The Punch Line (Full Album) -- Minutemen 

It's totally true, man. That's one of the things I like about the Minutemen so much - their music was so ahead of its time, and completely timeless.

absolutely. thats why they are the greatest rnr band in history.

Jawbreaker would like to know your location

@Ondrya Wolfson I believe you can come up with examples of contemporary artists that sound kinda angular kinda funky kinda punky, but you absolutely cannot name 100 (or 100s) of bands that sound like this. Most things close to this from the 70s/80s took their music in more of a dance punk direction, wrote a chorus or two, stretched their songs out to 5+ minutes, and often had singers who could sing. Or they just made jazz. This is something else. This is militantly anti-imperial working class imagist poetry set against this sort of spastic motorik. It enters at full steam, makes a bold claim, leaves an impression, and then it wants to talk about something else and simply can't calm down. It sounds like a manic episode as experienced specifically by people living in post-war boom times suburban America but reading the news and looking around and just feeling wrong about it all, like, "this isn't fair to to the downtrodden people of the world and it also isn't fair to ME!" Pop Group, Public Image, Liquid Liquid, whatever, none of that shit does what the Minutemen do. They can't. They aren't as free, they aren't as open, they aren't as personal, and they aren't as good.

@@matthewmendez9093 well fuckin said my friend

Watt is that kinda dude. Love him

The "female bass player" of the Blake Babies is the well-known and successful musician Juliana Hatfield. Watt played on her debut solo album Hey Babe, released in 1992 (the track "Get Off Your Knees" but it's not on Spotify or RU-vid for some reason). Juliana is still going strong, currently doing online gigs every month due to the pandemic, and baring her soul. The last gig she played she talked about her anxiety playing live, which your anecdote touches upon. What year did you see fIREHOSE/Blake Babies? You're right about the late 80s and early 90s being a "golden era" for music. Right now, music is a pale shadow of what it used to be. I saw fIREHOSE in, I think '91 (Flyin' the Flannel tour), and they totally rocked. I wished I'd have seen Minutemen, but alas it wasn't to be.

@@malloid Probably a few days before/after this. George sits in for Blake Babies MIA drummer... ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-i9tjRCZXLA8.html

@@jessegpresley Freda goes missing before a gig and Georgie stands in for her? Ouch - that must've hurt. I wonder what happened to her? Good video, though. It's amazing what turns up on RU-vid these days. I discovered Blake Babies (and fIREHOSE) in 1989, but never got to see BBs live. I saw Juliana play solo the following year, though. Music from this period is sooo good. It's actually keeping me going through this pandemic - especially Minutemen. [thumbs up]

you are so right bro, no rockstar bullshit(wanna puke listening to Alice Cooper brag about his fucking shit golf game while playing worn-out crap!! I hate golfers(but not you if you happen to golf, hahahaa) Guys like Watt, and Henry Rollins in the crowd who had no hangups about talking to anyone who wasn't acting the dick, just fucking unrepeatable in music history; bro, we are part of the rock-n-roll meltdown that killed the genre's ability to produce good music after, i don't know, 2004 or 5? We got boned with bubblegum "pop punk" for our hearty efforts. I am so glad I got chased, jumped, fought, accused, for my SoCal punk. Bros in arms my friend, thanks for the story. cheers.

I don’t think the video maker knows how to count too well.

@@AwakenNotWoke time is elastic.

Yeah Charles, talented and finely-honed musicians without the ego who are finally getting the attentions from the masses. Hey, I was late to really get into them too; but when I did, it bordered on having to go to anti-Minutemen tunes in my head meetings under some kind of twelve San Pedro steps. They were representative of their environment, and way ahead of most punks like me who were impressed with the intelligence of punk without some of the hardcore hardworking musicianship that the Minutemen are still impressing young cats with. They are drug-like in the need to hear certain tunes(General George A. Custer, stuck like a porcupine with Indian arrows, he DIED WITH SHIT IN HIS PANTS [HAHAHAHA]). classy and classic. cheers.

thanks!

Every few years I remember to look for "My Fist Bells", which was a tape only release that seems to be forgotten. The fact that Mushroom 1307 has faithfully recreated it in digital form is a fucking incredible blessing.

shit, johnlocust, my "First Bells" cassette practically "caught" fire in the deck I played the looming falling sky-shit out of that tape after I discovered the true nature of the Minutedudes. At 57.5, still eat 'em like Tiger Tony's flakes. cheers.

Double Nickels is definitely a longer trip, but length doesn't mean anything in punk.

makes a man start fires is niiiice

yeah wmamsf is my favorite.

What's Dave Coulier's?

Yeah it might be my fave minutemen album too (or most listened to). It's very direct and still has a foot in hardcore when the genre was still very new and not still super generic

CouchCutter lucky you!

welcome aboard!

Check out fIREHOSE !

welcome to the new obsession, would you like to go to a anti-Minutemen tune in your head meeting today? cheers.

