RhoDeo 1417 Aetix

Hello,

today's band, more than any other hardcore band, epitomized the free-thinking independent ideals that formed the core of punk/alternative music. Wildy eclectic and politically revolutionary, the Minutemen never stayed in one place too long; they moved from punk to free jazz to funk to folk at a blinding speed. And they toured and recorded at blinding speed; during the early '80s, they were constantly on the road, turning out records whenever they had a chance. ..  N'joy

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Minutemen began when D. Boon and Mike Watt met at age 13. Watt was walking through a park in their hometown of San Pedro, California when Boon, playing a game of "army" with other boys, fell out of a tree right next to him and found that his friends, one named Eskimo, must have ditched him. Both boys shared a passion for music; Boon's mother taught D. to play the guitar and suggested Watt learn to play bass. At first, Watt did not know the difference between bass and standard guitars. The pair eventually started playing music together, mostly covering songs from artists they admired. In the summer of 1973 Watt and Boon formed the Bright Orange Band, with Boon's brother Joe on drums. In 1976 they discovered punk; Boon's mother died, and the Bright Orange Band disbanded shortly thereafter. The next year, the two joined a short-lived band called Starstruck. Following Starstruck's disbandment, Boon and Watt met drummer George Hurley and formed The Reactionaries with vocalist Martin Tamburovich.

After the Reactionaries disbanded, Boon and Watt formed Minutemen in January 1980. Watt has said their name had nothing at all to do with the brevity of their songs; rather, it was derived partly from the fabled minutemen militia of colonial times and partly to lampoon a right-wing reactionary group of the 1960s that went by that name. In the documentary We Jam Econo, Watt also states that the name was a play on "minute" . After a month with no drummer, during which Boon and Watt wrote their first songs, the band rehearsed and played a couple of early gigs with local welder Frank Tonche on drums. The group had originally wanted George Hurley to join, but he had joined a hardcore punk band called Hey Taxi! with Michael Ely and Spider Taylor after the Reactionaries disbanded. Tonche quit the group, citing a dislike of the audience the band initially drew, and Hurley took over as drummer in June 1980. Their first live gig was as an opening band for Black Flag.

Greg Ginn of Black Flag and SST Records produced Minutemen's first 7" EP, Paranoid Time, which solidified their eclectic style. Like most punk bands at the time, the band sold the EP at their shows and at a few local record stores. It became a minor hit with the hardcore scene. By their first LP—1981’s The Punch Line—they had found their voice and began touring nonstop around the country. They released their second EP and third overall release entitled Bean-Spill. By this time they were becoming one of the more popular bands in the underground scene around the country. By the time of their second LP What Makes a Man Start Fires?, which gained considerable attention from the alternative and underground press, they were a part of the band's sound, despite maintaining their experimental and punk roots. They continued their hectic touring schedule, which included their longest tour yet, a double bill with Black Flag in Europe. The long tour strengthened their place as one of most well-known acts in the hardcore scene. In 1983 they released their third LP, Buzz or Howl Under the Influence of Heat. It was one of the first hardcore albums to include a horn (trumpet on "The Product")

Minutemen's anti-rockist eclecticism was perhaps the best exemplified on 1984's double album Double Nickels on the Dime. Though still somewhat obscure to mainstream audiences, Double Nickels has been cited as one of the more innovative and enduring albums of the 1980s American rock underground. On Double Nickels, they co-wrote some songs with other musicians, notably Henry Rollins, Chuck Dukowski, and Joe Baiza. In 1985 they released their most commercial-sounding recording, Project: Mersh. Though the album sounded more mainstream, it sold poorly compared to Double Nickels due largely to the negative reaction to such a commercial album from within the underground community. They continued touring, and by the time of their final album, 3-Way Tie (For Last), they decided to take a small break. They played what would be their last tour with another emerging band, R.E.M. Their final concert was in Charlotte, North Carolina on December 13, 1985.

