For the uninitiated, The Minutemen were a three-piece punk outfit from San Pedro, California. After some early tinkering, the band's line-up solidified in 1980 with Mike Watt on bass and vocals, D. Boon on guitar and vocals, and George Hurley on drums (and occasional vocals). These three wrote music together, birthed a new funk-punk minimalist aesthetic, and gigged furiously until December 1985, when D. Boon was killed in automobile accident outside Tuscon, AZ.
The movie combines performance footage and old interviews with reminiscences from the surviving members (Watt and Hurley), along with the testimonials and recollections of other punk luminaries, including Keith Morris (Black Flag, Circle Jerks), Henry Rollins (Black Flag), Joe Baiza (Saccharine Trust), and Ian MacKaye (Minor Threat, Fugazi, The Evens).
For something relatively short (81 minutes), the movie is exceptionally rich. Really, there's too much in it for quick condensation here. At least three threads, however, seem worthy of comment:
1. If you took the music away and stripped these kids (D.Boon and Watt were only 13 when they met) of their instruments, it's still a great story about friendship and the profound sense of loss that's registered whenever deeply bonded mates are ripped apart in the senseless way that these two were. Since 1985, Watt has dedicated every one of his creative projects to the memory of D. Boon. In the film, it's clear that he's still haunted by the absence of his other half. Watt says he was "smitten" by D. Boon after their first meeting. I doubt whether he'd object to me calling the film a love story, or a story of love lost.
2. The Minutemen signed their first recording deal with SST Records, the label which Greg Ginn (Black Flag, Gone) formed in Long Beach in 1978. While the Minutemen sound nothing at all like Black Flag, Ginn put his (then paltry) resources behind the former to get their first EP, Paranoid Time, recorded. This, I think, speaks not only to the uniqueness of Ginn's vision for the SST label, but also to the vibrancy of the So Cal scene circa 1980.
3. It's difficult to pigeon-hole The Minutemen or characterize their sound with a few short-hand gestures, but one word that came up repeatedly in the movie was "angular." Not being a musician, it's hard for me to know exactly what this term might suggest to those who do play an instrument. It seems to connote something discordant, or it points to a structure that is somehow unexpected and difficult to follow. To me, the term needs to be understood in the context of some of Watt's comments. In the film, he begins to explain how the San Pedro scene was open to and engaged with 20th century avant-garde art movements like Dada and Futurism. These movements first gained traction during World War One as Europeans tried to get their heads around the horrors of total war. When people describe the music of The Minutemen as "angular," I think we can (and should) make comparisons to the art works of this earlier era. As with the Dadaists, The Minutemen strove to be untimely, that is, they consciously sought to separate themselves from the social mainstream. For both, the most expedient route to separation entailed a quick and sharp and violent turning away from convention, and I think these maneuvers can readily be described by the term "angular." At least, that's how I understand the term.
Anyway, here's a trailer for the film, something I'd recommend whole-heartedly to anyone who can be moved by the things I've waved at in the three points above.
3. It's difficult to pigeon-hole The Minutemen or characterize their sound with a few short-hand gestures, but one word that came up repeatedly in the movie was "angular." Not being a musician, it's hard for me to know exactly what this term might suggest to those who do play an instrument. It seems to connote something discordant, or it points to a structure that is somehow unexpected and difficult to follow. To me, the term needs to be understood in the context of some of Watt's comments. In the film, he begins to explain how the San Pedro scene was open to and engaged with 20th century avant-garde art movements like Dada and Futurism. These movements first gained traction during World War One as Europeans tried to get their heads around the horrors of total war. When people describe the music of The Minutemen as "angular," I think we can (and should) make comparisons to the art works of this earlier era. As with the Dadaists, The Minutemen strove to be untimely, that is, they consciously sought to separate themselves from the social mainstream. For both, the most expedient route to separation entailed a quick and sharp and violent turning away from convention, and I think these maneuvers can readily be described by the term "angular." At least, that's how I understand the term.
Anyway, here's a trailer for the film, something I'd recommend whole-heartedly to anyone who can be moved by the things I've waved at in the three points above.
