“… At almost twice the length of their previous album, The Punch Line, the Minutemen’s songs began surpassing the two-minute mark. Breaking another Minutemen record, the band took the longest time they took to date to record What Makes A Man Start Fires?. The basic tracks were recorded in one late-night session, but then the band held two separate late-night sessions for guitar and vocal overdubs. Watt has said that he considers this to be Minutemen’s ‘first real album.’ …”
Wikipedia
Minutemen – Reflecting on the 40th Anniversary of “What Makes a Man Start Fires?” (Audio)
The Genius Of… What Makes a Man Start Fires? by Minutemen (Audio/Video)
Discogs (Video)
Category: Minutemen
This Is His Music
“The jazz world came out last week to mourn the loss of Ornette Coleman, the saxophonist, band leader, and composer, who died on Thursday at the age of 85. Coleman was lauded as a rule-breaker and visionary who, despite initially hostile reactions from many of his peers, moved jazz past bebop conventions and into the ‘free’ explorations of the 1960s and beyond. Without Coleman, John Coltrane’s final years might have sounded very different, as would Miles Davis’ electric period, and the entire free-improvisation world down to today. … What helped make Coleman more broadly significant is that his revolution radiated beyond the boundaries of jazz to young seekers through the decades in every musical form. Musicians are widely aware of this, as reflected in the list of performers at a tribute concert in Brooklyn in 2014 that would turn out to be his last performance, who included Patti Smith, Laurie Anderson, Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth, Nels Cline of Wilco, members of Morocco’s Master Musicians of Jajouka, and even Flea of the Red Hot Chili Peppers. But non–jazz listeners tend to be less cognizant of it. …”
Slate (Video)
Double Nickels on the Dime – Minutemen (1984)
“Double Nickels on the Dime is the third album by American punk trio Minutemen, released on the California independent record label SST Records in 1984. A double album containing 45 songs, Double Nickels on the Dime combines elements of punk rock, funk, country, spoken word and jazz, and references a variety of themes, from the Vietnam War and racism in America, to working-class experience and linguistics. After recording new material, each band member selected songs for different sides of the double album, with the fourth side named ‘Chaff’. Several songs on Double Nickels on the Dime were outsourced to or inspired by contemporaries, such as Black Flag‘s Henry Rollins and Jack Brewer of Saccharine Trust. Double Nickels on the Dime is seen not only as Minutemen’s crowning achievement, but, according to critic Mark Deming, ‘one of the very best American rock albums of the 1980s’. … Minutemen were formed by guitarist D. Boon and bassist Mike Watt, both from San Pedro, California, in 1980.[5] After their previous band, The Reactionaries, disbanded in 1979, the pair continued to write new material and formed the band with drummer Frank Tonche a year later. Minutemen signed to the Californian independent record label SST Records following their second gig. George Hurley, the former drummer of The Reactionaries, replaced Tonche as drummer soon afterwards. The Minutemen were noted in the California punk scene for a philosophy of ‘jamming econo’; a sense of thriftiness reflected in their touring and presentation. …”
Wikipedia
Pitchfork
Graded on a Curve: Minutemen, Double Nickels on the Dime
allmusic (Audio)
YouTube: Double Nickels On The Dime LP 1:22:49
Punk Scrawled Artist 