of unfairness, inequity, just angst, right? And like, I think having such a pivotal figure in his life die right in, you know, the same time that De Boone is discovering this like new kind of. kind of music really like added fuel to the fire. Yeah, it was something they could, you know, huddle around. Totally. And also like, I think from jump, D. Boone was a very like, I mean,

let me be clear. Like these, these were two dorks, like two dorky kids who like, De Boone loved history. He was like always reading history books and was like super into it. They were not like the cool kids, you know, like in high school, they were not popular. Like they had this sort of like world of two that they were. would play their music and D. Boone would teach Mike Watt about history and world wars and stuff. And their first song that they ever wrote together, which I can't, I don't know if it was ever recorded or I couldn't find it anywhere, even like a YouTube performance or anything, but it apparently was called Storming Tarragana. And it was named after the housing development

that De Boone lived in. And it was a song about tearing down the projects and building real houses for people to live in. So it's like from jump, they're talking about real issues. and like fighting for the working class. Mike Watts said something in an interview that De Boone didn't think our dad's got a fair shake and I think he was kind of railing against that ever since, which I thought was interesting. Yeah.

Also what I thought was interesting was Mike Watts on, by the way, like six million interviews, so anything that we want to know about, there's some Mike Wat quote about it. Thank God. Regarding punk rock, right? They discovered punk rock through issues, shoes of cream and crawdaddy. And that's where they would see like pictures of the Ramones and the

clash. But they didn't, they didn't hadn't heard the music. So they were like, I remember Mike Watts has this quote where he says like, we would see these pictures of these guys months before we heard the records and they had all these modern haircuts. And it blew our minds when we first heard the actual music. We thought it was going to be synthesizers and modern ship, but it wasn't modern. It turned out to be guitar music like the who. That's what blew our minds. When we heard that, we said we can do this. When punk rock started like throbbing gristle

and talking heads, you couldn't tell what punk rock was. It was all different things, free things. And we wanted to be our weird thing. They didn't start the Minutemen until 1980, January 1980. They had like two other bands before

this band called Starstruck that also never wrote any original songs. And this band called the reactionaries. Which is the first time that they linked up with George Hurley as the drummer who had gone to high school

with them, but was a popular kid and did not literally know who they were. The thing that's great about Hurley is he absolutely looks like a popular kid. 100%. He still looks like a popular kid. He mean his jawline.

He also was apparently like a huge surfer. He just like bailed out of San Pedro when he turned 18 and just went to Hawaiian surf for a little while and then came back and was like, I'm over that. I'm going to do drums now. And then was like freakishly this like virtuoso, like incredible drummer. Absolutely brilliant drummer

looked like he had just gotten out of a wetsuit enormous like hunk of curly blonde hair Yeah, his like pomp his weird curly pomp You look at those three guys and you're like I mean they they embody something that I always kind of like in bands

where it's like three people who look completely different Absolutely Like how did these guys get together? How are you in the same band? How are you in the same band? It's great. Yeah. I mean, Mike Watts said that, like, he was, they were, they really wanted Georgia Hilley to be in the band. I think they met him or Mike Wat met him at a party and where Mike Wat was like passed out in a bathroom and had locked himself in classic house party thing.

And then he met George and was like, you have to be in my band. George was like, okay. But Mike Wat said that like they were shocked that he said yes because like punk was so ostracized at that point. Like being a punk was embarrassing and like people would. pick on you and George was popular and cool, but like he was down. I mean, it's funny. The thing about, one of the things about the Minutemen is it's very easy to forget that they were first wave punk rockers.

Like, they are the same generation as Black Flag. As all of that first wave of American punk. The first Minutemen show was the second, oh, maybe it was actually the first reactionary show if we're going to be technical, but the first reactionary. show was opening for Black Flag, and it was Black Flag's second ever show. Yeah. Like, that's how closely aligned in time they were with Black Flag. They basically started almost exactly right at the same time.

That's kind of important because they meet Greg Ginn at a local punk show when he was passing out Flyers for his band's show, and that's how the reactionaries get on the gig. So the reactionaries only lasted seven months, you know, from that first show playing with Black Flag. Mike Watt and D. Boone decided that having like a traditional frontman which is kind of what they had with the reactionaries in Martin Tamborovich was two to rock and roll and two bourgeois. So they disbanded the reactionaries and they formed the Minutemen in January of 1980. Yeah, it was like a purge, like a communist purge or something.

Like there's, you know, Martin's out where Martin's out and like, Rock and Roll is out. We're just going to rethink this stuff. And as much or more than any band of their generation, that is exactly what they did. And they did it more thoroughly than most bands have the guts to. Totally. I think like, and this will get deeper into this as we go along,

but like I think one hallmark of the Minutemen is they're a very cerebral band, right? Oh, yeah. It's an interesting juxtaposition, right? They're both, like, very, like, working class, like, of the people. Mike Wad gives an awshucks vibe throughout his entire life. But at the same time, they're also, like, highly cerebral. They're writing a lot of bands, obviously, in the punk scene, we're writing political songs, right?

That's one of the hallmarks of punk music. But the way the Minutemen were writing them, the nuance to the lyrics, and just the framing of the ideas was on a different level. My favorite description of them of all time, and I have stolen it mercilessly to describe one or two other bands, but it fits for them the best, was from Jim Cohen, the guy who made the Fugazi movie instrument. And he referred to the Minutemen as total art, total activism.

and I think that's perfect. That is absolutely what they were. It was completely in balance. It's funny because I think that they would bristle at being called total art. That's fine. I don't mind. Not, I mean that more to like, not to slap your hand, but more to like start a bit of a dialogue. Because like I think, you know, especially at that time or maybe just to bring up that like there was the strain of punk that was this art.

punk thing, right? That was like going on. That was not what the Minutemen we're trying to do. Well, yes and no. The only reason I push back at that is the record that really blew their heads apart, according to both Mike and D, I think, or one of the records that really blew their heads apart was Pink Flag. Totally by wire, yeah. Which is a record that, which you can totally understand. Like, you listen to the Minuteman and you're like, oh yeah, totally get this. Well, also, Pink Flagg famously 21 songs in 35 minutes. Yeah, the songs are very short. They explore lots of different ideas. Yeah. And like they hit the wall of an idea and then they go on to something else. And some of them are verse chorus verse. Some of them aren't. Some of them are two minutes. Some of them are

30 seconds. Yeah. And it's just pink flag still is one of those records that if you hear it at the right time, you're like, oh, there are no rules. They're just aren't. Like, whatever rules there are, we've followed them up. And you don't have to follow any of. That goes straight into their first recordings as the Minuteman. Yeah, absolutely. Before we get into the first recordings, I'll say the name,

the Minutemen, is not because they have short songs. It is a political reference. There is this parody on these right wingers. And also, I've seen a couple of interviews where Mike Watt also says it had like a double meaning with the word minute in contrast to like these behemoth rock bands, right? Like, oh, no, we're just minute. Well, are the whole idea of rock bands being big giants, we were being like minute men. Yeah. I mean, I think, and you know, there are probably like four or five different explanations for this name.

But I swear I also read somewhere. that he said that Minutemen was the opposite of the reactionaries. That makes sense. Because also a political name. Also a political name. But flipping an idea on its head, you know, it's more collective. It's a group. Right.

It's not as it's a group with a goal. Totally. George Hurley, by the way, I just, I want to say this because I think it's important to your point of like they're in the first wave of punk and also for us to talk a bit about what South Bay outside of L.A. punk looked like and what the reaction to it was. So George Hurley was not the first drummer of the Minutemen. They wanted him to be the drummer, but he had already joined another band called Hey Taxi.

So they had this guy named Frank Tonche. Frank Tonche quit, I believe, mid-show, one show, because he did not like punk shows. not like the crowd. He was tired of being spit on. Minutemen were spit on a lot. Minutemen were spit on a lot. Minut men were spit on about as much as like the first wave of British punk bands. And getting, it's funny, like you watch documentaries about the clash and stuff and documentaries about the, you know, the heartbreakers and the pistols.

And all of these bands are like, getting spit on was awful. Yeah, I mean, you're singing and you're holding a guitar. which means you can't close your fucking mouth. That means people are spitting inside of your mouth. All these fans were like, we would go to England, they'd spit on us, and you would get sick the entire time. Yeah, because someone's germs are going directly inside. I want to throw up. I want to vomit.

But yeah, they got spit on a lot. And I think that becomes more important later in the story, frankly. Totally. Anyways, just using that to bring up that George Hurley comes back in June 1980. I just want to go back to their influences for a little bit before we jump in, because you brought up WIRE, and I think that's obviously a super important one. Wire are quite aware of the fact that we were influential on a few of the kind of hardcore bands in America. They've also talked about the pop group. Were you the pop group person?

Yes, I was a pop group guy, and I learned about the music. them the same way a lot of people or a lot of, you know, music dorks, my age learned about them was sort of backwards through bands like Big Black and Fugazi. And in some ways, um, your boys, the chili peppers, you know, oh, a fair amount to the pop group. Yeah, that band was absolutely amazing. And I, you know, much like the Minutemen, kind of a hard. sound to replicate, even if you tried. Yeah. You're not going to love this, but I find some similarities between the hot chlipeas and the Minutemen. Oh, yeah. I think Flea would be thrilled to hear you say that.

I think, yeah, that he was so influenced, but I think people need to remember that the chili peppers only started three years after the Minutemen. It's not like it was like a generation later, you know, like... No, no, no. They played shows together. Yeah. You know, they were clearly drawing from the same well in... certain ways. Right. And obviously a completely different output and, and, you know, largely different goals and, you know. And different definition of what funny was. Sure. And what funky was. But back to the influences, obviously, like we talked about this like sort of post-punkky wire, the pop group, you know, dealing with political themes, but also just like a little dancey.

they were also both really into outlaw country because that's what their dads listened to. And I think that's kind of an important influence that is something that I hear a lot in the Minutemen that marks them a little off from like traditional punk or hardcore. Would you agree with that? Yeah, yeah, yeah. There are a couple things that separate the Minutemen

from a lot of bands of their generation. Yeah. One of them is Credence. Sure, totally. They were all of massive Credence fans, which makes total sense. Because, you know, for about 18 months at the end of the 60s, Creedens Clearwater Revival was the most popular band in the history of the world.

Right, totally. Their 69, 70 singles are just bulletproof and sound like nothing else before or since, which is kind of cool. And I know that sounds ridiculous given how completely. everyone who is listening to this knows CCR. Right. But you go back and listen to those songs and you're like, this doesn't sound like, you know, the dead or the doors.

They sound, you know, they stand out. And, you know, I think the Minutemen obviously were super into that, especially Watt, who just dressed like John Fogarty for the rest of his life. You sure did. And the other thing is that they could play, especially Boone. Boone was a spectacular guitar player. Yeah, not common, right? No.

Not a punk thing to be. I mean, Mike Waugh, one of the best, one of, you know, a very inspiring bass player to many people. Yeah. And we've already talked about George being like this freakishly. Like, he was like a funk drummer. Like, he was like so, so good. Yeah. What if jazz, but with this guy yelling and, I mean, something that I think is kind of wonderful about their sound.

they divided the human range of hearing really well. You've got Wad on the bottom. You've got Boone with this very, very trebly telecaster sound that, again, there's something kind of brave about the way they presented their music. Like there's nothing cool about that sound. Yeah, and it was very deliberate. Like they deliberately separated the treble and bass sounds. Yeah, absolutely wanted those like,

that space. And then like, you've got George Hurley kind of in the middle. Yeah. Sort of driving this thing. And it's just, it's remarkable how they moved as a unit. It's just really something else. You brought up jazz. Jazz was not like an early influence for them. But I think something that really shapes their sound later and maybe like after first or second release, maybe around first or second release, is this relationship with Black Flag, right? Because they become very close with Black Flag. I believe they share a practice space at a certain point.

Raymond Pettibon famously does the artwork for the first First Minuteman release. And Pettibon put them on jazz, Greg Ginn's brother. And Greg Ginn and Raymond Pettibon, you know, these were like educated people. Like they had both gone to UCLA. Like they were like in a bit of a different like world of whatever education. And I think like learning about jazz from Raymond Pettibon

and by hanging around Black Flag. And also I'll read, I'll find the quote, later and read it directly, but it's like something about Mike Watts saying, like being around Black Flag changed our sound because they were doing this one thing and we wanted to not do that thing. We wanted to do something different. And so like, they were like, oh, they'll have their like metal redux and we're going to do this other thing. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, totally. And then obviously Richard

Hell, we cannot move on without. And Captain Beefheart. I mean, there's a lot of like very, they had a lot of sort of scattered influences that you, but when you hear them, you're like, oh, yeah, duh. And some are musical and some are like spiritual, which I think Richard Hell is maybe a little more spiritual. I mean, these were guys who sort of aspired to write interesting literary lyrics. Totally. And, you know, in the context of punk rock,

and hell is a good example of that. You know, hell has always fancied himself as a pretty literary fellow. Sure. Wrote a book. Wrote a book and everything. it's funny that they are very much a band that does not mind talking about its influences but never sounds like a band they don't sound like a record collector band like some bands very much do and but they they really don't which is wild and i think that's because the number one

influence for the Minutemen was the idea of punk. Not any, and there's like some great quote from the We Jam and Conno documentary, and I don't remember who says it, but they talk about how like when punk first started, it wasn't a set of sounds or a set of styles. It was an idea. And the idea was you can do whatever you fucking want, right? And that, I think, was the main inspiration for the Minuteman. Like all their inputs were there and that's awesome.

and they just took them with this freedom of like, we can do whatever the fuck we want. No chorus, no problem. You know, like make the song 30 seconds long, gorgeous, who cares? You know, like put the trouble all the way up, fantastic. It's very much the idea of punk being a way of looking at the world. Totally. More than anything else.

