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Photographed by Theo Wyss-Flamm (12-4)
In 1984, the Reagan Era was in full throttle and Minutemen released Double Nickels on the Dime. The 45-song, art-punk double album is a creative expression of their lives in a time of distress and turmoil in America. Hailing from working-class San Pedro, California, the trio consisted of best friends, D. Boon and Mike Watt, and their drummer and high school classmate, George Hurley.
Watt and Boon met at age 13 in a fairytale-like fashion. Watt was walking in San Pedro when D. Boon fell out of a tree right next to him. The two bonded over their shared love of music and quickly became close. D. Boon’s mom taught him to play guitar and suggested that Watt pick up the bass. They played in the Boon family garage, where they developed their style of D. Boon’s super-treble guitar matched with Watt’s rumbling bass. This would later become a defining feature of Minutemen’s music.
In 1976, Boon and Watt discovered punk rock. They fit right into the scene that was full of ostracized teens like themselves; however, Minutemen, which formed in 1980, didn’t play the usual hardcore music of the punk scene. Instead, they used experimentation and their broad ranging, diverse influences to create a sound of their own. Their connection to the punk scene was through their leftist political ideology and their corresponding ‘DIY’ style of recording and performing or, as they call it, “econo” (San Pedro slang for economical). They played their music with the barest of means: cheap equipment and as little time in the studio as possible.
The entirety of Double Nickels on the Dime was recorded in one single night. But even more impressive than recording so much music in such a short interval is the amount of philosophical content and food for thought that they managed to fit into just eighty-one minutes.
Watt and Boon’s songs on their double album combine as an exploration into their florid consciousness and existence as the Reagan Administration demonized poor people, deprecated the union movement, dehumanized Soviet Russia, suppressed progressive uprisings in Central America, and retaliated against the social progress of the civil rights, womens’ liberation, and anti-war movements in the ‘60s and ‘70s. The resulting conflicted, tangled stream of thought was conveyed in Double Nickels through parody, frustration, hopelessness, hopefulness, nostalgia, loneliness, excitement, and love. It is hard to convey all of these feelings without cynicism, but somehow Minutemen counter disillusion with child-like humor and joy.
Listening to this album is an empowering experience. The comedic and hardly self-righteous presentation of the band’s socialist dogma on top of avant-garde jazz, funk, soul-infused punk rock manifests excitement.
The twists and turns of the album make listening even more fun. You never know what’s coming next. In a span of five songs they go from keeping hope by having fun and partying to dissecting their ever-changing moods to describing a broken shower to lamenting forced conformity to further revealing their relatability through an autobiography.
“Our band could be your life,” is a line from the song ‘History Lesson Pt. 2’ (covered by Mr. Ostrikov’s band, Grubstake), which pretty much sums up Minutemen. They’re just three guys who are passionate about music and their love and concern for humanity. Double Nickels on the Dime is a generous peek into the lives of these working-class heroes. It’s appropriate that the album’s name is a response to the 1984 Sammy Hagar metal song, “I Can’t Drive 55,” which is about his lack of compliance with the speed limit. Minutemen recognized that there wasn’t too much defiance in this act, with Watt later saying, “the big rebellion thing was writing your own f**kin' songs and trying to come up with your own story, your own picture, your own book, whatever. So he can't drive 55, because that was the national speed limit? Okay, we'll drive 55, but we'll make crazy music." And rebel through making crazy music they did.
A year after the release of their automobile-centered magnum opus, D. Boon died in a car crash, marking an end to the short-lived career of Minutemen.
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