On December 22, 1985, Boon was killed in a van accident, putting an end to Minutemen. Watt fell into a deep depression after his friend's death, but was convinced to continue performing by Sonic Youth. This put an end to the band's plans to record a half studio/half live triple album with the working title 3 Dudes, 6 Sides, Half Studio, Half Live. The live tracks were to be based on the ballots that they handed out and as a way to counteract bootlegging. A year later, however, Watt and Hurley compiled various live recordings, based on the ballots, which was released as Ballot Result.

Following Boon's death, Watt and Hurley originally intended to quit music altogether. But encouraged by Minutemen fan Ed Crawford, they formed Firehose in 1987 and have both formed solo projects since Minutemen disbanded.

Watt has created three acclaimed solo albums, recorded three others as part of the punk jazz jam band Banyan with Stephen Perkins (Jane's Addiction), Nels Cline (Wilco), and Money Mark Nishita (Beastie Boys), contributed on "Providence" off Sonic Youth's album Daydream Nation and "In the Kingdom No. 19" and "Bubblegum" off EVOL, toured briefly as a member of Porno for Pyros in 1996 and J Mascis and the Fog in 2000 and 2001, and became the bassist for The Stooges in 2003. George Hurley has produced work with Vida, Mayo Thompson, and Red Crayola, further indulging the free-form and off-the-wall leanings showcased on Double Nickels. Hurley and Watt have also continued to make music together both live and in the studio since Firehose's splitting in 1994.

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The Minutemen may have come out of the same California hardcore scene that produced Black Flag, Circle Jerks, and Fear, but they not only bore little resemblance to their West Coast contemporaries, they didn't sound much like anyone else in American rock at that time. The Punch Line was the band's first album, packing 18 tunes into less than 25 minutes, and if the music shares hardcore's lust for speed and assaultive rhythmic punch, their sharp, fragmented melodies, complex tempos, and overtly poetic and political lyrics made clear they were rugged individuals; imagine James Blood Ulmer teaching Wire how to get funky and you start to get an idea of what The Punch Line sounds like. It wasn't until the band began to slow down a bit on What Makes a Man Start Fires? that the strength of the group's individual songs became clear, and The Punch Line works better as a unified sonic assault than as a collection of tunes, but moments do stand out, especially "Tension," "Fanatics," and the title cut, which certainly lends a new perspective to Native American history. The Punch Line was as wildly inventive as anything spawned by American punk, and the band would only get better on subsequent releases.

The Minutemen had already come up with a sound as distinctive as anything to come out of the American punk underground -- lean, fractured, and urgent -- with their debut album, 1981's The Punch Line. But on their second (relatively) long-player, What Makes a Man Start Fires?, the three dudes from Pedro opted to slow down their tempos a bit, and something remarkable happened -- The Minutemen revealed that they were writing really great songs, with a remarkable degree of stylistic diversity. If you were looking for three-chord blast, The Minutemen were still capable of delivering, as the opening cut proved (the hyper-anthemic "Bob Dylan Wrote Propaganda Songs"), but there was just as much churning, minimalistic funk as punk bile in their sound (bassist Mike Watt and drummer George Hurley were already a strikingly powerful and imaginative rhythm section), and D. Boon's guitar solos were the work of a man who could say a lot musically in a very short space of time. Leaping with confidence and agility between loud rants ("Split Red"), troubled meditations ("Plight"), and plainspoken addresses on the state of the world ("Mutiny in Jonestown"), The Minutemen were showing a maturity of vision that far outstripped most of their contemporaries and a musical intelligence that blended a startling sophistication with a street kid's passion for fast-and-loud. It says a lot about The Minutemen's growth that The Punch Line sounded like a great punk album, but a year later What Makes a Man Start Fires? sounded like a great album -- period.