So their first show ever was opening for Black Flag. And Greg Ginn gave them their first release on SST. And it was the second ever SST. release. Sorry, just before we talk about it, I know this is like a lot of lead-up, but I do think it's important. And that first EP,

Paranoid time comes out in 1980. I just want, much like people forget that there was a time before punk was like, completely like absorbed by the system and commodified and like, you know, like really palatable

and warped tour and pop punk and Hot Topic and the whole fucking nine yards. It wasn't that at all. Like we're saying, like you get spit on, fire extinguishered, beat up, like whatever. This is also a very different, I mean, politically, 1980 was wild. You know, Jimmy Carter is still president, but this is the year that Ronald Reagan gets elected. We're still in the fucking Cold War.

Yes. I say we, but I wasn't born. But the Cold War, the Cold War is happening. And like, you know, I have to imagine, you can tell me you were around. Like, the imminent threat of a Third World War kind of like kills the war. the vibe, if you will. Yeah, I mean, I was still pretty young when, when Reagan was elected and reelected, but it was, you've thought about it. I mean, you know, you can find pretty much any American my age or older remembers either watching or being forbidden to watch the movie the day

after about a nuclear attack. And, you know, it was sort of, it really was in the back. back of your mind all the time. I think it was a little more present for Gen Xers who were, say, 10 years older than I was. Right. And people, I remember Mackay said something. And the other important part of that is it's both Cold War and Vietnam had only been over for about five or six years. Totally. Totally. Like the specter of Vietnam War was still like looming. The specter of Vietnam was still there. And this is very, I think this is very important, especially for guys like Watt and Boone's generation and, and Mackay's. Also, I remember Mackay once said, from, you know, the time I was born to when I was about 12 years old, I thought what you did when you turned 18

was go to Vietnam and be killed. Like, I thought that was what you did. Yeah. And I had never heard about it, talked about that way before. And I think that that's a massive part of these guys' lives. Well, I was going to say, Jimmy Carter, he signed another draft into existence during, in 1980, a peacetime military draft. Yeah, it's very much in people's like guys that age. It's very much in their minds. Yeah.

Unemployment was at the highest in four years. there was a conservative movement called the New Right. So there was like a super, super conservative streak through the country that was sort of like rallying back against, you know, what had gone on in the 60s and 70s. Reagan obviously, you know, the hallmark of that sentiment, his election. This is the political era that this kind of punk is coming out of. Michael Azarad says he draws a lot of parallels in his, um, great book. Our band could be your life. Minutemen lyric.

Between the folk movement of the 60s and then this like sort of indie punk hardcore movement in saying that like, you know, they were both sort of like a reaction to shallow complacent times and their correspondingly shallow complacent entertainment and how the 80s and the 50s were both sort of conservative eras, like money conscious and Republican. I thought that was really interesting. Yeah, I think you can also add that labels like SST, Discord especially, touch and go were all basically folk labels. Right. Like they were documenting the music that was around them. I mean, like, Discord was literally documenting the music that was around them. Like, that label is made up of about 60

people and that's about it. And SST was a little more ambitious in, or not ambitious, but, you know, they wanted to sign stuff that wasn't literally down the street, but it started with stuff that was literally down the street. Oh yeah, 100%. Yeah. So anyways, I just wanted to paint that picture. And then just locally, like, you know, the L.A. punk scene of like 1979, which is like the germs, fear, the dickies and stuff. That had a little bit. died down. And it was sort of like people had moved on to like the fall and gang of four and like joy division.

And this sort of opened up this space, right, for like, I think someone called them a bunch of tuffs coming in from these like suburbs. I believe the phrase you're looking for is Orange County. Well, Orange County, San Pedro, like, you know, Blackflat, all this. It's like this, the birth of hardcore, right? is the suburbs kind of infiltrating the space left in the punk scene. So anyway, this is what's happening in 1980. And now we're finally at the first minute men release,

the Paranoid Time EP. Why don't you tell me about this EP? It's their first record. The sleeve is absolutely hilarious. It's a petabone drawing and it's a screen. This was the perfect second record for SST. Totally. Because it's the opposite.

of nervous breakdown. It sounds nothing like that, but is still insanely punk. Do you mind playing like all three songs? And then we can talk about them afterwards. We can play as many songs as we want because these songs are four seconds long. Yeah. I mean, the only reason I mention it is that something lot is sort of fond of saying is we, you know, we didn't write songs. We wrote waves. And I think, you know, especially live, it was just like one song after another, bang, bang, bang. And you sort of have to listen to the Minutemen that way. Right. Because you're not going to switch around after 45 seconds.

That's a really good point. Let's hear them that way. Off Paranoid Time here is fascist, Joe McCarthy's ghost, and paranoid chant. You are listening to a music and talk episode where full songs and talk segments live together in gorgeous harmony only on. Spotify. Guess what? You can also create your own music and talk show for free with Anchor, Spotify's podcasting platform. Get started at anchor.fm slash music and talk. That's anchor.fm slash music and talk. That was fascist, Joe McCarthy's ghost and paranoid chant. I mean, oh man, it's so good. It's so good. And it's so strong. And it's like paranoid chant. I'm like, I feel it.

I feel the paranoia. And the lyrics, I try to talk to girls, but I can't stop thinking of World War III. It's brilliant. Brilliant. The thing that's great is like, this is still like pretty primal minute men. Like they were going to evolve and get better from this, which is wild to think about. Insane. Like, this is the first stuff.

They recorded all seven songs in the order on which they appear in the record. No overdubbing. I guess there's except for some backing vocal. by the group and George Hurley's brother Greg. This is produced by Greg Ginn and engineered by the famed spot. Yeah, word to spot and Greg Ginn for getting a dope drum sound, which is not something that you think about when you think of spot recordings. But that's, that's record sounds awesome.

It still sounds awesome. It's so good. There was 300 copies pressed. I mean, it's just fucking rules. There's nothing else to say about it. I wanted to ask you something in the document. Humaneary. Jello Biafra says that he thought it was interesting that Black Flag would use what little money they had to put out another band almost immediately after they put out nervous breakdown.

What did you think about that? Given Jell's relationship with his old band, I thought that was kind of an ironic statement. You know, guys like Ginn and Carducci, who was another fellow associated with SST, he wasn't in a band. He was a business guy. You know, they weren't, they weren't notes. They wanted to have a real record label that documented what was around them. Right. And, you know, you look at the signings, the SST, and it's pretty impressive, you know, to a point, they're just, it's, you know, incredible record after incredible record.

Yeah. I imagine they were trying to build a scene, too, right? It's like if you're in your bubble and this is a band that you found and you play with and like, you know, it's not like it was that there was some huge scene already in 1980 around Black Flagg because there wasn't, right? I mean, there was like a following, but it wasn't like this massive thing. Well, I mean, no. And something that, of course, Black Flag is famous for is sort of trailblazing the circuit that hardcore bands would then use to tour. for the next 10 years or whatever.

Well, yeah, because famously, right, these bands couldn't get booked at regular clubs. They were playing VFWs, youth halls, like, wherever they could. I read something that Greg Ginn said, and I don't know if this has to do with the Minutemen's brevity of their songs, because I never saw that corroborated by any Minutemen. But he said that they played short songs

because they knew the cops were going to come, and they had 30 minutes max, maybe 20, before the cops were going to come. so they had to play fast and short songs. Well, I think that's absolutely true of Black Flag. And probably any band that played with Black Flag because the relationship between the LAPD and Black Flag and Hardcore in general was,

according to everything I read, just bananas violent. I think they learned pretty quick that they were going to get shut down real fast. Yeah. And so sets where I absolutely buy it for Black Flag. And, you know, since the Minutemen probably played a lot with Flag, I believe it for them too. Nervous Breakdown isn't a political record.

Not really. In as much as, you know, the DIY. Yeah, it's political and its existence, right? But it's not like overly political, I think, lyrically or thematically. It is not the first thing that would pop into your mind, though. Yeah. Whereas, like, I mean, the three songs we just played, I mean, the entire EP is, like, very directly talking, you know, Joe McCarthy's ghost. We're talking about the draft.

Are you going to fight when they caught your number? Can you prove your loyalty? Also, obviously, the name of Joe McCarthy's ghost. You know, like I said, I keep trying to talk to girls and I keep thinking of World War III. It's very direct, but it's not didactic at all. No. It's not, I believe this, or you should. believe this at all.

No, it's more like, here's my experience of this thing. Yeah. It really is like trying to work out the feelings towards a thing just through lyrics. Yes. It's not necessarily as easy to grasp as black flag

where the overarching, you know, meaning is, I'm angry and let me tell you about why. Sure. You can run into each other. And this is not like a value statement. It's not like the one is necessarily better than the other. And just, just pointing out. Yeah. You know, you listen to those songs and you're like, if you are there to run into each other, you are going to start spitting on the Minuteman immediately.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Sure. Like, you are not going to be into this at all. Yeah. You know, they cut a very distinct look on space. Yeah. De Boone was famously a large man. I think he had a mohawk in the beginning, but then would wear like cut off kind of like checkered shirts, right, or like, you know, suspenders. He definitely like played around with outfits. A time I got slapped down the hardest by people who very clearly knew more than I did, I made some statement on the internet, which was, I mean, you just shouldn't do that. Should never do that, just a full stop. Don't make any statements on the internet. Never do that. I made some comment about how,

there was nothing punk rock about loafers and like people came out of the woodwork to mention D-Boon and I had to admit I had never noticed his shoes before but there's a lot of film of him wearing loafers and it's just like God damn man you did not give a fuck they literally did not give a fuck

I mean we talked about George's hair you know Mike Watt was this like tall kind of gangly bass player who they was real thin and like they just they looked so different than what was going on

even within this like sort of small punk scene like even then they were like a bit alien yeah I mean there was no like these were not guys who lifted weight no or like put on eyeliner or like you know any of the like safety pins yeah like nothing

So they put out another release just like the next year, the Joy EP, and inspired by SST, they put it out on their own label, New Alliance. Yes. Real punk rock hours.

Yeah, this is another one where you can just play like three songs in a row because they're real, real short. It's interesting. You put punchline before Joy, and I think technically that's correct in the sense of what was recorded first. But Joy came out,

first. Joy did come out in August of 1981 and the punchline comes out in November of 1981. Yeah, produced by Mike Patton, not that one. The other one. The one from the band, middle class. The entire EP was recorded and mixed in five hours.

Awesome. Talk about jamming econo. Like, we are jamming. We have no money. We have no money. Right now. And it's whatever comes out is fine. And it's so good. Should we play your three songs again in a row here and then talk about them. Absolutely.

Okay. So off of joy here is the title track Joy, Black Sheep and More Joy. Okay, that was Joy, Black Sheep, and More Joy. I fucking love this Joy EP. I love Black Sheep. I think a thing that is, you know, we kind of talked about it earlier, but like, you know, Mike Watts famously said, like, a thing that he, you know, when he first started learning bass and all this Stephanie's listening to these rock bands. He was like, I couldn't hear the bass

in the songs. Like, I couldn't hear it. And you really can hear the bass in Minuteman songs, right? And we said that's like a deliberate choice. And I love it. I love it. Much like my friends, the Red Hotchley Bowman. A slightly different context. You are correct, technically, which is the best kind of correct. Yes. But no, right? Like, I mean, that's, I think, such a, that's like a hallmark of Minuteman. You know, another hallmark. is they're not afraid of a pretty melody at all. And, you know, a lot of their peers kind of work. You know, you don't think of delicacy or beauty when you think of, you know, damaged.

Okay, yeah. Correct, correct. Or my work. Those aren't words that spring to mind, but that's absolutely true for Minuteman. And I think it becomes more prominent. the more they get into people like Ornette Coleman, who is famous for just devising stunning melodies and then, you know, taking them into space. Right.

And, you know, just incredibly beautiful piece of music after incredibly beautiful piece of music. You know, what the Minutemen would do is sort of, you know, write a riff, not necessarily feel the need to write another one. Sure. One and done. There's a solo. There's, you know, written by either D or what. And I think that's another thing that's... Yeah, we haven't mentioned that they both write songs.

They both write, and more importantly, to me, and this is something that most bands just refuse to do, or at least refuse to do publicly, and I've never completely understood why, is they wrote for each other. Yeah. And we're really open about it. And they wrote lyrics for each other.

And they were really open about it. And, you know, lots of bands, I mean, I can't tell you the number of interviews I've done or read where bands are like, we collaborate on absolutely everything except the lyrics. Right. And it's just like, why? Why not? Why not hand this over to your friend and say, yeah, take a look at this. Like, do you think there's anything that's just not working here? Right.

I never understood that. I mean, bands that I adore, like, only I can write the lyrics for, you know, bands that, you know, each singer is like, I write my own lyrics. I guess it makes sense. It's kind of like such a personal thing to, like, deliver lyrics, you know? Sure, of course. But the thing that's wonderful about Minutemen is that they said, well, why wouldn't I write for my best friend? Totally. Why wouldn't I take lyrics from, I mean, this comes up much later when they're doing it.

you know, double nickels and stuff like that. But, you know, a lot of people wrote for that record. Yeah. And they weren't weird about it. And I think that's, I think that's wonderful. And also, let's not erase George. George also wrote lyrics. Yes, George also wrote.

He wrote some of my favorite lyrics. They're like real, like, real poetic. They're real, like, you know, surreal. Totally. And it all works. It all works. Just amazing. So in, also in 81, like we said, like three months after the Joy EP,

they put out their first full-link album, The Punchline, on SST, produced by Spot. It's 15 minutes. There's 18 songs. Perfect. Perfect. Gorgeous. I love that opening track search. It's so good.

