The Minutemen sought the truth in the big foist of post punk pluralism with scientist rock spillage on this ambitious impressionistic odyssey. After their second album 'What Makes A Man Start Fires?', the group did a European tour with Black Flag and put out an eight song EP 'Buzz or Howl Under the Influence of Heat'.
The forty five spiels that comprise 'Double Nickels on the Dime' were produced and engineered by Ethan James with D. Boon on vocals and guitar; Mike Watt on bass (vocals on "Take 5, D.", "Dr. Wu", and "The Politics of Time"); and George Hurley on drums and vocals; with Joe Baiza, John Rocknowski, and Dirk Vandenberg on guitar on "Take 5, D." Boon, Watt, and Hurley all pitch in on the songwriting with contributions/collaborations by/with Chuck Dukowski, Jack Brewer, Joe Baiza, John Rocknowski, Dirk Vandenberg, Joe Carducci, Henry Rollins, and Martin Tamburovich; and covers of songs by John Fogerty, Van Halen, and Steely Dan. The stylistic smorgasborg combines hardcore and punk with elements of funk, jazz, country, and spoken word with only a dozen of the snippits of song venturing past the two minute mark (only one of those breaking the three minute barrier). The band was inspired by SST labelmates Hüsker Dü's 'Zen Arcade' to expand the album to a double disk.
Watt waxes: "The biggest thing about that guy Mike Watt in those days of 25-year-olds was really getting my mind blown by Ulysses. That was the big thing in my mind right then. It had a big impact on me. It made me wonder so much about the world. It’s funny how things come around. That record was a trippy time in the Minutemen’s life. In the punk era. Going back 25 years—it’s part of the past now! It’s a signifier in some ways—my life and other peoples’ lives. Like people knowing us and the punk movement—people who got the record, never saw us live. Keith and Tim did the We Jam Econo documentary. A lot of bands from the older times don’t have things done on them like that. They didn’t know a lot about the band—they knew from the record, but they wanted to find out about us. It became a thing unto itself—a touchstone. Not unto itself because it was obviously a scene—without a scene, there woulda been no Nickels, no Minutemen, no Econo. I don’t wanna get carried away—conceited! It’s just how it works out. We never thought we were a better band than anybody. We were happy as hell to be along with the team. We didn’t wanna be on top of the pile. I think every band had its own trip. There’s enough people to tell what’s right and wrong with music in books and shit. I don’t get into that. One good thing I like about it—is for D. Boon. A lot of times you get killed in your younger days, you get forgotten. I know the reason in my case—I liked him a lot and the fella could pay really good. For other cats to be aware of him—keeping the Minutemen in mind like that—in a weird way, his art is living. Some of his spirit is out there. For me, I owe him everything... ‘Anxious Mofo’—that solo he does! Hardly any notes! It’s just great. And he does a great one in the instrumental—‘June 16.’ A lot of the words were influenced by Jim Joyce. The glory of man and all this. On ‘June ’16,’ Boon does a really good guitar solo, too. Hurley plays smoking drums on almost all of it. There’s a lot of dynamics with those two guys. Little tiny song settings. I’m trying to glue things together. I don’t do much bass solo on that record. I don’t think any...We wanted to match up to the Huskers because they had a double album. Kind of a challenge. I thought the band always did better when we were challenged. And it caught the band at a great time when Georgie was still writing us words...He’d have to go in and work a lathe, so they’re kind of abstract. And the band had played enough that we could bring songs together really quick. Me and D. Boon were always quick because we grew up together but it always took time to show Georgie. We never wanted him in back—we wanted him just as involved. We’d spend a lot of time working out. This time, he could learn to feel it. He knew when he’d have a break or pause. The songs were coming real quick. The big problem was how were we gonna put 45 songs in order? We knew it was gonna be four sides. The way a record works, the needle works its way to the label. I kinda figured we’d have the shitty ones on the label and the good ones outside. How is this gonna happen? If we draw straws to find an order—first second third, pick one at a time. And good songs go first and lame ones get left, and the fourth side is nobody. I think Georgie got first pick and what’s he pick? His solo song! If you look at his side—all Hurley! I got second pick—I picked ‘Mike Jackson’ first, and Boon got third and picked ‘Anxious Mofo.’ Here’s a weird one—Hurley/Boon. Not a lot of Hurley/Boon. ‘Two Beads At The End,’ which we used to always crack up. It was always hard to know what Georgie was singing about. Private meanings. So we thought two butt beads hanging out—start you up like a lawnmower! I haven’t looked at this in a long time. D. Boon’s side is a lot of his stuff. And mine—a lot of Watt ones! Maybe we were picking songs from our own stuff—I thought I was picking for good! And it turns out the good ones are kinda on the outside. We didn’t want no favoritism. All divided even. A democratic thing. D. Boon would like that political idea...I try to be black-and-white about what Minutemen were trying to do with political songs. ‘Organizing the Boy Scouts for murder is wrong!’ It wasn’t supposed to be satire. We’re an anti-war band! A working people band! Kind of a weird-kind-of-people band! Dudes who didn’t fit in so much. To us, the message of our band and a little bit of punk, too—start your own band! Say what’s on your mind! Sometimes it was scary—there were skinhead bands and shit who were terribly enthusiastic in their message. But that’s the way the scene was. No rules. People went for it. I talk about Minutemen in two songs on that album—the one I actually mailed to Michael Jackson and ‘Politics of Time.’ I didn’t really sing about the band in ‘History Lesson’—because it was Hurley, too. On Punchline, the song ‘History Lesson’ is very hard-hitting. The story of most human civilization is killing each other. And I thought maybe there might be a part two—we don’t have to kill each other? So I’m gonna take it relaxed—talk about heroes like Richard Hell, Joe Strummer, John Doe. Those are my three songs that ain’t about Ulysses. About the band and my friend. Georgie’s? I don’t know what his are about—a working guy writing them at work. Boon—his tunes are usually about his beliefs. The outside writers—we never asked ‘em. It wasn’t important to us. It might have been like censorship. Just 100% used their words. And some of them were pretty cryptic. Like Dirk’s ‘The Roar Of The Masses Could Be Farts.’ And Jack Brewer’s cousin Joe—we didn’t even know the guy!—writes a weird one—‘Please Don’t Be Gentle With Me.’ I don’t know what the fuck—that’s a love song?...‘Just wake me up and tug my hair!’ We took these at face value—we didn’t care! We made songs! A love song I got from Ulysses—‘My Heart In The Real World.’ Ulysses was bent a lot on language, so it was actually about language, but it has love song imagery. And war imagery. ‘Do You Want New Wave’ is about language too. ‘The World According To Nouns.’ All inspired by James Joyce’s Ulysses...I [re-read it] in my forties. It seems a lot sadder book. Those days, when I wrote songs from that book, it was a big celebration! The glory of man! Now it’s more like—the glory hole of man! It seems like I could hear Joyce’s voice stronger. It seems like a lot of sadness with his mother and just the general condition of humans sometimes. So much failure. The only victories are tiny things between people in everyday stuff. The big joy is in the small middle things, because the big things are all fucking nightmare. ‘One Reporter’s Opinion’ seems like love, but it’s not. What struck me as trippy about Joyce was the technique in Ulysses changing the style with each episode—very scientific, dry, baby talk, opera, all these different trips. A lot of our shit was so… inside. It never got out to people. But it was very clear to us. Like the title. And the meaning of our lyrics. During this time, Boon worked in the van pool—one time the police were called on him—they said there was an insane man attacking the weeds! He was just a utility guy using the weed-whacker! But he had a mohawk! ‘The guy’s attacking the building!’ He’d write stuff while working and driving on little papers—this is what he would write and why there are no rhymes in them. And I’d find ‘em and make songs...I’d wonder if he would leave ‘em for me! I’d just find these things. Find ‘em in the van, in the car, all over the place. Just thinking about stuff... It holds up, I think, for the most part. It doesn’t sound like, ‘Here’s my lame young days.’ It sounds like maybe the best thing about it!...Just listen! Goddamn! The way we played together—the way we were in our history. A lot of things happening at the right time. The way we were with other peoples’ lyrics and our own. We didn’t try to refine it or water it down. We just grabbed it by the bull horns and went for it, and the spirit shows through! It doesn’t sound forced—doesn’t sound fake. It’s very un-self-conscious. We did it without thinking—we wanted one because the Huskers had one! ‘We should, too!’ We just let it be it—we never thought in bigger terms. Now look—if you wanna know what was good about Minutemen, a lot of it’s in that record. We didn’t know at the time. But you ask perspective—like when I re-read Ulysses—that’s what I see. When I read it, I heard a different voice. The words were the same but I had changed. And maybe I identify more with the man. It seemed sadder. A lot of books from my 20s I’m re-reading seem a lot sadder. Kerouac—On The Road—very sad! These days it’s not a total ‘Yeah! Yeah, go for it!’ celebration firecracker. Dean Moriarty leaves him in the hospital with dysentery—that’s lame! It’s beat like ‘beat down.’ Minutemen—that is a young man’s record. And the spirit of young men is in that. It’s like—‘Wow, we got a chance to make a record! A chance to play together! To play a gig with Flag and Huskers! A chance to write music to Jack Brewer’s cousin Joe’s song about whatever the fuck tug my hair in the morning!’ We were just fucking lit about everything—all lit! Sometimes a young person is like that because they don’t have the worries of an older thing or a bad experience to keep them all wallowing or too safe. It has that spirit in it. And I can identify it because I was there. And I think about George and Boon and myself—man! That more than probably any other—we were all there with everything we had!"