Minutemen - Post Mersh Vol. 1 ( flac 254mb)

The Punch Line (1981)
01 Search 0:53
02 Tension 1:20
03 Games 1:04
04 Boiling 0:57
05 Disguise 0:48
06 The Struggle 0:41
07 Monuments 0:51
08 Ruins 0:49
09 Issued 0:40
10 The Punch Line 0:41
11 Song For El Salvador 0:32
12 History Lesson 0:38
13 Fanatics 0:31
14 No Parade 0:51
15 Straight Jacket 0:59
16 Gravity 0:57
17 Warfare 0:55
18 Static 0:53
What Makes A Man Start Fires? (1983)
19 Bob Dylan Wrote Propaganda Songs 1:28
20 One Chapter In The Book 1:02
21 Beacon Sighted Through Fog 1:43
22 Fake Contest 1:00
23 Mutiny In Jonestown 1:08
24 Pure Joy 2:08
25 Faith / East Wind 1:29
26 '99 1:00
27 The Anchor 2:33
28 Sell Or Be Sold 1:44
29 The Only Minority 1:00
30 Split Red 0:53
31 Colors 2:05
32 Flight 1:37
33 This Road 1:08
34 The Tin Roof 1:34
35 Life As A Rehearsal 1:24
36 Polarity 1:50

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The third and final volume of Post-Mersh crams an extraordinary amount of music on one disc, compiling the EPs Paranoid Time (1980), Bean-Spill (1982), and Tour-Spiel (1985), the 1981 "Joy" single, and the 1984 rarities and outtakes collection The Politics of Time.
The Minutemen's debut EP Paranoid Time is a startlingly coherent set of primal minimalism -- a cross between Californian hardcore punk and the succinct experimentalism of Wire. It speeds by too quickly for any particular song to stand out, but the band's terse, frenetic energy is invigorating, as are their imaginative ideas.

The Minutemen had as high a batting average as any band that came out of the California punk scene, releasing a number of superb records that confirmed their status as one of the finest, most intelligent, most forward-thinking, and most individual bands of their time. However, there isn't an awful lot of that on The Politics of Time; this compilation ties together a bagful of studio outtakes, rehearsal recordings, and live tapes of highly variable quality (one of which is thoroughly inaudible; it's a joke, but not necessarily a funny one). The album leads off well enough with seven tunes the band recorded for an unreleased album. Stylistically, the songs fit comfortably between the ambitious What Makes a Man Start Fires? and the magnum opus Double Nickels on the Dime; on their own, they would have made for a superb EP, and "Working Men Are Pissed" and "Shit You Hear at Parties" are excellent. But side two is bogged down with far too many unfocused, lo-fi live tapes, and while the selections by the Reactionaries (an embryonic version of The Minutemen) are historically interesting, ultimately they're little more than juvenilia from a band destined to create much stronger music.

Minutemen - Post Mersh Vol. 3  (flac 370mb)

Paranoid Time EP (1980)
01 Validation 0:43
02 The Maze 0:42
03 Definitions 1:15
04 Sickles And Hammers 0:50
05 Fascist 1:00
06 Joe McCarthy's Ghost 1:03
07 Paranoid Chant 1:21
Joy (1981)
08 Joy 0:58
09 Black Sheep 1:12
10 More Joy 1:11
Bean Spill EP (1982)
11 Split Red 0:57
12 If Reagan Played Disco 1:20
13 Case Closed 1:33
14 Afternoons 1:31
15 Futurism Restated 0:58
The Politics Of Time (1984)
16 Base King 1:18
17 Working Men Are Pissed 1:21
18 I Shook Hands 1:05
19 Below The Belt 1:00
20 Shit You Hear At Parties 1:09
21 The Big Lounge Scene 1:27
22 The Maternal Rite 1:16
23 Tune For Wind God 3:09
24 Party With Me Punker 0:57
25 The Process 1:22
26 Joy Jam 4:50
27 Tony Gets Wasted In Pedro 2:12
28 Swing To The Right 0:46
29 Raza Si! 1:02
30 Times 0:51
31 Badges 0:36
32 Fodder 0:46
33 Futurism Restated 1:34
34 Hollering 1:01
35 Suburban Dialectic 0:47
36 Contained 1:00
37 On Trial 0:43
38 Spraycan Wars 1:00
39 My Part 1:40
40 Fanatics 0:35
41 Ack Ack Ack 0:46
42 The Big Blast For Youth 1:24
Tour-Spiel EP (85)
43 Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love 0:43
44 The Red And The Black 3:33
45 Green River 1:53
46 Lost 2:29