It's a good song. It's interesting. That's a record that I think, because they started making records that were, like a light year jump forward within like six months. I think the punchline is one of those records that is good, but people underrated because it's not great. Right. It's a good record.

There's stuff that's good on it, but then they just sort of explode, and it just gets bananas. But there's definitely great stuff on the punchline. I agree with you. It's an important record, though, in that, it's the first full length. B, the opening track search goes on the second Rodney on the Rock compilation, which was...

Oh, that's right. Yeah, huge means of discovery, I think for a lot of people, especially who were into punk and into those kinds of scenes. So I think that kind of broadened their audience because some people were introduced to them that didn't know about them before. The Punchline is also the only album that has lead vocals from all three-minute men. true. George really does, you know, the giving a speech in the middle of ruins. Giving a judgment, the matter was light.

Who got the handshakes of ruins of a culture still have made? Remember the caps before you're born, the born of the family. The title track is a funny one. It's a really good song, but also it's making fun of General Custer's death at the hands of Sitting Bull during the Battle of Little Big Horn. They're like clowning him, basically. Pretty much. Kind of amazing.

And then just like one other important song. on here is the song for El Salvador, which is like kind of about de Boone's support of the Farabundo-Marti National Liberation Front in El Salvador. He was like a member of the NGO committee in solidarity with the people of El Salvador. It was called Sispis. Just to be like, this is, these were political people.

You know what I mean? Like they were like actively political. Yeah. So do you want to hear search? Oh yeah, absolutely. And we can hear search. and song for El Salvador. Yeah, let's do both.

Okay, this is Search and Song for El Salvador. That was Search and Song for El Salvador off the punchline. I don't think that there were many record reviews happening at the time. Let me restate that. There probably were in like fanzines and punk zines and stuff, but those are a bit hard for me to find on the interweb. The one review that we did find was Robert Criscao, since he's taken the time to archive all of his own reviews.

He said, they're Pollitt Nix who love punk with a name that mocks Hardcores, Right Wing, Rep, and their own aesthetic. These 18 songs average under 50 seconds apiece. The lyrics don't rhyme or even scan. Less poems than the jottings of young men given to cultural bullshit.

History lesson. 100,000 years ago, homo sapiens to erect mind, empty, fresh, created love and hate, created God and anti-god, human, slaughtered human for power. gets the flavor. Not Frederick Jameson, but better informed of the skinheads they play for. And where last year's seven-inch paranoid time could pass for speed rock, the funky dissonance

here has no parallel in the genre or anywhere else, not Ornette Coleman, but better informed than the circle jerks they play with. It's always infuriated to be, you know, X number of years younger than Bob in your life, yep, he nailed it and won. I know, he's such a good writer. I'm glad he brought up history lesson, though, because I feel like that, we didn't point that on that is important, if only for the fact that it spawns later history lesson part two, which is one of the most important

and iconic men of band songs. And Mike Watts reaction to history lesson part one. Yeah. And I think mentioning, you know, mentioning Ornette here is spot on. Yeah, he's echoing you. Yeah, that, you know, Bob knows a lot about jazz.

He doesn't write about it as often as popular as pop music, but he knows what he's talking about. And he knows a Coleman-type riff when he hears it. You know, they were moving that direction. And they were on, you know, they were onto some ideas that did not have a parallel elsewhere in their scene. Yeah. Hence the spinning. Right.

Totally. You know, it's also interesting about Minutemen that we haven't mentioned yet. They never leave San Pedro. I mean, they never move away. And that to me is very interesting because it is very deliberate. Listen, L.A. is right there, you know? so it's not like it would have been insanely difficult or anything

to move to L.A. True. I think staying there kept them like who they wore. You know, like kept, kind of had this like anchoring to like something that was deeply, I don't know,

like ingrained in the art that they made, which was being from San Pedro and living in San Pedro and, you know, remaining close to the roots of what made them who they were. Oh yeah. I think there are a couple things going on there.

One, they kept their day jobs. That's important. They played what they could. I'm sure San Pedro was cheaper than L.A. even then. Even then. Well, Mike Watt said, I think, quite beautifully, like someone asked him this,

like, why did you guys stay in Pedro? And he said, it was our home for one thing. Hollywood was close enough to play there. Pedro ended up as a great thermos bottle. It kept us ourselves. You moved too close to something that's hip and happening,

and you become that. You miss the beat of your own heart. I think we were being smart, staying in Pedro. And I really loved that. You know, the idea of like you get too close to the mouth of the beast, like you sort of lose your outline and like, you know, your selfness. You absorb too much of what's going on around you. You don't want to be one of those bands that becomes what they beheld, as it were.

I mean, I think that's true of anybody who's ever had friends who moved to Los Angeles. It's like, oh, you've changed. Not only if you changed, you changed in six months. And it's different from people who, for people who grew up there, obviously. It's a completely different way of thinking about L.A., but, you know, I can see him thinking like L.A. is just close enough that, you know, we can go there when we want just far away enough

that if we do move, we're going to be something else very quickly. Yeah. I mean, it's all of this is like such a different time. Like, I don't know about you, but when I was watching, with Jam McConnell again, I was just like so struck by like, even just like amongst the talking heads that were all from Southern California,

the like vastly different accents. Like regional was a thing in the 80s and maybe early 90s. Regional's not really a thing anymore, right? Like, you know, every person from, I mean, basically California talks exactly the same. You know, like it's, you don't have that same like nuanced richness of,

each area. Like, I don't know. So, of course, that's a thing of the time. Yeah. I mean, New York is the same way. Virginia is the same way. You know, things that were once quite distinct, you know, get flattened out by television. Internet.

Totally. Social media. Yeah. So anyways, they say in San Pedro. The next thing they put out is the Bean Spill EP in 1982 on Thermidor, which was Joe Carducci, I believe, Yeah, that was his his van at 11th. Yeah, SST was in a lawsuit

with Unicorn Records. So it was supposed to come out on SST or the next LP was supposed to come out on SST, what makes the man start fires. But it was delayed. So it had already been recorded in the summer of 82, but they couldn't put it out.

So the Minutemen, I guess we're kind of fancy and they were like, we wanted to do something. So they record this Bean Spill EP. It's an interesting EP. It doesn't exist as itself anymore,

but it is on one of the compilations, right? It's on post-Mersh volume three, maybe? Is that right? Post-Mersh, Volume 3 is where they put three EPs, the first one, Bean Spill and Joy, and Politics of Time. So it's sort of the,

here are odds and ends from the beginning, middle, and end-ish of our career. Right. We should say Mersh in Minutemen speak means commercial. Yes. This EP is interesting, even if only because,

it's the only one that has mostly Mike Watt singing, because that's not common. It's mostly Diboon singing. But on this EP, Diboon only sings on split red and futurism restated. I love if Reagan played disco. Did you pick that one? I didn't, but feel free to put it on there. I'm totally fine with that.

I really love that song. That's the wonderful thing about The Minuteman. It's like you can sub in different songs. Totally. The idea is basically insane. Totally. Let's hear if Reagan. played disco.

Sure. Let me have my way. That was if Reagan played disco in which Mike Watt is essentially calling Ronald Reagan a Nazi. Yes. But you can't disco and jackboots. Jackboots were the common footwear of the Nazis

in Hitler's Germany. The Minot Man are something that is extremely hard to pull off in popular music of any sort. They are funny. And they are funny without being goofy.

Totally. And that's real hard. It's really hard to do. And they do it effortlessly. Most bands, I mean, hell, most people take themselves way too seriously. The men of men were perfect in that they took the work seriously, but they didn't take themselves seriously. And they seemed friendly and approachable and funny in a way that's a black flag did not necessarily see. I do think that sense of humor and sort of like looseness does so much because they are talking about serious, very serious things.

And like, I think, you know, not having any sense of humor about that would have made it hard to swallow. You know, it wouldn't have come off as beautifully. No, it would have been, it would have been a little exhausting. Yeah. They are doing something that is explicitly political without saying, you know, you should do this, you should do that. Although I think in terms of hardcore and the punk that was sort of going on at the same time, I think sort of putting them in context is kind of interesting. Yeah, please.

Somebody like the Dead Kennedys were doing very specific songs, like songs with very specific topics. For some people, they've aged fine. And for some people, it's like, you know, reading an old anarchist newspaper. Oh, this is a little weird. And then sort of at the other end, you have someone like you've got a band-life minor threat. Where they were talking about something very personal through a misinterpretation of the lyrics,

Ian Mackay accidentally starts a movement. Yeah. And it's just like, what on earth? I was talking about me. Like, I was talking about me and my friends. He's, you know, this is like the invention of the person. personal politics, right? Yeah.

How you conduct yourself as politics, which is, I think, really important. And, you know, that's people clearly resonated with them. The misinterpretation came where he wasn't saying, you know, where he was saying, like, I don't do something. Right. He wasn't being didactic. He wasn't being didactic at all. But people thought he was, which is sort of, I mean, I would not want to be in the position

of, like, having to explain over and over again something I made up. when I was 19 years old. Sure. That seems nightmares to me, but he's handled it really well. But, you know, somebody like, like what, you know, I don't think there are a lot of songs that that guy regrets. I'm not saying that, you know, that Mackay regrets those things. I'm saying that the Minutemen had very explicit politics that were still kind of subjective in the way that you could interpret them.

Boone is talking about El Salvador, he's talking about Central America, he's talking about American imperialism, and he is implying that those are bad things, but he's not saying like, you've got to vote this way or something like that. Totally. I think if anything, and again, I definitely don't think it was like in any way,

like goal-oriented. I think, you know, D. Boone and Mike Watt were guys who loved to think about things and talk together about things and think about them and look at them from different angles. And that kind of extends to their music where it's like, if Dibun's singing about El Salvador,

like he's having opinions, but he's also just like, think about it. You know? Yeah. Why don't you think about it? Here's a thing. Why don't you just think about it?

And I think that is such a, I don't know, like my arm hair is standing up. It's just such a powerful way to incorporate politics into music that's truly just like begging people to like take some time and think about this, you know, thing that you probably don't, it doesn't cross your mind.

That way of expressing political ideas in punk ended up being, you know, bananas influential on the next generation of political punk bands. Sure. Where you'd see, you know, benefits for the local free clinic or something like that, where it was just like, you know, come enjoy the music. but, you know, think about this thing that we're doing a benefit for. Just like, here's an idea. Like, you can think about it if you like.

You can reject it if you like. But just here's some ideas to think about it. I think that's a very good way of putting it. In no way where they know it all is, right? Like, these were men who were, like, just curious. Like, just always curious. And, you know, that's probably partly from, being working class and not having higher education and whatever, I don't know. But, you know,

it never felt like they were like, we know better or like anything like that. It was like, you know, I don't want to keep repeating myself. But again, it was just like a spirit of curiosity, of endless curiosity. If you are really into, you know, arguing about whatever with your bandmate, you're not going to be a sort of like, here's a piece of gum, kids, let me show you how to chew it. Like, that's not going to be your default. Yeah, I mean, it sounds like they were kind of a nightmare to tour with, frankly. But I just like, whew. They jammed DeCano and they argued about politics all day and all night, which led into, like, physical altercations.

Yeah, I think, like, George Hurley and, like, Greg Norton probably have a lot to talk about. Just like, what is it like being a trio with two guys who are, like, both, you know, brilliant songwriting partners and, like, at each other's things. votes all the time. Yeah, but it's, I mean, I don't know, again, I wasn't on there, but it sounds to me like it was like, like, the way brothers argue, it was like a good spirit is arguing, you know, and like, almost like sharpening each other's minds, you know, by like having this discourse. No question. So the next album, again, is the one that was put on delay on SST. It comes out January 1983. What Makes a Man Start Fires? That's so good. It's the great lead forward.

It's just their second full-length album ever. They recorded it all in one late-night session and then had like two other late-night sessions to do guitar and vocal overdub. So longest time of recording to date. Yes, man. They took a tremendous amount of care with each song. This is the beginning of their like final form.

Right. This is where like what people think of as the minute man really starts. Totally. And it's just this is where it's, sort of all comes together. You can hear the folk stuff. You can hear the jazz stuff. You can hear the country stuff.

You can hear like the classic rock bits. You can hear Hurley becoming this just bananas drummer who will go from, you know, jazzy runs to four four stuff to funk stuff like within the same like four bars. I'm just like what the hell is going on? It's just amazing. Yeah. I mean, Mike Watt has said that he felt like this is the first real Minutemen album. So kind of cheer a point.

Yeah, totally. The songs also start getting longer, right? Like, we start having two-minute songs here. We're not talking like six to eight to ten minutes long, but like, you know, more than 45 seconds. Again, like all of it makes sense, right? It's like the Minutemen are constantly figuring out their sound as they go along, you know, like they're just growing and changing.

So, of course they're going to like, you know, I think they talk about it. being. Those short songs were like partly intentional, partly like a function of limitations, you know, and they were just like, this is what we can do and this is, works for us. I wanted to ask you a question.

So all the lead vocals on here are by D. Boone. All three members contribute lyrics. But, and even though the songwriting credits are shared amongst all three minute men, apparently all the music for this album was composed exclusively by Mike Watt. Can you tell that?

No, not really. I mean, I personally can't. I'm sure there are Watt scholars who would be like, you can absolutely tell, like, that this is very much, you know, a Watt-only record. I think they are such a good example of a band thinking with one brain that, you know, I can't really see what, type of George, what to play.

