"[ applause ]" "[ "Joe McCarthy's Ghost" plays ]" "Can you be sure of the goddamn time of day?" "Can you take the dirt from the fist of a foreigner?" "Are you gonna fight" "When they call out your number?" "Can you toe the line?" "Can you repeat what you've been told?" "Can you bite the bullet?" "Can you see the enemy?" "Can you point your finger?" "Prove your loyalty?" "Joe McCarthy, Joe McCarthy, Joe McCarthy, Joe McCarthy" "Joe McCarthy, Joe McCarthy" "Joe McCarthy's ghost" "Joe McCarthy, Joe McCarthy, Joe McCarthy, Joe McCarthy" "Joe McCarthy, Joe McCarthy, Joe McCarthy" "[ applause ]" "And Eskimo." "And, uh." "You tell them about the music, about your mom making me play bass." "[ Laughter ]" "Are we ready?" "Yeah." "Okay, can we go in for a two-shot?" "Boon and Mike." "Oh, yeah." "I met D. Boon when I was 13." "He was 1 3, also." "And where we lived in the park, he was playing army, and he fell out of a tree On me." "D. Boon played guitar." "This is the tree." "And I come out here." "I think right here." "And he leaps out on me." "I was like, "Whoa."" "This guy in this T-shirt." "He goes, "You're not Eskimo."" "I go, "No, I'm not Eskimo."" "And so we start talking." "And he couldn't find his friends." "They all had bailed or something." "So we start walking back across the field." "And he's telling me all these little bits, you know?" "Like, I'm thinking, "God damn." "This is the smartest dude in the world."" "He's just rattling off all these little bits." "And the next day he brings me to his pad in Park Western." "And he plays me this record, and all the bits he was doing was from this record." "Oh, my God, D. Boon." "You didn't make any of this up." "This was all stuff that you had heard off the record." "But I didn't know it at the time." "But I was quite smitten with him." "So that's actually our beginning." "It was right here." "well, after 1O years of looking into the mirror" "ronald Reagan seems quite appealing" "It's easier running in a pack" "Shouting anthems and praying to God" "Don't we know what we're doing?" "We've done it before" "Everybody swing to the right" "Give me an armband, give me a reason" "Give me a sunshine, give me a rifle" "Don't we know what we're doing?" "We've done it before" "Everybody swing to the right" "JEAN WATT:" "There was something magical about Mike Watt and D. Boon." "Maybe because they grew uptogether and knew each other so well" "Hejust loved D.Boon." "The Minutemen were just so unique." "And I guess something like that can't really " "It's impossible for something like that to come about unless you're Mike Watt and D. Boon growing up together from when you're little kids." "When you meet some people in your life and play music with them and there's some kind of chemistry, it's this magic thing that happens." "AnditreaIIy happened withthose guys." "They were like three bros." "It was like they probably went to elementary school together." "They were probably all born in the same hospital at the same time." "Not from the same mother, though." "When I first started going over to D. Boon's house, the first thing D. Boon got me into was history." "He was reading all these history books." "But then another thing he used to do was play guitar." "His mother made him play guitar." "She played guitar when she was younger." "At first I was playing bass." "But my mom didn't want me to play bass." "She wanted him to play bass." "So I had to." "It's not that he had to, but he agreed." "I agreed." "Dennes' mom wanted him to Iearn "instruments"" "and stay off the street and stay out of trouble." "So she would let them play." "In fact, I remember one of the neighbors saying to her," ""How can you stand playing there?" "I mean, them in the house making all that racket?"" "And she goes, "well, I know where my son is. "" "Johnnygotagun, ack,ack,ack,ack" "Yeah, Johnny's got a gun, ack, ack, ack, ack" "Like this, ack, ack, ack, ack" "Like this, ack, ack, ack, ack" "AIIthe papers wrote aboutJohnny" "All the writers shot him down" "He got his gun and shot himself" "Ack, ack, ack, ack" "When D. Boon's ma had me play bass, we were so far at the gigs I never saw a bass up close." "You know." "Now, you could see on the album covers it only had four strings." "But I didn't really know they were bigger strings." "So we thought they were guitars with only four strings." "We didn't really know they were bigger strings." "[ chuckles ]" "It was really strange when I first saw a bass." "I remember we started high school, and I was bragging to some guy about playing bass in 1Oth grade." "But anyway, I see this guitar with these bridge cables, and this guy sees me in the store." "Then he sees