#174
July 1 1984
Minutemen
Double Nickels on the Dime
4.75 out of 5
Highlights:
Cohesion
Two Beads at the End
Nature Without Man
Maybe Partying Will Help
The Big Foist
My Heart and the Real World
West Germany
Dr. Wu
The first bassist in my band was an arrogant high school teacher. He was a really good bassist and had some great ideas for us, gave us a groove where we had none. He was also a great student of music. I once sarcastically referred to Sting as “Gordon Sumner” and he read me the riot act. “It’s Sting!”
He made me sit in his car and listen to the entire second side of Abbey Road because I had never heard it. It did not impress. Sorry. I thought it was a bunch of incomplete songs strung together to fill up the second side because they boys were too high to finish it and George Martin just said, “Go get high and let me do it.”
One day I was at his house, I don’t *think* I was there to fire him…no, wait…we were there to fire him. Or let him know that his attitude sucked. it did. He could be OF the band or not in the band but he couldn’t be ABOVE the band.
When I got there he was listening to this record. So, naturally, I’ve never given it a moment because, well, fuck him, right?
So much of Double Nickels feels like a jazz bassist took over a punk band’s recording studio, which I imagine must’ve made hardcore punk fans’ heads explode.
Honestly, I don’t know how you categorize this as “punk”, especially in 1984. It’s political and subversive but has less in common musically with that genre than the coming alternative scene. This is more a precursor to Red Hot Chili peppers than it is an outgrowth of, say, the SST scene. Which, I guess, proves that “punk” was about attitude and not about the music. Which, in retrospect, is a great thing.
Knowing what happened to D. Boon the next year makes “History Lesson - Part II” so melancholy. Other bands have talked about their past, Rivers Cuomo’s “Heart Songs” comes to mind, but none of them make me choke up like History Lesson.
Oh, yeah, D. died in a van accident when he was asleep in the back and the back door opened and he rolled out to his neck snapping death.
Sorry, Gary the Bassist. You were right. About this record. You’re still a jerk and I’m glad we fired you. But this record is fantastic.
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