And, you know, I can't really see him bringing in stuff and being like, I wrote this song, kids, and here's how it goes. I'm sure he, it sounds like he came in with a bunch of musical ideas that were then probably fleshed out by, you know, I don't think Watts were right in, right and boon solos. Sure, sure, sure. But I do think it's, it's kind of a wild example of,

or a wonderful example, really, of just, you know, this is the way these guys work. It's just there's the line between, you know, Watt and D was not yet as... Where Watt starts and where Boone begins, or ends and begins. Yeah, still pretty hard to discern, for me at least. I also think it's like such a beautiful testament to like the lack of ego in this band, which we haven't really talked about, but it's like truly this band is devoid of ego. It's just not a thing that comes into play really.

like, you know, I can't picture another band where both two people write songs and one of them just being like, okay with the other person writing all the songs on one album and just being like, that's chill, go off. Yeah. I mean, it's interesting. I mean, I might be totally wrong. Maybe Watt did say like, this is how it goes. But a band being devoid of ego is an underrated thing.

I think some bands need ego, right? It just depends on what you're doing, what the vibe is. Like, some bands benefit greatly from a bunch of ego. If you want to stay together as a band with the same X number of members, credit everybody with songwriting. Like, that's the easiest everybody writes. I mean, REM, Sonic Youth, you too. They stayed together forever and they stayed together with the same group of people.

I mean, REM is a weird exception to that. but for a long time, because everybody wrote and everybody brought in ideas. Again, the exception with the Minuteman is that, you know, they would write lyrics for each other, which I don't think REM did. And I don't think you too did. I don't think so. Fugazi, I don't think they do that, same four guys for 15 years. But, you know, they certainly wrote all the music together.

And, but yeah, it's, being ego-less can be advantageous. I mean, I remember talking to a guitar player many years, my senior, about playing with, his band played with REM at a number of shows. And his, the lead singer and rhythm guitarist was watching them with the lead guitar player and said, yeah, we're better than they are. and the lead guitar player told me he was just like, dude, no, we're not. If you can't see why this is like a perfectly balanced band, this is a problem. Totally.

I think there's also like the subcategory of bands like U2, for example, or even Red Hodge and Pepper's, where like, as long as everyone knows their place, if you know what I mean. And place is not the right word, but as long as everyone's ideas of, what they want out of their part of the band are in line, then it's like, you know, fine. So what makes a man start fires, by the way?

Like we've already said it's so fucking good. The anchor, babe? Oh, we're talking about the anchor. Let's play The Anchor and then let's talk about it. This is The Anchor. That was Anchor, goddamn gorgeous, beautiful song if I've ever heard one. Here's a thing. I think that the Minutemen often meander into territory that normally I don't like,

but I do like here is a bit of spoken word. This lives next door to spoken word, much like my beloved red hot chili peppers. Yes, again, the effect very different. It's no ding, dang, dang, dang, dang, dang, but there's, you know, you can't say. What is, what is, frankly? Okay, another thing about this song,

that I've always loved this song, but I didn't realize until doing this research, to your point earlier about like this band, egos, sharing all the roles, this song written by Mike Watt, these words written by George Hurley. It was a dream he had. And then sung by De Boone.

Just the beauty of like the three, all three members coming together to like just deliver the song. That's incredible. I just love it. It is a perfect song written by committee, which is really hard to do. Yeah. And I think a lot of great songs,

obviously, you know, contribute different parts and you rewrite stuff as you're rehearsing. but, you know, people have anchor tattoos because of this song. Yeah. I am and will probably remain tattoo-free for the rest of my life,

but the anchor has crossed my mind. Sailor Jerry Corbyb. You know, as someone who's from Torrance, many people have anchors, many people had nonical stars. It's a common tattoo. Yeah. Yeah, that song's gorgeous.

I love life as rehearsal, just because I love the lyrics. I see that you have chosen, also Bob Dylan wrote propaganda songs. And that's an important song. Do you want to talk about it a little before we play it? I put it on there because it's a good example of two things. One, Watt was a big Dylan nerd.

I don't know about Boone, because as you pointed out, Boone is not as well documented as Watt for obvious reasons. When you find out that, you know, that Watt was a big Dylan fan, it's like, like so many things about this band, you're like, oh, of course. Yeah, that makes sense. Dylan was not above, you know, sort of automatic writing and then going back and refining stuff.

Yeah. I think this song is also a testament to the fact that this band was very self-aware about, you know, about the politics of their music and, like, maybe feeling a little self-conscious at times about doing that with their music. And, like, you know, that's, it's quite literal here, right? Yeah. Hey, even Bob Dylan wrote propaganda songs. Like, it's okay. Like, I can do it too. He did that, you know? It's okay if I write songs like that because Bob Dylan wrote propaganda.

That's right. I wrote that. And it's funny. It's a funny song. Totally. Which, again, very hard to do. Yeah. Nobody wants comedy in their music. Let's be real. Okay. Why don't we hear the song, though? This is Bob Dylan wrote propaganda songs. That was Bob Dylan wrote propaganda songs. Something that's, again, that is kind of amazing about them.

And I can't, I never got to say. see them live. I wasn't quite old enough. Right. I mean, you're old, but you're not that old is what you're saying. Yes. And we've all aged about 15 years in the past two. Correct. Except for me, who looks beautiful and younger than ever. Yeah. I mean, you're remarkably well preserved. Much like the germs, and I know this is, they're an odd band to compare Minutemen to, but, you know, like the germs, Minutemen were a lyrics band. They wrote incredibly good, lyrics and then you couldn't understand a word a lot of the time. Right, totally. I can't imagine what it was like live. It's just like, what? Oh my God. Yeah. Well, also like through the spitting,

like how can you even hear? There's like a big part in the We Jam Econo documentary and Mike kind of talks at length about this where he's just like, we were misinterpreted at like every juncture, like from our name to our lyrics to like what we were trying to do. It was just like nonstop people didn't get it. And he was like, that's okay. You know, bands and the Minutemen absolutely did this. You know, they'll put inside jokes on records. I think you kind of surprised when nobody gets it. It's just like, guys, nobody's going to understand that. This band in particular, too. I mean, like, this was, they really had their own little universe. You know, Dee Boone and Mike Watt had this, like, just their own private universe. And like, even, it might not have even occurred to them that

it was their own private universe. I think that's something that happens with true. really great bands. They create a total environment. They, they create this idea that you buy into by being a fan. They did a remarkable job of that in a very short period of time. Yeah. Through being, you know, very prolific, you know, writing a ton of songs in, you know, what was essentially what, five years, five or six years? I mean, it's a little longer than that because, yeah, the relationship between Watt and Boone goes back to childhood. So it is a little bit longer than that. But like in the time that everybody knew who the hell the Minuteman were, they did, you know, they did a remarkable job of creating this, this world.

And it is like so beautiful. It's like, I mean, the idea when you hear Mike Watt talk about De Boone, like to this day, like, you know, just the emotion and his voice and like the reverence. with which he talks about him. It's like most people don't get to meet that person in their life ever. No, not at all. That's quite smitten with him. This great love of your life and you meet him when you're 13 and he's full of ideas and inspirations and he drags you into a band and puts you on stage even though you were kind of scared to be there, but like it was okay because he was there and like, which is something

that I read my huahtze. And like, I don't know. I'm just, I was like over and over again moved by. this like very special relationship between these two men. The fact that it produced absolutely stunning art is just like, it almost seems like, you know, gravy or something. Yeah, totally. That's a really nice way to put it.

Is there another song you want to play off of what makes a man start fires before we move on? Let's do sell or be sold, just for fun. This is sell or be sold. That was sell or be sold. You know, normally on this show, I would like chime in to like talk about what the top albums of the year were, what was going on in music. I just haven't done that because it's like literally irrelevant. Don't you agree to the Ben-at-Men? I mean, like, what's happening in 1982 and 83, for example, is like, thriller is number one for like half the year.

Men at Work. Rick Springfield. It's like shit that does not have anything to do. No, for sure, of course. Producer Dutland points out because it's subculture. But there's times where subculture and popular culture get closer together or at least like there's some relationship. At this point, I think, you know, it's really the like blandest, beigeist music is mostly

happening at the top of the charts. Not Thriller, by the way, not saying Thriller's blandest, this page's great album, classic. I mean, I think there are a couple of interesting things going on. the next year in 84 is one of the greatest years in the history of American popular culture, especially music, or just is one of the best years in the history of American music and he sort of goes into why and, you know,

we'll get there when we get there. Is it because of I want to know what love is by a foreigner? That song is amazing and you know it. I love it. I love that song. That song's incredible. That's great song. Seller Be Soul is in every way

accept the actual music, a hardcore song. The lyrics are very much like, you can absolutely hear a hardcore band singing them. The plan has been made, ideas, emotions, like that. Yeah, yeah. And especially like the last, you know, the last line. You have to do it in the hardcore voice. I absolutely do not.

I don't think that would be fun for nobody. That would be the sound of people clicking this off. off. You know, something that's also very hardcore about Dee Boone is he did not have a big vocal range. He just didn't. He just didn't. And I think that was also very inspirational to lots of hardcore bands. Seller Be Sold always jumped out of me as a song that was like, oh, this is just, this is a hardcore song, except for the fact the music doesn't match at all. Yeah. It's interesting that you brought up the hardcore thing because, like, you know, at various junctures, the minute men are called hardcore, they're called not hardcore, they're called not hardcore, and like, they're not hardcore. And like,

they're not hardcore, you know, like, I don't, I don't think anyone would make that argument. But at the time, it was just, bands were just being lumped together. Like, you play the VFW with Black flag, you're a hardcore band, you know. I think that also applies to your boys and the misfits. Those are my boys? Those are your boys, I'm afraid. think the misfits are kind of interestingly in a completely different way on kind of a parallel track in that they were not a hardcore band. No. They were a punk band.

They were like punk cabaret basically. Yeah. But they were huge for lots of hardcore bands. Right. Totally. In a completely different way than the Minutemen were. Is that they were, again, like not a hardcore band, real important hardcore bands. And I think we're also getting into the point where, especially with starting with what makes man start fires, is that you can be inspired by the Minutemen all you want.

It's incredibly hard to sound like them. I mean, where would you even begin? Well, yeah, exactly. It's just like, well, I can sound. I mean, that's one of the things that I love about them is like you could very easily hear a band thinking, okay, well, we're going to sound. like this song, but we're not going to sound like these other three songs. And wire is the same way. Like bands built their entire career on like one or two wire song. You know who sort of nailed talking about this hardcore issue? You won't be surprised. Bob Criscoe. The lyrics are richer,

bleaker and smarter than the hardcore rant that soften the world up for this art band in disguise, but I prefer their music. Perfect. No notes. Yeah, reading Bob to, rock critics are a very good way to like make them. That's what we do here on this show every episode, but I better get used to it. Good thing Bob Criscoe does not have himself a blue Yuddy USB microphone and start a podcast and put me out of business. Don't get any ideas, Bob.

So after this record, we haven't really mentioned it, but they tour all the time, right? Like this is... They are road dogs. They're road dogs. It's funny because in our band could be your life, I think. It talks about, you know, the way they would tour, like, they were their own roadies, like all this stuff.

And it was like, you know, as a person that's only come of age, like going on punk type tours, I was like, what band would have a roadie at that level? Of course they were their own roadies. Like, what are you even talking about? But, you know, I guess even Blackfly had roadies. Like when they said they jammed Econo, they fucking jammed Econno. It was the three of them, one van, sleep on the floor, which again, they invented the blueprint for every, you know, upstart Indian punk band from then on.

And, like, that's what they did. Yeah. I mean, I think at that level, Rode is... Like your friend that got in the van with you, and he gets a cheeseburger every day? Yeah, a person who wants to go on tour. You know, they didn't travel with a sound man.

They didn't travel with a road manager. They didn't travel with a merch guy. But, you know, they didn't travel with a lead singer who refuses to set up. Right. They did it all because of the way they looked. Oh, yeah. And like, you know, bouncers would try and kick them off stage and they're like, we're about to play.

Please leave me alone. There's like, get off of the stage. And he was like, I am literally in the band. Could you please? Well, I mean, that's the thing that's great is that all three of them look like Rooties. Yeah. In different ways. They totally look like Rooties.

And I, you know, and so they're just like, we had to, you know, put up our own stuff because we would then like pick up the instruments that we had just tuned and start to play. Because otherwise, we would have been, like, thrown off stage. So in 1983, they do this, like, kind of massive U.S. and Europe for with Black Flag. That's also, I think, where I read, like, in Europe is when they, like, were dealt with the worst of the, like, I don't want to say heckling. It's not the right word, but, like, the spitting and throwing shit and bottles of piss and toilet seat and, like, just truly punished. D. Boone ran his own fanzine called, um, prol. from 1980 to 1984 and also booked shows

at this place in San Pedro and his whole thing was that he would book shows early enough so that working people could get home in a reasonable hour. I thought that was like, you know, back to the thing of being part of your community. Mike Watt said that De Boone believed working men should have culture in their life, music and art, and not have to live a rock and roll lifestyle.

See, that's punk, having a set paradigm, and then coming along and saying, I'm going to change it with my art. I would be fascinated to know how that worked. I mean, like how it worked out. Who were the audiences at those shows? Right. Was it people that they considered, you know, working peers or was it kids?

Or was it people who were already into the scene? I just, I mean, I have no idea. I don't know either, yeah. Boone sounds like one of those guys who just didn't sleep. I can see why Mike Watt was so smitten with him, right? Like, he had all these big ideas and, like, beliefs and, And, you know, we didn't mention, but he was a painter. Like he had painted and he was a kid.

And he ends up one of his paintings, a couple of paintings are on the Minutemen covers. Yeah. He thought about history. He thought about art. D. Boone is saying he's just like everybody else. And Mike Watts, like, well, you're not. Like, you're special. And he's like, no, I'm just like everybody else.

Like, we're just like everybody else. And Mike Wat keeps being like, you're not. You're special. You're special. It's very interesting. Yeah. Whereas, like, I think De Boone, you know, beautiful. believes that like everyone can do this and make art and music and the Minutemen do.

