267. Minutemen, "Double Nickels on the Dime"

 

This revolutionary - in every sense of the word - double album made me rethink what "punk" was.  Before I heard this, I thought punk was like, Black Flag or Sex Pistols only - it had to be loud and fast and aggressive.  This didn't sound at all like that!  The drums sound like jazz sometimes, or prog, and the guitars are sometimes not even distorted and D. Boon isn't screaming at all; in fact, he's barely even singing.  This made me realize that punk is an ethos, a framework, a way of approaching music, if not life itself.  This album is punk as fuck.

But wow, it is wild.  George Hurley's drums scatter around, full of verve and ideas.  There are a million different guitar sounds, and that bass pops like it's in a funk song.  D. Boon's voice sounds like exactly what he was - a kid from San Pedro, yelling about the truth.  Then you get something like "Cohesion," a gentle acoustic instrumental that sounds like Segovia from the LA burbs.

There are 45 songs so trying to pick a few out to talk about is very hard, but I have a few faves.  Let's start with "History Lesson Part 2," which opens with a soft arpeggio and D. Boon saying "Our band could be your life," which would go on to be the title of a book about the indie music scene.  And the song is a history lesson, about the band itself: "We learned punk rock in Hollywood/Drove up from Pedro/We were fucking corn dogs/We'd go drink and pogo."  I cannot imagine why "Jesus and Tequila" is not a monster hit that everyone knows.  It's got a great guitar lick that sticks in your head and Boon's moan of the title words in the "chorus," such as it is, has tons of feeling.  "Political Song for Michael Jackson to Sing" is closer to what I thought of as traditional punk, a great-sounding song with truly inscrutable lyrics.  But really, you can't go wrong with any of the songs, and since they're all like a minute or two long, there's another one coming right up if you don't like this one.

Although they never got any radio airplay and labored in obscurity for most of their career, their influence is far and wide.  The most immediate touchpoint, of course, is the Red Hot Chili Peppers, who obviously wore this record out.  Pavement is another; I think the Minutemen gave Pavement permission to be as weird as they wanted.  You know the theme song to "Jackass," the show about meatheads doing dumb shit?  That's "Corona," track 7 on Side Mike (yes, the album sides were named after band members, with the fourth being "Chaff," for the leftover stuff).  

Tragically, guitarist/singer Boon died in a car accident in 1985, but this album's legacy has grown astronomically since then.  I was musing about how much they could make on a reunion tour, if Boon had lived, but then I realized there's no way they would ever do something so crass and commercial as that.  They'd still be playing little clubs and sleeping in their van.

Does this album deserve to be in the Top 500? Totally.