Punk’s First Epics Pt. 1: Minutemen’s Double Nickels on the Dime Turns 40

In a way, the common thread with artists signed to SST Records in the 1980s was that they were all too good for hardcore, and for the many of those who became legendary, they mostly were.

Black Flag, Sonic Youth, Descendents, Meat Puppets and Dinosaur Jr. all either invented or crashed the punk ethos headfirst into other genres: metal, art-school noise, the sound that would become pop-punk, psychedelic country and Neil Young’s hippie-grunge, respectively. And two of the very best SST signees contributed to 1984 — known as one of the greatest years in music history particularly for its world-shattering pop phenomena (Purple Rain, Like a Virgin, Born in the U.S.A.) — with two of the world’s only sprawling punk epics up to that point, and the two best since London Calling. (Yes, I’m a big fan of Public Image Ltd.’s influential, aptly “Death Disco”-keyed Metal Box, though it’s to the left of maybe even Sonic Youth’s artiest post-punk, and Crass’ Christ – The Album kind of cheats; one disc is live.)

The workmanlike, increasingly melodic Hüsker Dü and their own magnum opus Zen Arcade is for another essay, but it was released on the same day 40 years ago as the Minutemen’s 45-song Double Nickels on the Dime, which is also the most blatantly referential of these; another way to stand out on SST besides releasing 45-song albums is to cover Steely Dan, Creedence and Van Halen. The latter’s future leader Sammy Hagar even unwittingly inspired the title with his first-world-problems bitchfest “I Can’t Drive 55.” (It’s too bad Christgau’s original review miscounted or Zen Arcade and Double Nickels on the Dime would have 69 songs between them.)

AUDIO: Minutemen “Ain’t Talkin’ Bout Love”

Minutemen deemed themselves too good for hardcore the moment they named their band that, and joined their U.K. forebears Gang of Four in profferring staunchly principled, funk-infused punk — you can really hear Entertainment! in Nickels’ bass-popping “Maybe Partying Will Help,” whose title also echoes the former in its sardonic indictment of, well, their very job as entertainers. “Storm in My House” and the more hyperactive “The Roar of the Masses Could Be Farts” certainly know their Andy Gill and Hugo Burnham, too, even if Mike Watt’s song-surrounding fretwork on bass is far, far more hyper than any of Gof4’s agile low-end slingers. Their cover of “Doctor Wu,” not even half as long as the original, typifies this combination of ambitious and frenetic, though their 40-second, CD-absent “Ain’t Talkin’ ‘Bout Love” could actually be mistaken for Gang of Four until those winking-bro hey-hey-heys take it out. 

It’s always tempting to slot everyone in musical dichotomy as either a Beatles or Stones, and I think the backwards “Hare Krsna” stuff on Zen Arcade confirms Minutemen are the Stones of this one. But if Zen Arcade is hardcore’s own sweeping, try-anything London Calling, Double Nickels is the era’s answer to a punk “epic” I haven’t mentioned yet: Wire’s Pink Flag. At just 35 minutes, Wire’s explosive debut is anything but sprawling yet I don’t really buy that they’re minimalists; sure, “Field Day for the Sundays” comprises all of 28 seconds on early on, but it packs a lot of information into that span. “Ex-Lion Tamer” is full, that catchy distorted riff fills the audio space, the verse, pre-chorus, and chorus are written to completion, and would minimalists be thoughtful enough to layer in those “TV” backing vocals?

Fact is, the Minutemen are a lot more minimal than Wire, and rougher and cruder — D. Boon was born to be a punk vocalist with his ratio of exclamations and grunts to actual “singing” of melodies. Doesn’t need ‘em, the riffs and rhythms get to zigzag and chop and swing and thrash however they’d like without losing momentum. But these little jams and ditties that mostly don’t exceed two minutes share with Wire that awesome feeling that they’re coming into existence as the studio rolls tape. Unedited “chaff” as the band lovingly put it, such as George Hurley’s goofball-nothing “You Need the Glory,” definitely supports this theory.

In some ways, the album is the ultimate work of artistic democracy: a trio each had their way for one side and threw a bunch of other shit at the end. But plenty of art cries out for dictators and there’s unquestionably bits here or there (see: “You Need the Glory”) that I wouldn’t miss at all to get a definitive tracklist on the CD. What I love about Double Nickels on the Dime is the tension between loose and tight: experimentations and improvisations and unadorned first takes corralled into tiny, tiny segments of brilliance, microscopic, discordant meetings of riff and groove and declamation thrown together and then pause, and then another one.

It’s fun to look up and see which title is clawing its way into your mind (right now, the slower “Jesus and Tequila”) or to match it up later when the album isn’t playing. “Themselves” actually does share Husker’s anthemic melodic facility and “My Heart and the Real World” is almost a parody of a pop progression before the solo breakdown, but for the most part, Minutemen’s big masterpiece doesn’t leave you begging for the occasional sweetener or need to. Your ear will find those rewards on their own, like when the elegiac “History Lesson [Pt. II]” gives the definitive ‘80s indie history Our Band Could Be Your Life its name. Or when “The Politics of Time” bridges the needlepoint precision of hardcore and Ornette Coleman’s clattering dissonance. Or when “God Bows to Math” invents Parquet Courts 30 years early.

Ultimately, I’m bullshitting talking about these titles like I know them. I have no doubt many lovers of this band can rattle them off, but not me. Me and my highly approving ADHD have no choice but to be in it for the sprawl and the blur of cacophonous funk riffs and mini-grooves and jokes/breathers that pause and reload so fast you might as well be listening to actual hardcore. I know the album is great because every time I have put it on it has been a blast, not because off the top of my head i can connect more than a few names (“Political Song for Michael Jackson to Sing,” “Toadies,” “Corona,” likely all because of their extracurricular cross-cultural significance) to trace memories of the “tune” itself. Discovering a few years ago that they made a pretty good music video for “This Ain’t No Picnic” helped it gain its rightful place in my Dime plays as a shoutalong highlight as well. The palm-muted propulsion of “Little Man With a Gun in His Hand” stands out by simply existing long enough to register in the mind at 3:53.

But I can agree it’s punk to introduce the double album concept to sloppy and disorganized and unlayered execution, especially of music so strong and fiercely performed. My very favorite, “The Glory of Man,” one of Mike Watt’s more philosophical contributions, succeeds in making its abrasions feel live-wire grandiose. And it’s also punk how the band’s best-known song by far, “Corona” by one of the smartest bands, achieved its ubiquity as the theme song for Jackass, a show that elevated dumbness to a higher plane of art forms.

All I could wish is that D. Boon got to live much, much longer than one year after the release of Double Nickels on the Dime, not just to enjoy his influence as an agitpropper and accomplished frayed-funk guitarist, but because he really knew how to live life. His music has certainly helped a lot of other people live theirs.

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Dan Weiss

Dan Weiss is a freelance writer living in New Jersey.

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