The 1981 Listening Post - Minutemen - The Punch Line

 Minutemen - The Punch Line

#553

November 1 1981

By Tom Mott

Minutemen

The Punch Line

Genre: Funky Econo-Punk

Allen’s Rating: 2.5 out of 5

Tom’s Rating: 4.8 out of 5

Highlights

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The Struggle

The Punch Line

Static

I owned this. I didn't know it. I had the cassette "My First Bells" which was a 1985 compilation of their first five EPs and LPs. I never had the foggiest idea where one EP or LP ended and the next began. It was a pleasing ongoing shmear of brief, noisy, funky, shouted or half-sung songs. I couldn't name a single track but I liked it and for part of a college summer or winter break it was part of my life, experienced in 10-15 minute spurts as I drove to friends' houses or ran quick errands.

That's the strength and weakness here. 18 tracks, 15 minutes. Experienced more as a complete thing, like a 15-minute prog-rock song made up of 18 individual frantic blasts. Hard to know which song is which or find something to sing along to.

But I mean, come on. A fifteen minute LP with 18 songs! Step aside, Residents! You, with your eyeballs and high-falutin' Commercial Album of one-minute songs. The Minutemen jam econo with 41-second songs and you KNOW they're wearing cheap flannel shirts from K-Mart and drinking cheap beer and playing on "stages" the same height as their audiences.

I like the sound. A lot. An AllMusic user described it as "The Byrds having an epileptic seizure." I'd say more like Love than the Byrds, but yeah. More like Da Capo Love too, not Forever Changes Love -- the polish isn't there yet that would appear on Double Nickels on the Dime, which is their sprawling White Album.

I can't give it a full 5. X, The Clash, Violent Femmes -- they get 5s because you can sing/shout along. With the Minutemen, you just nod or vibrate or smile or something and think "yeah, man!" and "wow, they're tight!"

Funky like early Red Hot Chili Peppers but without the 'tude. More like spiritual brothers to the Meat Puppets. But Meat Puppets are muddy guitars or intricate delicate guitars and desert psychedelics, whereas Minutemen are anchored by Mike Watt's muscular funky bass and George Hurley's machine gun drumming. Both bands have a similar "prog rock" approach to punk: super-tight, super-fast, quick time changes, intricate instrument lines. And similar lead singers with defiantly untrained voices who are happy to be making music and happy to wait for you to come around to them. (The cover to Meat Puppets II looks an awful lot like this cover as well!)

This is cool. I just listened to it four times in a row in an hour. Strong whiffs of Fugazi here too. DIY!

https://open.spotify.com/album/3nRg0CgSxbpXVd3yyujVN4?si=rce5n344RCqI2a8MesXfiA

The 1986 Listening Post - fIREHOSE - Ragin', Full On

fIREHOSE - Ragin', Full On

#229/1374

June 15 1986

fIREHOSE

Ragin’, Full On

Genre: Alternative

4.5 out of 5

Highlights:

Brave Captain

Locked In

I love that the Minutemen guys pressed on. The first side of this record sounds like a bunch of guys who are getting something OUT. Like this is how they are dealing wih the shocking loss of D. Boon. It's a spleen vent of magical punkfunk It’s like Minutemen on steroids. It’s relentless.

And then Side Two is more…melodic. More Paisley. With funky rhythm. And an obvious inspiration for Jeff Mangum and Neutral Milk Hotel. And I’m all over it.

https://music.apple.com/us/album/ragin-full-on/115823768

The 1985 Listening Post - Minutemen - 3 Way Tie for Last

Minutemen - 3 Way Tie for Last

#510/1144

December 1985

Minutemen 

3 Way Tie for Last

Genre: Post-Punk/Rock

4.75 out of 5

Highlights:
The Price of Paradise

The Red and the Black

No One

This is one helluva political record. Blatantly so. This isn’t Double Nickels. It’s a calm fury. More mature. What might they have done if not for...?

That BOC cover is fantastically bonkers. 

The entire thing is a surprising affair. I’m glad I finally became acquainted with D. Boon and the guys. 

https://music.apple.com/us/album/3-way-tie-for-last/117013289

The 1984 Listening Post - 1984 - Minutemen - Double Nickels on the Dime

Minutemen - Double Nickels on the Dime

#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. 

https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/double-nickels-on-the-dime/117012391

The 1983 Listening Post - Minutemen - What Makes a Man Start Fires

Minutemen - What Makes a Man Start Fires

I know I'm supposed to revere Minutemen. I just don't. I'm not entirely sure what they are about. It's like they took the Residents' idea off "Commercial Album", applied it to punk and then took out all the nuance. They bore me.

1/31/1983
Minutemen
What Makes a Man Start Fires
3.5 Stars

https://open.spotify.com/album/7umVRtgBbdU9Zj1K8a1o53…