C/D/S/D: Minutemen

you understand we needed to come up w/a bunch of new tunes to make this a double album so for the second batch we asked lots of friends for lyrics so our tunes wouldn't start repeating themselves in regards to spiel. for me also, words coming from different places than myself helped w/coming up w/fresh music ideas. on bass, watt

Valuable piece of insight into the process.

fbclid=IwAR3yxUNXJJEt98VDR8yWpWgzOvlzX83pV19T_hrF-DtFVGuDEtSJFBXN8RE

Interesting Podcast. I've been listening through them since somebody shared the news of the Gun Club Fire of love edition a few months ago. There have been some interesting takes on things.

mike watt really is an american treasure

Nothing earth shattering here, but always great to hear the voice of Watt:

https://www.latimes.com/food/story/2019-09-03/mike-watt-minutemen-san-pedro-busy-bee

Once my wife I spent the better part of day wandering/driving around San Pedro and we ate at some joint cuz I had heard Watt talk about it and it was great.

Unlike a lot of people on this message board I seldom revisit the music of my youth, but recently I decided to take a nostalgic dive and listen to the big four alt rock albums of 1984: Husker Du's Zen Arcade, The Replacements' Let it Be, The Meat Puppets' Meat Puppets II, and The Minutemen's Double Nickels on the Dime.

They all came out when I was 15-16 yrs old and I adored them all back then.

When I listen to them now they all sound really good but the Minutemen album sounds by far the most interesting of the batch. It's got the best grooves, the most intriguing lyrics.

I've mentioned this in another thread, but I'm eternally pissed off that I had a ticket to see the Minutemen opening for REM in 1985 but didn't use it, and D. Boon died only a few weeks later.

Just saw that BGO has a 2cd compilation of the 3 Columbia releases by fIREHOSE Flyin' the Flannel, Mr. Machinery Operator and Live Totem Pole but no Big Bottom Pow Wow . Stumbled on it while looking through the site.
Shame the SST stuff can't be similarly compiled .

The My First Bells tape compilation on SST was a wonderful, wonderful thing, Wore out two of them.

God that was a great tape

I've been listening through them since somebody shared the news of the Gun Club Fire of love edition a few months ago

THat Record Got Me HIgh is a weekly podcast where 2 geezers from somewhere in Florida investigate the contents of an e.p. that has been significant either to them or a guest . There have been some very interesting episodes. Somebody was sharing the news that there was a gun Club Fire of love episode I think a bit after it was on.
http://thatrecordgotmehigh.com/2018/11/22/s1e35-the-gun-club-fire-of-love-with-special-guest-charlie-pickett/
The show started in March last year & is currently on episode 76 with a look at The Fall's Dragnet
http://thatrecordgotmehigh.com/2019/09/07/s2e76-the-fall-dragnet-with-jeffrey-weaver/
which I haven't listened to so far but was the first lp by them I got. Not sure why it was that one since I bought it several years later. I saw them quite a bit between 83 and the late 80s.

I listen to almost all my podcasts on Spotify but I think those links take you to something that will play the specific episodes. It will definitely take you to the list of other episodes.

ok thanks, somehow i misread your post that there was a new edition of the album out. my bad.

"Shame the SST stuff can't be similarly compiled ."

The 3x Post Mersh CDs out there have pretty much everything but Double Nickels and 3 Way Tied for Last.

Could do with a remaster though couldn't they. Isn't that all late 80s stuff.
I have a couple of them somewhere.

I think you're radically overestimating how much "remastering" can even be done to a hardcore 7" from 1983 that was recorded pretty much live in the studio for about $100.

Think the original comment was about the first couple of fIREHOSE lps.
But would like my Minutemen to sound pristine anyway.

The whole of Double Nickels hasn’t even been released on CD, so that’s a good place as any to start

Shame it isn't happening in the near future. I did have momentary hopes when i saw the BGO 2cd thing. Then saw it was major label stuff initially anyway.
Woulo have thought you could get the sound on the material that was on the compiled Post mersh cds to sound a bit better than late 80s cds anyway. BUT would love all that catalogue to be put out in best possible sound the right side of the brickwall problem.

When they invent time travel they can send somebody back with some wad and pay for a more expensive recording in the first place. or is that in danger of the grandfather problem?

Mastering from the actual masters (if they still exist) would be a start, as it's been said many SST CD releases are just vinyl rips (Paganicons, for one).

Doesvanyone actually know, WHY the f--- is Double Nickels not in print??

It isn’t? I thought Greg Ginn would keep it in circulation for the foreseeable.