I hear ya. Huskers had a more conventional sound and their songs fit more easily into a standard rock format. The Minutemen hinted at that and achieved it with Project: Mersh and Three-Way Tie For Last but then D. Boon died leaving a lot of us wondering what kind of album they’d put out next?

And today (Dec. 22, 2020) marks the 35th anniversary of d. Boone’s death at the age of 27 in a traffic accident. The axel fell off of his van while he was resting in the back. For punk rock in Los Angeles, that is the day the music died. Mike Watt did amazing work with fIREHOSE (and other bands) after that, but it definitely broke a part of his heart forever.

I was lucky to have seen them on one of their last tours. What a great live player Boon was!

@@elmoblatch9787 They were the best band in the world at the time.

Love playing that fill

Yep. My favorite opening track ever. Sets the tone perfectly.

One of the top drummers of all time. And I love Peart, Bonham, Bruford, Sipe, etc etc

I'm not going to say you're wrong for saying "Up On the Sun" is the best album in SST's catalog, but I will say that's a very bold statement to make about the label that also released "My War"

@@gnartothecore a lot of people don't fuck with my war apparently, i've heard some people say all the rollins era stuff was their worst stuff. i disagree but i get it

Hurley's (jokingly?) said when they recorded this he didn't quite know how he was able to pull off some of these "rope tricks" I'm gonna chalk it up to years of prac in his shed. I've played through this a few times, it's a workout :)

😂

Today is also the anniversary of Joe Strummer’s death (12/22/2002)

Hey again Elmo! Yeah man, I remember watching video about that accident. I was a "big" truck driver for a crap company called Swift in the early 2000's. The area he went off the road on I-10 before the state line at Quartzite had a strange effect on me; I'm seriously thinking that there is/was a permanent Native American curse on that section of road; the westbound side used to lull me into a snooze as I was rolling downhill on my way to Wilmington ports with my container trailer. Always the same exact mile markers found me dreaming as I rolled with other drivers with 40,000 to 80,000 pounds; I could drink coffee so strong you could stand a spoon in, and still, risked dying or killing with narcoleptic nirvana, UNTIL I WOKE UP SHIT, ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING DUDE, WAKE THE FUCK UP. OH MAN, peace.

Playing a Precision with a pick, SPOT flavored it up too

It's funny; I started with Minutemen and then listened to Wire, The Fall, Pere Ubu. Apparently Mike and D. Boon really digged Wire.

They loved Wire. Their spiel inspired! Watt states his love of them and The Pop Group often

Come on let's search!

Yep I got that cassette as well. Wicked! Like 70-80 songs just blistering. Got it in London when I was 18. Still kills.

they were the best band in the world for a few years.

Deon Nungaray Mike Watt was a god no doubt but, I don't think he would have been as much if it weren't for the creatively superb drum playing of George Hurley. Listen closely, especially on Double Nickels, nothing short of brilliant.

+goodboysic definitely half of the tightest rhythm section punk ever saw...

@@goodboysic Hurley was a superhero, but I think Watt was one of a kind. He invented something new with these early Minutemen recordings. Like a 2-guitar band, but better because of the isolation across registers.

anti-club was where it was at!

I like Games as well

If he could, he probably wouldn't be asking for tabs, you mong.

I think labels are stupid. There’s just good and crap music.

@Ferenc Kiss-H. Yes, Krist even went, a year or two, in high school in Zadar..

Austin Lucas Starting "with" the affirmation of man. Leaving that word out significantly changes the meaning of the lyric.

goodboysic It does. Sometimes I totally missed lyrics and other times, I didn't even hear them. I used to think one song was talking about stopping an ocean, though the lyric was "Old Showstoppers"...

Austin Lucas Tell me about it. As a kid I thought the line in Joy to the world was..."Joy to the bishops and the priests will see, joy for you and me. actually Joy to the fishes and the deep blue sea

goodboysic I'm beginning to wonder how much of TV that I remember from when I was four years old is real and how much is just remembering it from the perspective of a 4-year-old. Somehow I managed to think a Scooby-Doo episode was a bit different than I ended up seeing it as later on.

Austin Lucas Dude!! (sorry to use such antiquated slang), I completely know what you mean. Sometimes I remember an episode of a show I saw and liked when I was young. I mean distinctly remember. Then I get the DVD set of it, watch it, and make the realization that I actually was remembering like three separate episodes as one. Some shows I even doubt really existed as well. Maybe you can help me with one, I don't know how old you are but, here goes... Late sixties/early seventies, black and white cartoon, the setting was in space, the central character was a round glass space helmet with a little alien head inside, but the body was just this moving squiggle of energy. Any ideas? Cheers

Shrooms will do that to you.

+dave frazier tension

😂

Welcome to Minutemen circa 1981

Martin Tamburovich

Singer of the Reactionaries, their band before Minutemen

Econo