NEWS

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Gentrifying d. boon

There's a documentary out about the Minutemen. You can see the trailer at theminutemen.com. George Hurley looks about 68 years old. Stay out of the sun, kids!

I found out about this movie by reading the entertainment listings in the New Yorker, rather than by reading a fanzine or website. The New Yorker actually had a column-length preview dedicated to it. D. Boon's done been gentrified. But hey, I'm excited to be getting the New Yorker again, so I shouldn't talk.

There are a lot of artists that I've gotten passionate about, then cooled, but the Minutemen have been a constant. I didn't click with them at first, didn't know what to do with such a thin sound. Like a lot of eighties kids, I picked up the Minutemen expecting something with the same roar as the SST artists I already knew: Black Flag, Husker Du. I knew their songs were short and political, so I figured it would be like In God We Trust, Inc. They were getting a lot of hype in the wake of the breakthrough of Zen Arcade and Let it Be, so I knew it would be more than straight-ahead hardcore punk. But I was confused by the sound at first: where was the buzzsaw guitars? Where were the power chords? The punk I'd heard up to that point was very much descended from classic rock and glam rock: the Who, Bowie, then the Ramones and Clash. Most hardcore took those cues and just kept speeding up and snarling more. The Minutemen came from another stream: Captain Beefheart, Richard Hell, Wire. It wasn't trying to sound tight, it was going for tightly wound. It was brainy, but not overstuffed and high on itself like prog rock. It was a rush of ideas, rather than just rushing tempos.

When I bought Double Nickels on the Dime I copied all the information off the LP labels, since there wasn't a legible song listing on the jacket. I needed to make sense of this tangle. I needed those titles to get a footing. Over the course of 1985, it started appealing to me more and more, as I began to get hip to their slang- mersh, econo, spiel- and the ricocheting styles. I wasn't happy with the Husker Du record that came out that autumn. The Minutemen were beginning to eclipse them in my mind. They put out everything from their early career on a $10 cassette, so it was easy to learn the whole story.

It was in a high school homeroom period in October that a buddy told me he heard they were playing Boston that night. It was a weeknight, but we figured out a way to stay out on short notice, and drove into Kenmore Square. This interview was done after that gig. They encored with Substitute, the Who song, and tied their sound back in to classic rock in a way that amazed me.

The Minutemen softened my head for liberalism, and they softened my ears for jazz. In the nineties, another buddy, a guy who didn't like rock at all, made jazz click completely for me by getting me to listen to the Ellington/Mingus album Money Jungle. It was his favorite of all time, so I turned him on to Double Nickels. And it quickly became a favorite of his. He's getting his PhD, and one thesis idea is to tie together the Minutemen with poet William Carlos Williams, elaborating on the American idea of freedom. Sure enough, you could pull a few lines from "Tract" and hear d. boon's voice bark it out. There could have been a kid at that Boston gig who's editing the entertainment listings in the New Yorker now.

But even in the late 80s, it quickly became clear to a lot of people that the loss of the Minutemen was a loss that was bigger than your typical rock death. I remember asking someone about there "Econojam '87" t-shirt. She said that back home in Colorado, the local scene did a tribute gig to them. Rolling Stone had a rock-writing contest among college students, and one of the winning essays was about the Minutemen. I was a fucking corn dog before I heard the Minutemen. Bongo jams a speciality.

posted by bendy @ 6/04/2005 11:34:00 PM [permanent link]

Hey! I was at the Minutemen show at the Rat also - were you the kid with the white shirt with the "buzz or howl" album cover drawn on the back?
There was an all-ages show, then a 21+ show on that date (10/23/85) - I was at the all-ages show.

-Bruce

said Bruce, at 7/14/2005  

I was at the all-ages, probably wearing a trenchcoat or some such nonsense. Actually, I think I remember being in my Mod target-symbol tshirt from Newbury Comics. I think I was pogoing a bunch by the end.

said bendy, at 11/19/2005  

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