I mean, that's like kind of the ends up being their central thesis going forward as like, we're just guys, you can do it too. And I agree with him. Everybody should do it. There should be a rock band in every block because it can happen. It does not hurt if you're a genius. Sure. Which Boone very clearly was.

Right. And Mike Watt. I mean, they're both clearly super smart, super cerebral, like Mike Watts super into literature and wrote poems you know these are both everyday men and not everyday men you know like as much as they want to present themselves as such well I think another thing about the minute men before we get to like dive dive in is like I mean what's the thing we say it all the time on this show and it's been attributed

to a bunch of different bands but like what the like the velvet underground right only 10 people saw the Velvet Underground play but they all started bands like I feel The Minutemen is definitely one of those bands that has like the reach of their influence is so long and far. I think Michael Azarad put it in his book really well. It was like that they were like a drop in the pond in terms of the time. But the ripples that came out from their impact just like went on and on and on. And I think that's so true. And just to like kind of illustrate that.

We asked Jesse Michaels from Operation Ivy, who's like a huge Minuteman fan to talk to us a little bit about why they're important. And like, you know, I think someone probably wouldn't think off the top of their head like, oh, Operation Ivy as a direct descendant of Minutemen. But if you really think about it, I mean, yes, sonically, there's not a lot of similarity. But I think spiritually there is, right? You know, like I think Operation Ivy did in their own way a similar thing of like doling out political. thought in a sort of like cerebral and nuanced way. A lot of people can be claimed to be influenced by them, but very few people sound like them. And that's not true of most bands that are extremely influential.

Yeah, totally. Well, let's hear what Jesse Michaels have to say, and then we can get right into it. I don't like when they apply the word important to music because it brings to mind rock critics and tastemakers and this idea that there's, you know, know, a consensus of what matters and what doesn't. And in my opinion, they usually get it wrong. The Minutemen were a great band. I think most people, or a lot of people, think they're one of the best L.A. bands ever.

And they were complete originals. And they played this sort of working class art punk in 1980 or in 1981, whenever they started. I remember I saw a picture of the Minuteman in the flipside fanzine, which was the L.A. punk fanzium when I was a kid. And it said, who needs the sex pistols when you have the Minutemen? And so I wanted to hear them after that. And I finally did hear them on

like an old SST compilation or something. I didn't get it. At first, I liked it, but it was weird. I was used to stuff more like Black Flag or stuff like that. But it grew on me. The thing about the Minutemen is all their records are good. And a lot

of those records have 30 songs. So there's, you know, there's a hundred good songs by them. It's also spirited and smart and yet totally unpretentious. It has hooks, but it's never too catchy or too poppy. Great vocals, incredible performances, incredible feel on both the more chill records and the high energy records. So Minutemen, one of the best of all time. There you go, people. Never say, I didn't do anything for you. There is little Jesse Michaels' thoughts on Minuteman as a treat for you. Moving along.

The next release, 1983 November, so we're in the same year. This band really just pumping out the hits. Buzz or Howl under the influence of heat. It is an EP. It costs $50 to record. They did it and they were cut live to True Trans. track tape at Total Access Studio in Redondo Beach. I think most of them and Spot was there doing his thing. What do you think about the Buzer Howl under the influence of HADP? I think Buzz and Howl is great.

It's sort of the second part of what they were doing with what makes Man Start fires. Those two records go together incredibly well. And what Buzz and Howell, Buzz or Howl, is really the start of them exploring longer songs. There are songs on here that are, you know, two minutes and 45 seconds and three minutes and 12 seconds, which is amazing. The marquey moon of Minuteman songs. The Markey Moon of the Minuteman. And, you know, but there's also stuff that's 40 seconds. And, you know, between this and what makes a man start fires and what comes out in 84, very few bands have had a run like the Minuteman did in those two years. I love the cover art of this one, which is a black and white ink drawing of D. Boone and Mike Watt having an argument.

Perfect. Drawn by Raymond Pettibon. It's gorgeous. Did you read about what they originally wanted it to be? They wanted it like a, it was an national geographic image, a scientific American. I think so. They wanted a picture of tree frogs. Yeah. And it was too expensive. It wasn't too expensive. I think that the license or anything.

it was too expensive to print in the colors. Oh, wow. Yeah, because it was like many colors and like that printing the like just inserts was going to be too costly. So they did a black and white ink drying. Greg Ginn saving money at every moment. Speaking of Greg Ginn,

members of Black Flag were actually a direct inspiration for three songs off Buzz or Howe. Cut, which I love, Cut is the first song, was written by Mike Watt as a sort of like an admiration of Greg Ginn's guitar playing style. Henry Rollins provided the title for the instrumental track, Dreams or Free Motherfucker. And the OG black flag bassist, Chuck Dikowski,

actually wrote some of the lyrics to a song that you were talking about when we were off mic, little man with a gun in his hand. Those sorts of things are a great example of the Minutemen really living up to the idea that this was a document of a community and not just a band. Totally. They had no problem with their friends contributing lyrics or song titles. They just completely unselfconscious about that stuff, it seems.

Yeah. I like that little information of how close these two bands were. Did you want to hear a little man with a gun in his hand? I mean, that song fucking goes. Let's do that and let's do cut. Okay, well, let's play a little man with a gun in his hand first, which is the Marky Moon 3 Minute 12. song off this. Here it is. Little Man with a Gun in His Hand. That was Little Man with a Gun

in His Hand. Gorgeous. You know, I've only heard that song about 50,000 times, and this is the first time that I noticed. It's very similar to mannequin by wire off a pink flag, which is, you know, a foundational record for these guys. You know, a good example of sort of going back to the well on on something that was clearly very important to them for a long time. Yeah, that's a really good observation, Joe Gross. You've earned your place here on this episode. I appreciate that. I wanted to mention also the song I felt like a gringo,

which is an autobiographical song that Mike Watt wrote about a day trip the Minut Men took to Mexico on the 4th of July in 1982. Apparently, there was an election that day for president of Mexico. Mike Watt didn't know that that was happening. I only brought that up because this 4th of July 1982 trip to Mexico is the same trip that would inspire a later Minuteman composition that is 100,000% the most famous Minutemen song.

I was going to say, you'll know it when you hear it. I was being coy. It absolutely is. Corona, otherwise known as the jackass theme song. We'll unpack that at length, I suspect. We sure will. Well, let's hear Cut, which is not the first song on the EP, is the second song. not the first.

This is cut. That was cut. I don't know why, but that's my favorite song on this EP. Also known as the closest thing to a Bauhaus song. Yeah. Maybe that's why, because it's so like,

it's a little goth. I like that the lyrics are like, cut, stab. Things that can cut you. Yeah. Big scissors. That's it. Big scissors.

Ice machine. So that EP, buzzer howl, got written up in cream by R.J. Smith. quite possibly the best band in the land today that Minutemen's music is what should be put out across the emergency broadcast network

instead of those 60 seconds of aggravating noise. Their new EP, buzzer howl under the influence of heat, is noise, but it isn't aggravating. It's noise full of wound up anxiety and it hits hard because the Minutemen don't back off. The world does make them nervous, but it doesn't make them defensive.

They know what depressed tingleberries they could be if they just sat around the house all day, and the Minutemen thrash out all their exasperation on vinyl. I liked that take. Producer Dylan has pointed out that the end of the review has a nice thing to say, which is bands like the Minutemen, Husker Do, and a few others really don't trust all that shit, but they haven't given up by a long shot on trusting something, which is precisely what makes them so invaluable.

Incredibly good point. Also, it must have been so cool, you know, D. Boone and Mike Watts sitting around reading Cream magazine, learning about punk from it, and then to, like, have this, like, glowing review of their own music, in it like not, you know, five years later, six years later or whatever. Yeah, it's really wonderful. Yeah. Bob Crisgow gave it an A-minus.

No argument there. And Trouser Press, who also, I think, was a big proponent of the Minutemen, kind of mentioned the band's churning hearty and funk, which I like. We haven't talked a lot about the Captain Beefheart influence on the Minuteman. The Beavart thing. Definitely there. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

They will stop and turn on a dime. And that is straight out of beefheart stuff. Sometimes it, like, really blows my mind if I stop and think that Captain Beefheart, like, existed. Yes. Do you know what I mean? I agree. Yeah. You are correct.

It is weird that he lived. Just that, like, that was a thing and was, like, in popular music. Yeah. Like, was, like, we used to be a society. We used to be a beefhardian society. Yeah. So the next Minutemen release is The Politics of Time. I almost skipped over this one by accident. Nobody respects the politics of time. I love this record. Yeah, 1984. Yes, I know you love it. It was your first one. We have a longstanding theory around Bandsplaine that, like, more often than not, your favorite album of the band is the first one you find. It's just psychology.

Yeah, reception theory is important. And, you know, the politics time was the first one I heard. and it's the one of all of the, with all the rejects from other records, it's just leftover stuff. And as a result, its fidelity is markedly pretty lousy in spots. We don't need no stinking badges. Which made all of their other records sound

downright high-fi to me. Friends of mine were older who liked the band. just thought that was hilarious. That's the first one I heard. It's like, wow, you heard the one everybody kind of skips. It's like, I think it's great. I mean, I guess people kind of skip it maybe because, again, it was a compilation of seven tracks that were meant for an album that never came out.

And then a bunch of live tracks. A bunch of leftover stuff. Yeah. But also because it came out probably less than six months before. before their magnum opus there. Before the masterpiece. Yeah, before their all-time masterpiece, double nickels on the dime. So I think it makes sense that it was sort of swept under the rug.

But you're right, it's good. It's really good. There's wonderful stuff on. We should hear a song from it. That's your tune for the wind god. Okay. This is tune for wind god. That was tune for win god. Why did you pick that one, Joe?

Because it puts them a very specific context. That song was recorded on April 24, 1983, at a dried riverbed in the Mojave Desert near Victorville. Shout out Victorville, home of face-to-face. Yes, shout out Victorville. It was at one of the desert concerts put on by the Desolation Center. They were an important part of that sort of L.A. underground art scene. Even though they were in Pedro, they were, you know, well-known in the... enough and well respected that they were part of that whole deal.

I've always liked it. It sounds like Crapola, but it's just a nice example of, and it was co-written by Joe Biza from Sacchar and Trust, who's a good friend of theirs. They're close buds with Saccharin Trust. Another fun thing about this album is there's a live version of the song Fanatics, which was originally on the punchline. Truly, like, the worst possible recording.

you can hardly even hear the song, but they included it because on the night that they recorded this live version, D. Boone had jumped in the audience with his guitar on, screaming fanatics at the top of his lung while knocking skinheads in the audience over like bowling pins.

Perfect. We simply love to say it. Perfect. Perfect. gorgeous. No notes. So that's The politics of time. The song, The Politics of Time, would later end up as a song title on double nickels. the dime, which is the next release.

Double nickels on the dime, babe. Nothing else like it. Was a double album produced by Ethan James, 46 songs. As legend has it, and I believe as Mike Wat has corroborated, they found out that Husker Doe was putting out a double album, and they were like, well, we want to put out a double album, too. We can do it.

We're going to also do it. Pretty much. And then they just started writing. Yeah, I mean, 46 songs. Bananas. It's just bananas. I love the arrangement of it, which apparently was inspired by Pink Floyd's 1969 double album, Amagama, where they each band member curated one side. I mean, keep in mind, this is 84 its records. So side A, side B, side C, side D.

And the last one was just called chaff. That was the leftovers. I guess they drew straws to see who could go pick first and then pick second and stuff. The Chaff side has a couple of its most famous songs. It just speaks to just how ridiculously good they were at this point. These were the leftovers and they'd be perfectly reasonable songs anywhere else on the record. That also probably is a testament to maybe how little each member cared about. Not that there was hits in general on this album except for.

the jackass theme song, which did not rise to insane prominence until obviously later when jackass became a cultural phenomenon. That's a whole thing, though. It's an entire fucking thing. This shit starts with a goddamn bang. D's car jam into anxious mofo. Let's play, I think just for people to understand how this thing starts and how it's like, we're off to the races. Also, just keep in mind, side one is side D. It starts with Dee's Car Jam

and goes into Anxious Mofo. Let's hear those two back to back. That was D's Car Jam slash Angstish Mofo. When I ever make my debut album, I also wanted to start with the words Serious as a heart attack. I think you should.

It's so good. Serious is a hard attack. It's very good. Just really hooks you in. The thing about the way that Boone sings is that it may, you know, he may be saying, saying Sirius is a heart attack.

But he also sounds like he's about to start laughing. Totally. After a second later. It's great. Well, George wrote the words to the anxious mofo song. Isn't that funny? These guys, it's just, it's ridiculous. It really is about as close to like a large collective brain as you can get.

Mike said, it's George's words that inspired me. Sirius is a heart attack. It's like Georgie was commenting on our own band. Georgie could do that. He could put himself out. be kind of objective a little bit, where me and D. Boone were just too much in it, too subjective to see the forest for the trees.

Georgie had that talent. That's why the Minuteman, after Georgie stops writing songs, after double nickels on the dime, the band changes. Yeah, it is very important to have somebody in the band who can call bullshit the other members of the band. I remember reading something about you too, I think, that, you know, the role that Adam Clayton played in the band was he was like the one guy who wasn't Irish.

and wasn't a really devout Christian. And so he could sort of act as this reality check on the other three guys in a way that they couldn't necessarily see. Bands need somebody. And sometimes it's the manager. But if you don't have a manager, or that's not your manager's role,

sometimes it's a guy in the band saying, wait a minute. Right. Do you know how you sound? Adam Clayton also was the hot one, for those of you wondering. This was not produced by Spot or Greg Ginn or The Minutemen. This is when we bring in Ethan James, who was the keyboardist of, I guess, the band Blue Cheer and a local producer.