'Double Nickels on the Dime' completes a trilogy of albums released on SST Records (along with 'Zen Arcade' and 'Meat Puppets II') in 1984 that would be the pinnacle of the label's influence and acclaim. Do you want new wave (or do you want the truth)?
http://www.corndogs.org/
http://hootpage.com/
https://files.nyu.edu/cch223/public/usa/minutemen_main.html
History Part II
"Our band could be your life..."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfzhq1CjJG0
Corona
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=206f0dLjtds
interview and 'Glory of Man'
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbBeomD20n4
This Ain't No Picnic
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jG0Onc6goc
'Double Nickels on the Dime'
full album:
Side D.
1. "Anxious Mo-Fo" D. Boon, Mike Watt 1:19
2. "Theatre Is the Life of You" Boon, Watt 1:30
3. "Viet Nam" Boon 1:27
4. "Cohesion" Boon 1:55
5. "It's Expected I'm Gone" Watt 2:04
6. "#1 Hit Song" Boon, George Hurley 1:47
7. "Two Beads at the End" Boon, Hurley 1:52
8. "Do You Want New Wave or Do You Want the Truth?" Watt 1:49
9. "Don't Look Now" John Fogerty 1:46
10. "Shit from an Old Notebook" Boon, Watt 1:35
11. "Nature Without Man" Chuck Dukowski, Boon 1:45
12. "One Reporter's Opinion" Watt 1:50
Side Mike
1. "Political Song for Michael Jackson to Sing" Watt 1:33
2. "Maybe Partying Will Help" Boon, Watt 1:56
3. "Toadies" Watt 1:38
4. "Retreat" Watt 2:01
5. "The Big Foist" Watt 1:29
6. "God Bows to Math" Jack Brewer, Watt 1:15
7. "Corona" Boon 2:24
8. "The Glory of Man" Watt 2:55
9. "Take 5, D." Joe Baiza, John Rocknowski, Dirk Vandenberg, Watt 1:40
10. "My Heart and the Real World" Watt 1:05
11. "History Lesson - Part II" Watt 2:10
Side George
1. "You Need the Glory" Hurley 2:01
2. "The Roar of the Masses Could Be Farts" Vandenberg, Watt 1:20
3. "Mr. Robot's Holy Orders" Hurley 3:05
4. "West Germany" Boon 1:48
5. "The Politics of Time" Watt 1:10
6. "Themselves" Boon 1:17
7. "Please Don't Be Gentle With Me" Jack Brewer, Watt 0:46
8. "Nothing Indeed" Hurley, Watt 1:21
9. "No Exchange" Hurley, Watt 1:50
10. "There Ain't Shit on T.V. Tonight" Hurley, Watt 1:34
11. "This Ain't No Picnic" Boon 1:56
12. "Spillage" Watt 1:51
Side Chaff
1. "Untitled Song for Latin America" Boon 2:03
2. "Jesus and Tequila" Boon, Joe Carducci 2:52
3. "June 16th" Watt 1:48
4. "Storm in My House" Boon, Henry Rollins 1:57
5. "Martin's Story" Martin Tamburovich, Watt 0:51
6. "Ain't Talkin' 'bout Love" Eddie Van Halen, Alex Van Halen, David Lee Roth, Michael Anthony 0:40
7. "Dr. Wu" Donald Fagen, Walter Becker 1:44
8. "Little Man With a Gun in His Hand" Boon, Chuck Dukowski 2:53
9. "The World According to Nouns" Watt 2:05
10. "Love Dance" Boon 2:00
We Jam Econo documentary
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmKGusadv08
SST tour recorded at The Stone, San Francisco, CA, May 1st 1985.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inpvgtLxKAE
Min. 00:56 - SWA
Min. 12:00 - Saccharine Trust
Min. 27:40 - Meat Puppets
Min 42:50 - Minutemen
Min 54:30 - Hüsker Dü
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