Tickle Your Taint Eclectic Music Reviews: Minutemen, Double Nickels on the Dime (1984)

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Tuesday, August 15, 2017

Minutemen, Double Nickels on the Dime (1984)

By Dave

I’m gonna review one of my favorite records, because I think new music is shit. As Mike
Patton said, “It’s a new sound, but an old sound….” Living in the land of Danava and Red Fang is like being stuck watching network television all day. You only have one station, and they only play reruns of The A-Team and Dukes of Hazzard....

So what’s this record that doesn’t make me feel like I’m wasting my time, and what’s left of my hearing? It’s Double Nickels on the Dime by the Minutemen—a band that wasn’t really influential, didn’t last very long, but I think they were a life line and a small moment of positive recognition for the people that get it.

The songs are too short. Many are less than a minute long. The lyrics often meander through abstract diatribes that oddly fit the angular bass lines that drive my favorite songs on this double LP. The best songs on Double Nickels are driven by inventive instrumentation and raw personality. It’s kind of a stripped down eccentric record, for eccentric people hiding in plain sight. If you like this sort of thing, you probably already know about this album. I think Double Nickels on the Dime hits a really great balance between interesting instrumental exploration and compact song structure. There is some traditional verse, chorus song structure on the album that allows D. Boon to tell a couple stories, and expound on his political views, but these moments of recognizable song-smithing come and go quickly in the stream of consciousness that makes this record such a unique experience. It feels like you are on a road trip with the band engaged in a complex discussion of ethics and politics that doesn’t let up to give you a moment to catch your breath.

The Minutemen fit into a small, but very important group of rock bands that were able to make a mark by being completely honest. I feel that when I listen to their records, that I am getting an intimate window into their lives. They didn’t embrace the performance cliches of rock theatrics, or the conventions of socal contemporaries like Black Flag or the Descendents. They were just three working-class dudes from Pedro, and their rejection of the status quo makes their music all the more moving in its unadorned, quirky humanity.