And he was making these compilations called Radio Tokyo Tapes. And he had asked Minutemen to write a song that's really cool. The best a man can say is how it plays and if it feels. And he had asked Minutemen to contribute a song to it. that's how they started to work together, but they really liked working with him. So that's why they asked him to produce double nickels all the time. Yeah, he's a really interesting dude.

Bluchier was very much a California band. Small piece of trivia. Ethan James' real name is Ralph Burns Kellogg. Why would you change that? Look, rock and roll is a competitive place. You make decisions on the fly. Who knows? And the double album thing,

we talked about the Husker Do thing, but I guess they had already written the album. They had written one full album thing. And then that's when they found out about Zen Arcade because it had been recorded a month earlier. And they were just like, yeah, we'll do that too. We're going to do it. You know, famously Husker Do had a concept.

And Minutemen did not, and they tried to shoehorn one in. And it didn't go so great. It was their cars, Joe. And I think that's as good enough as any. The number of times I have seen Watt explain that album title in various, like across various media is

hilarious. It's in the movie. We'll do it for you guys. Sammy Hagar, Mr. Hagar had a song called I Can't Drive 55, which was a protest against the federally imposed speed limit of 50 miles per hour

on all U.S. highways at the time, which by the way was a totally political thing because it was in response to an oil shortage. which was happening because of a war. There was some shenanigans happening, and that's why they lowered the speed limit is because they were trying to conserve oil.

The Minutemen had decided that driving fast was not terribly defiant. They thought that was stupid. Mike Watt said probably one of these many things that you're talking about. The big rebellion thing was writing your own fucking songs and trying to come up with your own story, your own picture, your own book, whatever.

So he can't drive 55 because that was the national speed limit. Okay, we'll drive 55, but we'll make crazy music. And the cover is, is Mike Watt driving their van with a clear shot of the pseudometer at exactly 55 miles per hour. So it was a little high concept. A little bit. I mean, you know, I remember getting that record when I was about 15. It took me a while.

I was like, what does this, what on earth is you talking about? And I eventually got it, but it was also like, I don't know if this is supposed to be funny or just it's not very evocative. the last thing a rock band wants to do is get pulled over. Sure. Duh. And so double nickels on the dime is really a pretty good way to go through life if you are three smelly dudes going down the highway, going to playing shows. Yeah. Also, it's a great title, regardless of what it means. Oh, it is. Absolutely. Oh, it's awesome.

Like mouth feel wise. It's just a cool string of words. Producer Dillon has pointed out that. it was OPEC, the oil situation. So just for those of you who were going to get mad at me about OPEC, it was OPEC. I want to bring up also that in double nickels on the dime, Mike Watt was like really literary. He was really into books and he was really influenced by James Joyce's novel Ulysses. Famously like, I don't want to butcher it again, I wasn't like not an English major, but the book that sort of like broke ground with stream of consciousness writing.

What is that? Would you feel that that's accurate? description of Ulysses? Yes, it is an iconic modernist text. I haven't read it since college, so, but I do remember it being shame of consciousness. One of the foundations of modern literature going forward. Yeah, totally. And, you know, very inspirational to Mike Watt comes up later when he makes solo music too, but this becomes sort of like a thing between Mike Watt and D. Boone,

where D. Boone is like, your lyrics are too spacey. I think that's, was his direct. D. Boone would say that his words were too much like Steely Dan as a criticism, just to be clear. Yeah. I know it's impossible for younger folk to understand now, but you sound like Steely Dan used to be a bad thing. I think it's interesting because this is like the sort of the divide

between how they wrote lyrics, which was that D. Boone was very plain spoken. He was very direct and he sort of like did want to get his like message across in a kind of a clear way, whereas I think Mike Watt was sort of playing around more with the opacity of his lyrics and making them a bit more, you know, poetic. Yeah. How much do you want to be allegory and how much do you want to be just straight ahead? And that's a tension in their writing that, you know. What else is on here? So many fucking good songs. I can't even, where do I even begin?

Theater is The Life of You is one of my favorites. Let's play Vietnam just because is yet another example of Boone's idea of how to convey a social justice message in a song. Perfect. Okay. This is Vietnam. That was Vietnam. God damn gorgeous, beautiful song in the canon. Put it in there.

GGBB. What is it? GD.GBS Hall of Fame. I want to make some observations if you'll allow me. Please do. One is that, while D. Boone is not a traditionally good singer, his singing style is so beautifully effective within the context of the Minuteman's music. Yeah, it's interesting that you say that.

Joe Carducci, who was a huge fan of the Minuteman and was a player at SST, wrote a book called Rock and the Pop Narcotic. and he said of Ian Mackay, this is a guy who has made the absolute most of a four-note vocal range. And you can absolutely say the same thing about D. Yeah. Who actually, I mean,

the more I listened to a lot of this stuff in a row, the more I'm like, wow, Ian copped a lot from Boone's style of this sort of declarative shout. I mean, he sounds much angrier than in minor threat, but you can really hear it on some of these songs. And yeah, he knows exactly what to do

with what God gave him vocal wise. Yeah, I think that's a good... I mean, again, I'm not here to say, like, I don't care about good voices. I never have... I posted a meme at some point, one of those Galaxy Brain memes that's like literally it's worse

when someone has a good voice. You are a chili pepper sand. Exactly. That's exactly right, babe. Also, I will once again point out this is men's time to shine. I know men are often held back, not allowed to do what they want to do. But when it comes to singing a man, nobody stops them. No, it's true.

Nobody stops a man and says you're not a good singer. You can only hope to contain them. But I brought this up because obviously I took my research to maybe the, I had to stop at some point because Mike Watts output is endless and just he's done so much. But I spent time with fire hose again, which I haven't in a long time. It doesn't hit the same because Ed Crawford's voice doesn't do what De Boone's voice does. I mean, there's great fire hose music. Don't get me wrong. I love a lot of the songs. I think the first two albums are gorgeous. But I don't know. I was just like really struck when I was listening to Vietnam. I'm like that really gut punches you.

Yeah. It does. And it is a beautiful song with an explicitly political message. Oh, yeah. That number is one tenth of 500,000. That's the draft, right? The lines are, let's say I've got a number. That number is 50,000. That's 10% of 500,000.

50,000 is about the rough number of Americans that were killed in Vietnam. And 500,000 is the number of Vietnamese who were killed in Vietnam during the war. And, you know, just putting that right up front in this dynamic, funky song that, again, your boys, the chili peppers probably listened to about 4,000 times is striking. Yeah. Total art, total activism. Totally. Someone sent me a message today that was mean-spirited about how much I say totally. And to them, I say, you don't legally have to listen to this podcast.

You're legally allowed to not listen to it. Anyways, what other songs do we love off of this? I could go on and on. Number one hit song, Gourgios. Two beads at the end? Goodbye. Do you want New Wave or do you want the truth? The answer is yes.

Yes, I do. A word war will set off the cake. My words are war. Should a word have two meanings? Maybe partying will help. Homsd has not been there. Homsd has not experienced this spiritual conundrum, the canons. I was going to say, why don't we do the Saint No Picnic and then history lesson and then get into Corona?

And then we're going to play theater of life is you because that's my favorite. Sorry, it's my show. Yeah, no, of course. This is The Saint No Picnic. That was The Saint No Picnic. Fantastic. Am I correct in saying that this song was inspired by an altercation that. D. Boone had at his job, which I think at the time was working at an auto parts store that I think

maybe had something to do with his father. Is that correct? Yes, he was working at an auto parts store when he threw on jazz and R&D station. And his boss objected using rather harsh language. And Boone was infuriated and wanted to quit. Yeah, he basically said, said, we can't listen to this N-word shit at this job or whatever, and Diboon, like, lost his mind. Pretty much. And he wanted to quit, but, you know, you need to have a job. And this was a song about not being able to do just that. Again, the men at men definitely, like, putting their money where their mouth is in terms of, like, what they're singing about. I mean, they really were living and experiencing this working class life and this, like, you know, you have, you have, you have, have to have a job. You have to pay the bills. You have to, you know, swallow some shit. And

Diboon was rightfully so fucking pissed. And he channeled it into a song. I mean, the song even kind of speaks to that. He's like, you know, hey, mister, don't look down on me for what I believe. I got my bills in the rent. I should pitch a tent. But our land isn't free. That one I love, because, like, how much is Diboon compared to Woody Guthrie? This land was made for you and me. And like that the tradition of folk singers and having this line of like, but our land isn't free is just so the like. That is some history nerd shit right there. Yeah, sorry, Dorko, but I just, it's fucking cool.

It's fucking cool. Like it's, you know, he's marking his territory as the Woody Guthrie of the mid-80s punk scene, you know. Indeed. Yeah, no, totally. We have to hear a history lesson part two because it is. the cutest song ever. Yeah, and it's the story of the band. Yeah.

Okay, this is History Lesson Part 2. That was History Lesson Part 2. So good. It literally makes me cry. It absolutely makes me cry. First of all, Mike Watt wrote this song and the words. And the fact, I know we've hammered this point home to death, but this is really, to me, the crescendo of that.

Like, how naturally they fit into deep. 's mouth and how it's really just like a shared, they have a shared brain in some capacity. And, and, oh, but then, but at the same time, if you think about it in the context of like, Mike Watt writing the words for D. Boone to sing and it's like how much they loved each other. And just like, this like pure, pure admiration and connection, it makes me want to die. It's really extraordinary. You know, this is a record that comes out. In 1984, one of the most important years for American music, this is the year Madonna breaks.

This is the year of Purple Rain. Yeah. This is the year of incredible records by the replacements. It's wild that both the mainstream and the underground were both this good at the same time. That never happened. 1991. It was one thing. Gotcha. Well, 1990s a little bit different because it's not, yeah, this is still two very separate. No, no, I know. I know. I mean, your point is well fucking taken. I mean, let it be, comes out in 1984.

Yeah. That's the best replacement album as far as I'm concerned. Yeah, it's a banana's year and the music on that song, you know, you can basically hear indie rock being invented. like right in front of you while you listen to that song. It's funny you say that because who was a massive Minutemen fan who we brought up earlier but we'll get into later who maybe is partially responsible

for inventing indie rock Michael Stipe right? Indeed. I mean REM arguably you know blueprinted well before a lot of other people you know with inputs from Husker do the replacements all these you know it's a continuum but like that kind of minted it was Michael Steib who was a massive, massive Minuteman fan who I think interviewed them

for his fanzine when, by the way, R.M was already pretty famous, like, in at least the indie world and they had no fucking idea who he was. Michael Watt was like, we only knew bands we toured with. So if we didn't tour with you, we didn't know you were. Which is hilarious because, yeah, the, I mean, people forget that R.m. were an underground band. Yeah, that they were cool. Exactly. They were cool in underground. They learned how to tour and toured like hell their first couple of years. But within about four years of being a band, they were playing 5,000 count rooms, 6,000 count rooms. We'll get there.

We'll get there. Back to History Lesson Part 2. This should be, in my opinion, one of the most famous Minutemen songs. Because like you said, it's the story of the band. It's really the story of like the central thesis of this band, which is friendship and punk rock and San Pedro saved our lives. you know, which is really what it is. I think this song is loosely based on the riff from Velvet Underground's Here She Comes Now.

It absolutely is. Yeah, Mike Wadoes said that. He said about this song, I wrote that song to try to humanize us. People thought we were spacemen, but we were just Pedro Corn Dogs. Our band could be your life. You could be us. This could be you. We're not that much different from you cats.

Which is true. But the thing that I think is sort of funny, is about that is and you know i don't want you know want to jump through the computer he's listening right now the act of saying that and sort of establishing those ideas builds them up in the listener's mind as you know just saying you can do this i that's true but it also you know makes you that sort of self-awareness makes you heroic to a listener. Yeah, totally.

The act of trying to put yourself in this context sort of built the mythology of the band a little bit. I hear it as so much, like, as really like the expression of that influence of folk music as a tool of storytelling. Yes. In their music. You know, like, like, you know, even referencing Bob Dylan, you know,

like within the lyrics, like, Mr. narrator, this is Bob Dylan to me. Yeah. My story could be his songs, you know? That perspective shift is great. And, you know, the music can just hear everything from like, Dream Syndicate. I love Dream Syndicate. I was just listening to Dream Syndicate the other day. People did not listen to enough Dream Syndicate as far as I'm concerned.

I couldn't agree more. Yeah, that's an amazing. It's an amazing song. I've literally wept listening to this song like multiple times. It's just so, especially in the context of what happens with D.B. Boone and like the short life, the shelf life of the band. It's unreal. It's heartbreaking, you know?

Yeah, absolutely. We have to talk about Corona. Yes, we do. Who knew? Unfortunately, Titles song, given the modern day context. So Mike Watt has said of Corona. Corona is very heartfelt. D-Boon wrote that one on a trip to Mexico.

After all the drinking in the party, the morning after, there's a lady picking up bottles to turn them in to get monies for her babies. This is how Mike Wat talks. D Boone, it really touched him. I know it's used as a theme song for Jackass, but it really don't have much things to do with that. That's trippy about that. It's surreal, the connection.

People will come up to me, and they call it the Jackass song. But this was a way Boone could help his daddy after he got killed. His daddy had emphysema, and from the show, the monies went to his pop. So when I hear him sing that song, when I hear that, he plays those motifs, that kind of mariachi. I mean, it's just everything for me. Music was personal with us. It's how we were together.

I can't speak for anyone else, obviously, but it was genuinely surreal hearing that song coming out of the TV one day and, you know, walking into the TV room or wherever it was, the show was on with these guys falling over stuff. And I was just like, because it does make sense if you think it's a skate video,

like if you think of jackass is coming out of skate videos. Yeah, it totally makes sense. I think the jackass guys, again, coming out of the skate culture and skate community who loved punk music and, you know, there's Minutemen songs in skate videos and stuff probably meant this as like, with the utmost respect.