Not as far as I can tell, pretty much the only release by them not on the sst store. Dont think there has been a vinyl repress for quite some years now.

I asked about this on Steve Hoffman. The rights are still with SST; it’s probably a COVID-related vinyl production snag. The LP was still being sold on their online store last year

Don’t buy it for an inflated price on Discogs or Amazon

Yes, was just looking. Cheapest vinyl copy is £75!

Completed listings on eBay showing a similar trend, if not quite so gougey.

It also appears to be OOP on CD, for what it's worth. Can get a copy got $71 on Amazon, or about $40 on discogs.

Read Beamish13's Hoffmann thread. Would be a real shame if pressing plates were gone with Rainbo.

Snapped up the seemingly very limited 2022 repress on clear vinyl from Discogs this week. Seems identical to the 2008 pressing (run-out grooves and “Mike’s Car Jam” missing from LP1).

You can buy the vinyl directly from SST now that includes a shirt

Coincidentally, I just finished Jim Ruland’s solid book on SST, Corporate Rock Sucks. It’s a bit hampered by the total lack of participation from every Black Flag and Minutemen member save for Keith Morris, and the book doesn’t spend enough time on really worthy artists that fell through the cracks during their 1987 production peak like Opal, but it does paint a relatively comprehensive picture of how the label imploded from within and morphed into a boutique vanity press for Greg Ginn’s shit. I just hope that the company can be dissolved and we can get an accurate assessment of the masters they’re supposedly holding onto. They also need a team of forensic accounts to sift through their bowels

https://www.instagram.com/p/CZmlmScpa2Z/?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet
Getting re-cut for a new master??

I saw that. Funny, SST kept Bad Brains’ I Against I OOP for years. The second they reissue all of their other albums, SST represses it and claims they own it in perpetuity

There is a great quote in Ruland’s book about virtually none of SST’s pre-1990 recording contracts being likely to stand up to legal scrutiny. I just wish groups like Husker Du and the Minutemen could get their shit together and make an effort to acquire their works

Fwiw I dont think I've ever heard mike watt give out about his arrangement with sst, whatever it is. Does Bob Mould grumble?
I see all the vinyl options are already out of stock in the sst store. I'd have been shafted with the postage to UK anyway.

Watt always seems loyal to Ginn for whatever reason.

I’d love to know what George Hurley is up to nowadays. I think he’s a contractor?

George recently played a tribute gig for his brother Greg, who died in November. Greg was in Slivers who did a single for New Alliance way back when.

George’s new band is called The Wrinkling Brothers and I think they play semi-regularly in the south bay? I’m in an SST group on FB that has more than a few people from SST bands as well as diehards to keep track of things much better than I could.

Getting re-cut for a new master??

That post is from nearly a year ago; I assume the new cut was just to replace worn stampers or something?

Damn

https://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/greg-ginn-sst-and-rescuing-bands-catalogs.298972/

2012 discussion

I wonder when the HERE TO BLAST YOUR CONCEPT oral history book will come out. Seems likely that it’ll be this year given that the publisher acquired the manuscript in 2021.

There are just so many unknown factors. Where are the masters? Did Ginn deliberately use deceptive accounting techniques, or was he (and the VERY young employees SST hired) simply incompetent? (Interestingly, there is a quote from Kim Thayil in the Rutland’s book which states that Soundgarden never experienced any issues with getting royalties, but that may be attributed to the fact that they had a manager who knew what she was doing). Why do certain key albums seem to go in and out of print at random?

Having gone on a little kick w/ Paranoid Time and The Politics of Time recently I'd really love to hear a contemporary punk band that sounds like a Minutemen, that has their own unique thing but still with a similar sense of groove. There are current bands I like but none I can think of that fill the bill. Anyone have any recs?

*sounds like THE Minutemen

Another typo: The Punch Line, not The Politics of Time.

not sure if Hellier Ulysses are still an ongoing concern, but they had a slightly more boffin-y take on the Minutemen / Ron Johnson sound

Traps PS adapt the Minutemen blueprint in a more dance-punk direction and with more atmospheric production.

thread reminding me to listen to the bandsplain episode on the minutemen

also paper mice's "the funny papers" is more NMN than minutemen but is excellence in a similar vein

not so contemporary but ahleuchatistas' "what you will"(2006) is very minutemen-y instrumentals.
watt himself with belfi & pilia as "il sogno del marinaio" does very well, espec on their second cd, and also as member of "the hand to man band"

although the hand to man band is more languid beefhearty red krayola than herky jerk