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Picking up where the first volume left off, Post-Mersh, Vol. 2 contains the Minutemen's 1983 Buzz or Howl Under the Influence of Heat LP and the 1985 Project Mersh EP.
What Makes a Man Start Fires? marked a real step forward for the Minutemen, and while Double Nickels on the Dime was where the group would reach their peak, there were plenty of signs pointing to that album's diverse brilliance on this eight-song EP. While "Dreams Are Free, Motherfucker!" and "The Toe Jam" are goofy, noisy throwaways (hey, this was a EP sandwiched between albums), the rest of the songs found the band consolidating their strengths and growing even tighter and more confident. "I Felt Like a Gringo" and "Cut" merge funky rhythms with a punk rocker's sense of concision, "Self Referenced" and "The Product" reveal how far this band's writing had progressed since The Punch Line, and "Little Man With a Gun in His Hand" showed the Minutemen could reduce the tempo and the volume and still create stunning music. It's hard to think of a stronger rhythm section in an independent band in the 1980s than Mike Watt and George Hurley, and D. Boon was by any standards a superb guitarist, with smarts, style, and a keen sense of how to edit himself. Buzz or Howl Under the Influence of Heat remains a superb record from a band just edging into greatness.

"I got it! We'll have them write hit songs!" some nameless record company executive says in the cover painting to the Minutemen's 1985 EP Project Mersh, and that joke covers about half of the record's formula. While the Minutemen had been writing more melodic and approachable songs with each release, the massive barrage of 90-to-180-second songs on the epic Double Nickels on the Dime was at once an embarrassment of riches and a bit much for a casual listener to chew on. So for this tongue-in-cheek experiment in making a "commercial" (or "mersh") recording, D. Boon and Mike Watt wrote a few actual three-minute-plus rock tunes, complete with verses and choruses and melodic hooks. On top of that, the band made a game stab at cleaning up their act in the studio; while hardly on the level of something Bob Ezrin or Richard Perry would come up with, Project Mersh boasts a good bit more polish than anything the band had released up to that point and even featured horn overdubs and keyboards on a few tracks. But the punch line was that the Minutemen had used all this fancy window dressing on songs that weren't all that different from what they'd been doing all along -- "The Cheerleaders" and "King of the Hill" are typically intelligent, clear-eyed polemics from Boon, and Watt's "Tour-Spiel" is one punker's bitterly funny ode to life on the road (it stands comfortably beside their cover of Steppenwolf's variation on the same theme, "Hey Lawdy Mama"). While the Minutemen were a band that followed their own creative path from the beginning to the end, Project Mersh made clear they could have followed a more easily traveled road and still made good music with plenty to say.

Minutemen - Post Mersh Vol. 2 (flac 245mb)

Buzz Or Howl Under Influence Of Heat EP (1983)
01 Self-Referenced 1:23
02 Cut 2:00
03 Dream Told By Moto 1:46
04 Dreams Are Free, Motherfucker! 1:09
05 The Toe Jam 0:40
06 I Felt Like A Gringo 1:57
07 The Product 2:44
08 Little Man With A Gun In His Hand 3:10
Project Mersh EP (1985)
09 The Cheerleaders 3:52
10 King Of The Hill 3:24
11 Hey Lawdy Mama 3:37
12 Take Our Test 2:44
13 Tour-Spiel 2:45
14 More Spiel 5:52

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