Like, they love the Minutemen, you know? It just turned it in to something. Very surprising. Yeah. Not to like be a little bitch and brag, but I did obviously know Corona before the Jackhous TV show, but it was only because I was like a losery teenager with like no life and only would go buy records at the punk record store.

good way to spend your time. You did fine. I did okay. I turned out. I mean, it's up for debate, but I turned out. That's all. I did turn out. Exactly. Let's hear theater is the life of you. You are determined to get this song. I love this song. What? You don't love this song. No, no, it's great. It's just funny that like, this is your tune for the wind god. This is my, well, tune for wind god, first of all. They say the in the song. I'm, it's always going to be the to me. I don't make the fucking rules. I just read the song. title off of the Spotify. No, you're not wrong.

You're not wrong. This is theater is the life of you. That was theater is the life of you. I love it and I'm glad I was able to shoehorn it into this episode. I mean, what else is to be said about double nickels on the dime?

You know, this double album is reviewed by NME. You could say that the Minutemen's profile was rising. What NME said was, what hits you first about double nickels is that it is a large fold-out roadmap of someone's mind, heart, soul, and history. This last made explicit in history lesson where Diboon tells us how punk rock changed his life.

He makes it as important to us as it was to him, telling us everything important about what they think, feel, and believe. The map is mammoth, 45 songs on four sides. It ranges free and far, but always brings us home to the things that count. That's actually a thing that we didn't mention. History lesson part two, you know, it's saying punk rock changed our lives. That song is not a punk song. No, it is. I mean, it certainly doesn't sound like it.

It's kind of cool. Like, that's what you're talking about that in a song that can't really conceivably call a punk song. David Frick gave it three and a half stars for Rolling Stone. He said, these two albums, double LPs, rare in a medium that often demand brevity at the cost of expression, are landmark punk works because the chances they take and the earnest fury that drives them not only challenge the no future dictum. they are the blueprint for a brave new music.

Double Nichols' best moments go by much too quickly, and if neither of these records is particularly easy listening, neither are they arrogant, self-absorbed blasts of childish sloganeering. What hardcore promises these albums really deliver. The Minutemen did not like the Rolling Stone review of Double Nichols-on. The dime Mike Watt said, they relegated us to the hardcore ghetto, which is a funny thing to say.

That guy never even gave a fuck. Fuck Frick, that's his name. That's my dad's cuss word. Fricken. Fuck you, you patronizing bastard. We don't care if you acknowledge us. We'll stick around anyway. They tried to kill our music for years.

And now that we stuck it out, they say, you're allowed to stay, but in this ghetto. We brought this up earlier. The idea of Minutemen as hardcore. I can understand why they were frustrated. You know, 84 or so a lot of the first wave of punk acts, like the Minutemen were. Like they were a 77 act.

did not want to be necessarily characterized that way. The speed with which hardcore became this sort of uniform thing, I started to have these generic strictures, was kind of alienating for bands that thought of themselves as doing something else. I just wanted to read that because I thought it was funny the way Mike Wat was pissed. And this was like in real, this was not a later Mike Wat interview. this was an interview in 1984 after having read the

review. Double nickels on the dime remains the most celebrated iconic work by the Minutemen. Yeah, I mean, I unless something has changed radically, it certainly sold the most. It did sell the most. That's an important

distinction. I think we can't ask De Boone for reasons we'll get into later, which is not a spoiler because everyone knows. But, you know, he will often say that this is the best Minutemen record hands down. Like, no question. This is the thing he's proudest of.

Before we move on, I'm going to squeeze one more song. This is Do You Want New Wave or Do You Want the Truth? That was, do you want New Wave or do you want the truth? Again, I don't like when bands do spoken word, but I like it when the Minutemen do it. Yeah. They handle it really well. I think we played a good amount of songs that kind of show the range.

There's, as the kids say, the range. of this double album all over the place. And they do all of it beautifully. I forgot to say about double knuckles on the time that there is a song on there called Toadies. Which I have to imagine is why the band The Toadies are named the Toadies. You know it. We all know it. Joe, don't shake your head at me. Anyways, they're from Texas.

The Next Minute Men releases in April of 1985. It's called the Project Merch EP. Now, please remember that in Minutemen language, Mersh means commercial. So apparently this was like a sarcastic attempt at a commercial record to like make hits. Yeah, I think double nickels sold well or was on its way to sell them well.

And I think Cartucci thought it would be kind of interesting to what if we gave Airplay a shot? Mm-hmm. You know, what if you guys just wrote something that, like, maybe could be a radio song? They totally didn't. There's a really funny moment with Ian Mackay in the Ujah McConnor documentary, where he talks about how confusing he found this record to me. Clearly, an attempt to be commercial, but are they trying to hit it right?

You know, like, I was trying to get my head around it. Oh, it's so good. That's so good. He has this great facial. I mean, I think he was expressing what a lot of people express. Like, why are there horns on this? Yeah. But also, these songs are awesome.

Yeah, here's a thing. Taken apart from the context and the catalog and given its own sort of like objective take and observation, things might be taken differently. Like, if I heard Project Mersh outside of my understanding of the Minutemen, I would still like it. You know, like, I think. it would be good and I might even like it more because I wouldn't be comparing it against double nickels or like earlier stuff.

The idea of packaging it as this humorous, ironic, self-conscious attempt to write commercial songs resulted in a very funny record sleeve. I mean, yeah, the cover art is a painting by Diboon that is a meeting of three exhausted record label executives and one of them is saying, I got it, we'll have them write hit songs.

Yeah, which is hilarious. And, you know, somehow their idea of hit songs was like, let's put some horns on it. You know, which is, you know, maybe true in 1978. I mean, I think the ladies doth not trying to make an actual hit. You know, obviously we can poke around on the record a bit. Well, yeah, let's play a song. I picked King of the Hill, which I think is a fantastic song. The music video, babe, one of the few Minutemen songs that has a music video.

Oh, yeah, yeah. They're like in a field? Yeah. Songs great. You know, it's three minutes and 27 seconds, so it's ready for airplay. Well, let's hear it. This is King of the Hell. That was King of the Hill.

It is a gorgeous song. Also, I have to assume, I didn't look into this, but I don't think I need to, because my judge is a known. cool punk guy I have to assume that he named the cartoon television program after this song. I think you could make that as an educated guess. I think

you should. And in a fun connection, the voice of the brother of Peggy, Hoyt, is a voice by Johnny Knoxville, bringing it all back to Jackass. Oh, that's right. I totally forgot. There you go.

Mike Watt said of this EP, we wanted to see if we could fuck with people critics' heads and our fans' heads, the radio people's heads. Yeah, because they pigeonhole you and then they'll leave you there forever. We think we should be competing with all the bands and not be relegated to any arena. So we'll show them. You want choruses and fadeouts, huh? We'll give you fucking choruses. That's basically what might watch. This is sort of arriving at a moment right around the time that the American underground sort of divides into two camps, one that is we need to create a sort of alternative economy around independent music.

That's on one side. And on the other side is the argument that, well, we should be the mainstream. Like if people just heard us, they would like us. But our access to radio is limited. Our records aren't distributed in a lot of places. So that's why you have bands like the replacements. Tim is on a major label. Tim is on Sire.

Correct. Kusker Doe goes to Warner Brothers soon after. And, you know, Sonic Youth goes in 89, 90, and then Nirvana in 1991. I think they're sort of making fun of that, but also, you know, exactly what Watts said. Why aren't we? You know, if more people hurt us, maybe they'd really like it. which, you know, is sort of somewhat accomplished by going on a tour with R.N. Yeah, that happens pretty soon, actually right after three-way tie for last,

which is their last album. But Mike Watt did point out that in 85 that Project Merche is only MERS because we said it was MERS. It only sold about half as much as our art record double nickels on the time. Yeah. And also probably by this point, it's sold way less than double nickels on the time. It's a great record, a confusing record. But is it as confusing as three-way tie for last? That introduces a much more divisive sort of idea.

That's when the guys sort of start to split apart as songwriters. Yeah, we should definitely talk about three-way tie for last, which is the last minute men release. This is a full-length album. It comes out in December of 1985 on SST. It's produced by Mike Watt, D. Boone, and Ethan James. I did find a good clip of Diboon talking about it. The three-way tie for last, we made a conscious effort to just make it a rock record with us.

The cover is also a painting by D-Boon. Yeah, a lot going on in three-way tie for last. Mike Watt wrote most of his songs with Kira Rossler for his contribution. Black Flag bass player, Kira Rousler. Fun little side story here. A very long time ago, young Yossi was sent off to interview. you had me Rollins at a charity function that he had put on for, I don't even remember what it was, and Dose played. And so I met Kira Rossler, and I was just talking to her about how I wanted to learn how to play bass.

And she said, oh, I'll teach you. And then she added me to a Facebook group of bass students. And I was too terrified to ever take her up on it because I simply could not bear the shame of learning bass from the fucking woman who played bass in Blackwood. Wow. I'm learning a lot today. A little story for you. I never did really learn base. So I think at this time Mike Wadden and Kiroz are dating, they eventually get married. They write the songs, political nightmare. No one. Stories. I heard one the other day.

Can't believe it's true. And what is it? This album has a lot of cover songs on it, too. Yeah, this record comes out a time. when, you know, the band was sort of in an odd place, and there was a great deal of partying. And there is something about three-way tie-for-lattis that is not quite finished.

Yeah. Clearly a transitional record. With the side D and side mic, and, like, Boone is writing, you know, there are three originals on Side D, two covers, and then a song by Watt and Kira. And then on side mic, there are a bunch of songs by Watt, three covers, and a song by D. So there's still a unit, but they're kind of pulling apart a little bit. It sounds like they're pulling apart a little bit.

And it's kind of an EP's worth of originals with a bunch of coverage stuck on them. and it's just a it's a weird record and um yeah there's five covers on here yeah there are five covers and you know they recorded over august and september and 85 and then you know it comes out in December 85 and the band's over yeah i mean not because they wanted to be but yeah oh no no no not intentional yeah it's very sad apparently D. Boone was partying a lot of the time. You kind of mentioned this about like there being a lot of party. I think it was specifically De Boone was partying too much and having a hard time singing. Yeah, three-way just sort of ends up being this kind of piecemeal record that has good stuff on it.

I like no one. No one is fun. It sounds kind of like a Faith No More song or something. It's like Wow. Yeah, you heard me. You know, Watts said a couple of times, this was not our finest hour. We were trying to get back in a groove and wanting to make the next one. Right. Real special the way that double nickels had been. And yeah, and that it didn't happen. Yeah. The covers are fun.

You know, the urinals cover is good. I love the Meat Puppets cover. The Creedence Clearwater Revival cover is like just pretty faithful to the original, which is kind of interesting. It is very much a Creed's cover. Yeah. The Rocky Erickson cover. Mike Watts singing Bermuda over the phone.

It's awesome. I love it. I think it's good. Courage is a great song. Courage is terrific. And, you know, like your man, Jesse said, there are no bad Minutemen records. There are ones that are just less good than other Minutemen records. There are no affirmatively crappy Minuteman records. Except the one that's your favorite. Just kidding, that one's good, too.

Ooh. What song should we hear off here? Should we hear Courage? Yeah, let's play church. Okay, this is courage. That was courage. Great song. Good song, but you can tell that D's voice is not ideal.

Yeah. But as what says in the book, in the Azran book, Boone acknowledged that there were issues and straightened right up. Right, exactly, yeah. Like they talked to him about it and he was like, for sure. Yeah. I hear you. this record included the ballots for the fans to vote on the track list for what would become a ballot result, which comes out later.

It's supposed to be live versions, right, of the songs? They were going to do a triple album, I think was called Three Dudes, Six Sides, Half Studio, Half Live. Yes, I think that's right. That is the concept. You know, then they do some shows playing in pretty big venues with REM. Yeah, so let's talk about that. R.M really pushed for them to come on this tour. Like, the label was like, no, we don't want this.

We want someone on your label. Because R.M, like, we said this already, but by 1985, we're pretty fucking big already. Like, you know, they'd already put out Fables of the Reconstructions. They have three albums out. they're playing like 3,000 cap venues, which for the Minutemen is a lot. The record label is not doing any of the promotion for it. So the band's doing that. So, you know, it's something they want.

I really appreciate that. Yeah, that's huge. And, you know, this is Minutemen are a band that are playing like, you're playing clubs. Yeah, they're playing the VFW. If they're playing with Black Flag, they're probably playing like 800,000 cap rooms because by that point, Black Flag is huge. So basically, unbeknownst to everyone, the, you know, a show, the last show of this tour is the last ever Minutemen show. And the last song that they ever played together was a television cover.

And there was like a really emotional, like, beautiful remembrance of that by Mike Watt in the documentary, like, not knowing that that was going to make the last time he ever got to play with D. Boone. Basically, long story short, he died in a van accident. He and his girlfriend and I think her friend were driving to visit. the girlfriend's sick dad, like in Arizona or something, and she fell asleep at the wheel. I think he was sick, like you said earlier. And so Mike Watt had seen him before and been like, don't drive. Like, you're sick. And he was like, oh, it's okay.

