Book Review: Michael T. Fournier’s Double Nickels On the Dime (2007)

Although San Pedro’s favorite sons the Minutemen are almost universally praised, they are too often overlooked in favor of lesser punk bands like the Misfits or the Germs. True, the band’s landmark Double Nickels On the Dime album is typically named as one of the genre’s standing classics, but methinks that, much like Rodney Dangerfield, the Minutemen never really get the respect they deserve. I’d be willing to bet that many young punk rockers these days are more familiar with Green Day, NoFX, Hot Water Music, or even the Misfits than with the Minutemen.

This is an oversight that author/professor Michael T. Fournier is trying to correct with his 33 1/3 series book on the Minutemen’s Double Nickels On the Dime album. A well-known music journalist that has been published by both online and print magazines like Pitchfork, Chunklet, and Perfect Sound Forever, Fournier also teaches students at Tufts University about the history of punk rock. Fournier often uses Double Nickels On the Dime in his classes, exposing a new generation of punk fans to this incredible album.

The Minutemen were originally formed as the Reactionaries in San Pedro in 1980 by guitarist/singer D. Boon, bassist Mike Watt and drummer Frank Tonche, along with a second guitarist. George Hurley would replace Tonche, the other guitarist would disappear, and the trio changed its name to the more familiar Minutemen – mostly because the bulk of the band’s songs didn’t extend beyond the 60-second mark. Signed to SST Records, the Minutemen released its Paranoid Time EP in 1981, following with a full-length album, The Punch Line, later that year.

The band built its reputation by touring anywhere somebody would book them, often traveling with Black Flag, and even playing with R.E.M. at one time. By the time that they recorded their fourth album, the two-record Double Nickels On the Dime, the Minutemen had created an eclectic trademark sound that mixed hardcore punk with free-form jazz and scraps of pop, folk, and rock music. Only one of the album’s 44 songs comes within spitting distance of 3-minutes in length, most falling comfortably in the one-and-a-half to two-minute range, each song a short, sharp shock like a poke from a high-voltage cattle prod.

Fournier dissects the album, side-by-side, song-by-song, supplementing his own substantial insight with comments and memories from the Minutemen’s Mike Watt, fellow musicians like Black Flag’s Chuck Dukowski, and other friends and followers of the band. Fournier tells how the album’s sequencing came to be, diving deep into each song and exploring the creative energy behind every tune. By covering the album as he does, the writer also provides plenty of back story, band history, and an overall glimpse into the early-to-mid-’80s west coast punk rock scene.

If Fournier’s classes are anything like this book, they’d be a lot of fun to sit in on. Fournier writes with an easy-going tone, combining the enthusiasm of the unabashed fanboy with the everything-but-the-kitchen sink style of the modern music journalist. It makes for a complete story, to be sure, but also provides the reader with new insight into and newfound appreciation of the band’s work.   

Although I don’t believe that the Minutemen get anywhere near the respect they deserve, the continued efforts of Mike Watt, combined with the support of fans like Michael T. Fournier, has kept the band’s flame burning bright. If not for frontman D. Boon’s tragic death in 1985, the Minutemen would certainly have made the jump to a major label and a larger audience along with friends like Husker Du and Sonic Youth. Still, the band’s legacy and influence is enormous, largely fueled by the excellence of Double Nickels On the Dime. (Continuum Books 33 1/3 series, published April 18th, 2007)

Review originally published by Trademark of Quality (TMQ) blog

Buy the book from Amazon: Michael T. Fournier’s Double Nickels On the Dime 

 

Book Review: Drew Daniel’s 20 Jazz Funk Greats (2007)

Just about any aging hipster or backwards-gazing youngster with an interest in ‘70s-era underground culture is familiar with the British band Throbbing Gristle, but few of ‘em have actually ever really heard the band. Part of the reason for this is that TG were, well, somewhat loud and noisy in the pursuit of their particular artistic vision. The progenitors of what would later become known as “industrial music,” the four muckrakers that made up Throbbing Gristle – Genesis P-Orridge, Cosey Fanni Tutti, Chris Carter, and Peter “Sleazy” Christopherson – spun the fledgling genre out of their genuine anger at English society, tempered with a sound that was pure aural terrorism.

Throbbing Gristle’s third album, 1979’s 20 Jazz Funk Greats, eschewed the band’s previous alchemical brew of clanky metallic factory noise, found vocals, tape loops, and aggressively distorted sound to go in an almost completely different creative direction. As explained by writer Drew Daniel in his 33 1/3 series book on the album, 20 Jazz Funk Greats was both a departure from the band’s standard modus operandi, as well as a grand artistic statement. Lyrically, the album strays … albeit not far … from TG’s poetic obsessions with death, mayhem, and the perverse, dancing coyly into the battleground of interpersonal relationships (including their own), adding their unsubtle social commentary on the era to the mix.

Daniel points out that 20 Jazz Funk Greats actually includes none, and plenty of both, the album representing TG’s unique tongue-in-cheek perspective on jazz music and funk, in addition to their normal industrial-strength Sturm und Drang. From the off-putting album cover, where the four members look like anything but the “wreckers of civilization” that they’d been referred to by the British tabloids, to the relatively accessible sounds created by the band for the album, 20 Jazz Funk Greats is admittedly the creative high point of Throbbing Gristle’s brief, but notorious career.

Unlike those aforementioned listeners, Daniel has delved deep into the album, and dissects it here, song-by-song, with acute insight, and with some thought in providing the context and meaning of each track. Daniel had access to all four band members for the book, garnering valuable information in his conversations with each, also drawing upon the band’s historical record as documented in print (much of it in the British press, some through the excellent RE/Search Industrial Culture book).

Although Daniel comes across as a fanboy one moment, and a dry academic the next, his commentary on the album fits well within the 33 1/3 series’ purview overall. Although Daniel readily admits that 20 Jazz Funk Greats is not widely considered a classic album, he treats it as such in his exploration of both the album, and the band’s lasting importance and influence. In the end, he convinces the reader that, perhaps, this little-heard work by an obscure band is nevertheless deserving of another spin on the turntable. (Continuum Books, published December 15th, 2007)

Review originally published by Blurt magazine

Buy the book from Amazon: Drew Daniel’s 20 Jazz Fun Greats