#413 - Minutemen - Double Nickels on the Dime (1984)
MUSIC HISTORY WRITTEN BY HEAD WRITER DJ MORTY COYLE:
Released on July 3rd, 1984 on SST Records and produced by Ethan James this is the third L.P. record by Californian Punk/Hardcore band Minutemen.
D. Boon and Mike Watt met when they were 13 in their hometown of San Pedro, a Los Angeles port city.
Boon’s mother had taught her son to play guitar and suggested Watt learn bass to keep them both safely off the streets. In 1973 with their pawnshop instruments they started their first cover band playing what would become Classic Rock of the ‘70s with Boon’s brother on drums but in 1976 as they graduated San Pedro High School and were discovering Punk Rock Boon’s mother died and the band broke up.
The next year Boon and Watt joined another short-lived band before hooking up with fellow San Pedro High graduate, drummer George Hurley to form The Reactionaries with vocalist Martin Tamburovich until Boon thought having a lead singer was too bourgeois and broke them up. Tamburovich would go on to provide some lyrics as well as roadie for the guys.
By 1980 with Boon as lead singer he and Watt formed Minutemen as a trio and wanted Hurley on drums but he had already moved on to another band.
However the drummer they had quit due to hating their hardcore audiences so they persuaded Hurley to come back.
They became known for provocative, political, deep, and esoteric lyrics over extremely short songs, often without feeling the need to repeat standard song structures like verses or choruses or even riffs.
Their Punk Rock ethos also allowed them to take chances with all kinds of music as an individualistic expression of their musical freedom to explore.
After signing to Black Flag’s SST Records, they released two E.P.s and two L.P.s, and constantly toured to became one of the top Hardcore Punk bands.
However they were more eclectic than most Hardcore bands and even though they still didn’t appeal to mainstream Rock audiences they started the bridge to Alternative music.
With Boon’s twangy, trebly, and bluesy, guitar, and anthemic songs, Watt’s powerfully dense, jazzy, bass, and stream-of-consciousness songs, and Hurley’s versatile, powerhouse, funky, drumming tying it all together they had much more to offer the scene.
After recording an L.P.’s worth of songs for their third record they heard label-mate Hüsker Dü’s then unreleased, 1984, concept, double-album, “Zen Arcade.” That inspired them to write more material and release their own epic double album. They even outsourced some song lyrics to Punk Rock contemporaries and friends of theirs.
They decided their loose concept would be about cars and inspired by Pink Floyd’s 1969 double album, “Ummagumma” they let each member pick their favorite songs of the new batch for their own side of the two record set.
Each side would start with that band member’s car starting up. The fourth side would be the leftover tracks.
The 45 song record became a Hardcore art piece filled with everything from Punk to Funk to Jazz to Minimalist Post-Punk to Country to Spoken Word.
The title, “Double Nickels on the Dime” was a reaction to Sammy Hagar’s recent hit, “I Can’t Drive 55” which they felt was a safe Rock song about being defiant and dangerous. They preferred to drive safely but play defiant and dangerous music.
The trucker slang in the title was about exactly obeying the 55 miles-per-hour speed limit on the 10 Freeway home to San Pedro.
SST delayed the release of Hüsker Dü’s album so they could release it together with “Double Nickels on the Dime.”
While no singles were released a UCLA graduate made a video for, “The Ain’t No Picnic” for under $600 that got them a nomination for an MTV award.
It sold 15,000 copies that year which was pretty good for a Punk band on an independent label.
The band toured relentlessly for the album and put out another E.P. and L.P. the following year but tragically a couple weeks after their last show opening for an R.E.M. tour on December 22nd of 1985 D.Boon was killed in a van accident at the age of 27, effectively ending the band.
After a lengthy bout of depression Watt was urged by label-mates Sonic Youth to continue playing so he and Hurley put together the band fIREHOSE with singer/guitarist Ed “ed fROMOHIO” Crawford.
The posthumous Minutemen live compilation album, “Ballot Result” was released two years after Boon’s death.
In 2005 the documentary, “We Jam Econo: The Story of the Minutemen” was released.
“Double Nickels on the Dime” ended up becoming their best-selling, most loved, and most critically acclaimed record inspiring bands like the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Wilco, Pavement, Jane’s Addiction, and Dinosaur Jr.