She's driving. But she fell asleep at the wheel. And he was thrown from the van. I think he broke his neck and died instantly. He was only 27 years old. It's really heartbreaking. Awful. There's a kind of remarkable shot in the documentary in Ruchampano where Makata is holding this piece of

paper that Rollins sent him basically saying like De Boone died, give me a call or something like that. Yeah, something like that. Yeah, he kept it. It is not good. Yeah. I mean, Mike Waters is destroyed as, of course, you know, I don't think he'd even went to the funeral. He had just gotten lyrics for 10 songs from Richard Meltzer that they were going to record together. like Richard Meltzer was going to sing and play sacks and the Minutemen were going to be the backing band basically

and he had shown them to De Boone they were both so excited it's just so, so sad and dark absolutely brutal this is like not a band that would have ended had it not been for Deep Boone's stuff I mean at this time I mean this early on

of course they all bands end eventually but yeah I mean I think that three-way ties sort of indicates that they were thinking about songwriting in different ways, but that band wasn't remotely finished. Do you happen to have the quote from Crisgau about him dying? Yeah. He said, a rock death that has for wasted potential,

Lennon and Hendricks for company. After seven fairly amazing years, he was just getting started. Shit, shit, shit. Absolutely on point. It's heartbreaking, devastating, just like pointless. Ugh, poor McWod. Famously, an absolute mess and did not want to play, didn't want to play bass anymore. He apparently didn't play any music until Sonic Youth invited him to come to New York and hang out with them.

Thurston Moore was like a big Minuteman fan. And they recorded a cover of Madonna's Burning Up with additional guitars by Greg Ginn for the first Shikoni Youth release. And then Mike Watt also played bass on two songs on the Sonic Youth album, Eval. Yeah, he plays on a song called In the Kingdom Number 19. A song I happen to love. And it's sort of famous for being the first bass recording he'd done since Boone died. I'm glad that Sonic Youth got him back on the bass.

he recalls it, you know, as being, I think this says a lot about Mike Watt that he was like, what, you want me to play without D Boone? Like he, it like didn't even occur to him that someone would want him, you know? Yeah, it's really striking. And then that same year, like in spring of 1986, um, fire hose is formed through the literal and, you know, unstoppable, shameless. Borderline stalking.

Borderline stalking of Ed Crawford. who was a 21-year-old at that time, Ohio State student and Minutemen, a mega fan. Apparently, I read this, I don't know if you read this, that the members of Camper Van Beethoven told him a fake rumor that Mike Watt and George Hurley

were auditioning guitarists for a new band. So he thought this was true. Wow. Yeah, and he found Mike Watt's phone number in the phone book, called him and said, I want to come to California and play with you. And, like, I guess he kept calling,

I don't know. And Mike Watt and I was like, okay, fine. and him and George met with him and they auditioned him and they had him play the Who's I'm One plus a few Minutemen songs and they were kind of impressed

I guess with him and they formed Firehose. The internet is full of gems. It seems like a godsend really because Firehose played more shows in total than Minutemen ever did. Oh yeah. I mean what is a very spring and fall

you tour kind of guy. That is a dude who learned how to tour. He is famous for if you're not playing your pan. No, yeah.

I mean, I think didn't he famously say something like most bands tour so that they can promote their albums, we make albums

so that we can tour. Oh, yeah, totally. Firehose learned how to tour. They went out twice a year. They would make

records in between tours. That guy was on his grind. forever and still is. I mean, he slowed down a little bit because, you know, he's not the youngest guy ever. You know, he is still working.

And we still have another, another Minuteman record. Ballot result? Ballot result. Yes. Ballot result, they didn't end up being able to do what they wanted to do with the original concept, obviously, because Diboon was dead. So they cobbled ballot result together, right?

Just like from whatever stitches of live recordings and leftover studio recordings and stuff they had. What song do you want to hear off-ballot result? Let's do King of the Hill. This is King of the Hill, the ballot result version. That was King of the Hill live off-battle result. It's nice to hear that song without the horns. I am in no way.

What do you have against horns? I don't have anything against horns. Who problems? I just think they always sounded a little, silly on the studio version of King of the Hill. And I just like that version more because it just, I mean, it absolutely rips. Yeah. Like we said before, Mike Wat keeps going and going and going and going.

It's worth listening, I think, to the first two Firehose albums. The rest are good, too. It's not like that they're bad, but the first one you can really hear that they're trying to just be the Minutemen again, kind of, you know? Which I think Mike Watt has said, like, I only don't know how to do one thing. And George only knew how to do one thing. and George only knew how to do one thing and this kid loved the Minutemen.

But then they sort of grow and expand into different stuff and it's good. Also, like, I just, you know, we can't go into detail of Mike Watts all of his output, but I do want to talk about ball hog or tugbo because it's so good. If you have not listened to Ball Hogg or Tugbo, which is Mike Watts' first solo album,

came out. Also, hilariously, Firehose ends up getting signed to a major label. So Fire Hose puts out, I think, one release on Columbia. One or two, I can't remember. And then, thusly, Mike Watt is on a major label. And so he puts out ball hog or tugboat. 95 puts us out.

And he gets all his friends on it. And I'm talking, everybody's on here, babe. Eddie Vedder, Dave Grohl, Flee, Henry Rollins, the Meat Puppets Brothers, Frank, Motherfucking Black, members of Sonic Youth, Kathleen and Hannah, Evan fucking Dando. Our buddy and former guest, John Strom, from Blake Babies and Lemonhead, J. Mascus, Nels Klein and Carla is it Bozulich from the Geraldine Fibbers, Nels Klein, who is now the guitarist of Wilco, the girls from that dog, it's everyone's on here, babe.

Everyone is on here. And the songs are fucking good. And I would like to play one song off of here. May I please be allowed? To your show. That's a rhetorical question, because I get to. You would think that I was going to play a piss bottle, man. Everyone would think that because that's the one that Evan Dando sings. and it's been documented how I feel about Evandando. But what I really want to hear is Chinese Fire Drill because it is so fucking beautiful.

This one has Frank Black on vocals. That was Chinese Fire Drill, a 1995-ass song if I've ever heard one, and that's why I love it so much. I got to tell you, this is not a record I have thought about in a very long time. Honestly, same. I revisited in the last couple of days, and it's got some fucking jams on it. Yeah, some of those,

weird, let's throw everything against the wall and see what sticks. Mid-90s signings to majors have aged actually pretty well. Totally. Again, Mike Watt has put out multiple solo albums. He's played for everybody. He's played for the Stooges, well, we can go on forever. That's like a whole another episode. But I just want to talk about contemplating the engine room. Because I think a question that Mike Watt was asked a lot after D. Boone died was like, when are you going to write a song for D. Boone? He could. it was hard. They did dedicate the first fire hose album to Diboon.

But then in 1997, Mike Watt does his punk rock opera, contemplating the engine room. This is a really interesting record because he, again, it kind of speaks to like how Mike Watt's mind is so sort of like, truly a mysterious place,

like full of like interesting references and like, literature opera. The gist of this opera is that each of the 15 tracks represents part of a day in the lives of three men in the engine room of a large naval vessel. So it's like kind of obviously a nod to his father who was a Navy veteran.

The cover has his dad in Navy uniform. But according to Watt, the Boilerman is D-Booned, the fireman is George Hurley, and Watt is the machinist. Another output, even more maybe than on double nickels in the time that Mike Watt was really inspired by Ulysses and this day in the life self, you know, a stream of consciousness. That was like the first time that he really got personal and kind of worked out his feelings

about, you know, D. Boone and the Minutemen and what happened. Absolutely. You should go listen to it. He also put out, I think, two more punk rock operas, one of which was inspired by his extremely bad infection that he got from jamming economy. maybe too much, and also Dante's defined comedy. Again, we can't go into all of this. There's too much.

Take the time, look into them. They're really worth listening to. That's the story of the Minutemen. Like we said at the top, it's just a beautiful, fucking tender story of friendship and love and great music. And a whole bunch of the best records ever made. That inspired a lot of other greatest records ever made. Yeah, exactly.

Why don't we hear from our Minutemen mega fans? and then we'll wrap up the episode. Minutemen was our band. They were from Pedro. My family was from Pedro. We were working class kids. This was working class poetry, but like not in a corny kind of springsteenie way.

I appreciate that the band shared the same influences from the first wave of punk that many other contemporaries shared. But instead of trying to make something more angry and intense than, say, the germs or the Ramones, feels like Boone Watt and Hurley saw these bands being whatever they wanted to be and not needing to be highly capable virtuosos to be it and thought, hey, we've also got something to say and we can be ourselves when we say it too. We can do this.

As a young kid, I was just like fueled by, you know, really fast, aggressive punk rock in the vein of a lot of the bands that were on that SST label between like Black Flag, Husker Doe. But something about the Minuteman was different. They had a real angular sound. They were, you know, at times, scrunky, had that really funky bass rhythm. And I just remember the first time I ever heard them being, first of all, really surprised that this was, like, a punk band. And this was what a punk band or a hardcore band sounded like because they've got these really intricate, jazzy bass lines.

And they're not just, like, stepping on a distortion pedal and calling it a day. Like, they're really writing, like, a lot of melodic stuff. Never heard a band that was, like, poetic. and that was political, and that seemed to just, like, act as this unit. They held true to the punk ethic, but the music is not your stereotypical, quote-unquote, punk. It was something about those first two records on SST that just really kind of, like, made me think, that made me think of something different in the whole realm of punk rock. They kind of invented that, like, snarky, like sarcasticity.

vocal schick that really became like a big thing in the 90s but they were doing that in the 80s and it's it's so good You know even though Dee Boone had a very aggressive vocal style and performance the music was very jazzy and

twangy not a lot of distortion but still had the energy I hate this comparison but they play in the way like a jazz band plays they're all three playing different parts at different time and they just, the way they integrate

just really feels like a group. Really funky, bass-driven songs just really made me think. It was something that not too many other records would do because they were just absolutely fast, aggressive, like chainsaws. But this specific sound that came from the Minuteman was different, and that's why they stuck out to me

after all these years. The Minuteman walked so that pavement could run. I know Yassie's going to hate me saying that I sound like one of her ex-boyfriends, but that's okay. I'm sticking to my guns. We live for the gigs. It was like everything. Duboon was special in a very profound way.

He was a sage and a sweetheart. Something came off him. He emanated like whatever the chemical of a poet is. And he was just like a kind man. In a scene that had its fair share of totally sociopathic dudes, he was a sweet, kind poet of a man. That was really cool to hear and inspiring for me as a kid and just learned that punk didn't just have to be like, you know, drop dead or like Youth Brigade or Hardcore or anything like that. It could be this amorphic thing. You could still be political and have guitar solos and play soft and play loud and be intelligent and still be punk at the same time, you know.

There are reasons why people are so drawn to them. It has a lot to do with them, transcending punk, and creating something really original and compelling, both music and a story that has and will continue to live on long past them. I mean, to the girl who said I was going to hate her because she sounds like one of my ex-boyfriends, no, baby, you sound like me, and I love it. Never stop. Pavement did run because the men at men walked,

or whatever the fucking expression is. It's absolutely true. I was actually listening to Pavement today and had that exact thought of what, and they pavement has gone on record saying that every single one of the Minutemen releases was a huge influence on them. Yeah, I don't think there's any question. No question. Well, Joe, we've reached the end of our journey with the Minutemen. I wanted to read these like two last quotes from Mike Watt about D. Boone like in remembrance of him.

There's a lot. I mean, one thing you can say to Mike Watts credit is that he's never stopped being asked in interviews about Diboon. and he seems to never care. He seems to always approach answering questions about D. Boone with like complete enthusiasm, earnest, just heartfelt answers. And I think that's really amazing because you could see someone else getting kind of jaded or bitter or just like, please stop asking you about this, but you can tell he never gets tired about of talking about him.

No, not at the slightest. He told the L.A. Times in 1997, that's what I really miss, because D. Boone like to think about stuff. never a cat who thought he had it all figured out. When you're with somebody like that, you know how much enthusiasm that is? It's never jaded, never stale. And then he also told the LA Times in 1986. See, I relied on him emotionally. When we played, see, I'd look at him.

It's hard for me. I used to look over there and I thought if he was up there, anybody could be up there. He was inspiring, I got to tell you. I didn't really need inspiration. He was the reason I played. I'm going to go weep. Joe, thanks so much again for coming on and talking Minutemen. at length with me.

Thank you. It was great. Thank you so much. Is there a last-minute men song that you'd like to leave our listeners with? Yeah. Why don't we play that version of Joe McCarthy's ghost from ballot result? Because it's a great example of crowd interaction

and Boone sort of leading this chant and then just ripping into one. of their earliest songs. Sounds great. Okay. Come back next week for a new episode of Bansplain, and this is no, no, no to Draft in War slash Joe McCarthy's Ghost Off-Ballet result. If you liked what you heard today, subscribe for more episodes of Bansplaine, only on Spotify. Our wonderful guest today was Joe Gross.

Follow him on Twitter at Joe Gross. Special thanks to Jesse Michaels for taking the time to talk to us about the Minutemen. Also, huge, huge thanks to our Minutemen mega fans you heard on this episode. Wendy Stenzel, Carlos Colan, Simon Whedon, Peter Lowe, David Romo, and Emily Rose. Bansplain is a Spotify original show. This episode was produced by the Double Nichols to My Dime, producer Dylan, aka Dylan Tupper Rupert, and edited by Nico Paolela with help from Casey Simonson, Tari Miller, and Shannon Cornett. Executive producers for Bansplaine are Gina Delvac and meet Yossi Salick.

Our gorgeous and catchy theme song was composed and performed by Bethany, Costantino and Jennifer Claven, and graciously recorded by Carlos de la Garza in Los Angeles, California. Special thanks to Philippa Guillermo, Robert Adler, Leah Edwards, David McDana, Dana Mearson, Jessica Hopper, and the two people who have recognized me on Deepop. Come back every Thursday for a new episode of Bansplain, only on Spotify. Joe doesn't have anywhere to go. Do you have somewhere to go, Joe? I'm good. I'm in the woods. I certainly have nowhere to go. You're in the woods?

Thank you.