me tripping out on this." "He goes, "What are you looking at?"" "I go, "God damn." "Look at this thing."" "And he goes, "I thought you were a bass player."" "And I said, "I am."" "He goes, "well, that's a bass."" "And I said, "Oh, I know that. "" "But I fucking didn't know that." "I had never seen one." "It blew my mind." "And we used to sit there and maybe play "Smoke on the Water"" "over and over again." "One riff." "Andittook aboutmaybetwoyears before wefigured that you havetotunetogether." "Tuning the strings, they get tighter or looser." "They said they didn't think it was a matter of tuning them." "They just thought some guys liked them loose and some guys liked them tight." "They would just say, "Oh, I Iike mine tight."" ""I Iike mine loose." "I'm just gonna rock."" "It was on the TV" "Yeah, it's hard to believe" "Thefoodcoupons" "Everyone with the same clothes on" "Their minds weep" "Like caged sheep" "Standing around" "Preaching." "You got to believe" "To be successful" "They won't feel fucking relief" "Remember the American will soon be history" "BOON:" "We used to get together in my room." "It was these old projects." "These Navy projects that were condemned back in the '4Os." "And we'd set up there and rehearse." "Not rehearse." "It was your house, too." "We'd sit there and play like one riff over and over again." "And my mom was very supportive." "She let us do it even though she hated it." "She liked it." "We did have a band called the Bright Orange Band in high school, not writing our own songs." "And then we played a party, and we tried out for a talent show." "Which we lost terribly." "Yeah, here's San Pedro High school" "This is where we graduated in 'T6, all three of us." "Both of them had moms that supported what they were doing." "Never said, "Oh, why don't you guys quit this shit?"" "Theyweregunghoonit." "And I think that has a Iot to do with it, when your parents are supportive of your talents or your arts." "I was very excited for them." "And I went to as many things as I couId go to." "And I thought it was really wonderful that they did this themselves." "They didn't have a Iot of adult support." "Ah." "Graduate high school We're 18 years old." "D. Boon's ma dies that month." "She dies when we're 1 8." "And it really tore our lives apart." "especially D. Boon's family." "It just collapsed because she was a strong, strong pillar." "Mom was basically everything to him." "He talked a Iot about her." "And when she passed away, D. Boon's life changed." "This is a couple spieIs that I've written down on the road." "It's out to all you mothers and fathers." ""Create forums in which your children can learn the beauty of the world throughthe arts so they can pass it on to their children." "That's what my parents did for me."" "Against a stackfuI of comics" "Here comes the line" ""l'm loaded with rocket fuel"" "Industry, industry, we are tools of the industry" "Their laundry, bleached of identity" "You stand here naked I stand here naked" "Both on the pavement" "Why are we different?" "You stand here naked I stand here naked" "Both on the pavement" "Why are we different?" "Punk comes in 'T6, too, the year we graduate." "And what struck us about punk." "well, the big thing about it right off the bat was, man, these guys are all weirdos." "But they don't care." "In fact, they kind of celebrate it." "So in a Iot of ways, it was the perfect scene for us." "You know, it was like all these misfits." "Punk rock at the time wasn't a term for a set of musical parameters." "It wasn't at all" "It wasn't a term for what kind of amp you used and how you set it and what kind of clothes you wore." "And that was the great thing about it." "Punk rock was kind of like i m med lacy , i n tens i ty , honesty , exp ress ion ." "exploring things that interested them and exploring them really hard." "[ applause ]" "Undetermined where to go" "No solutions to our problems oliticians possess this nation" "No answers to our questions" "Running in a maze" "The masses Iedbyignorance" "Led to the guillotine" "politicians say we're free" "Now, this thing." "It's Petco now." "Okay, but one of the." "There used to be a little deaIio here." "This was Chuck's Sound of Music." "This is where I bought my first T. Rex records, my Creedence records, where I saw my first bass, where we met Roy Mendez-Lopez." "mostly the instruments they had were school things, right?" "Horns and stuff like this." "But they actually had a couple Fenders." "Most stores did not have Fenders." "It's so much different now, the culture for music." "And if you're a young person, it's so much easier to be in a band." "It's so funny when people talk about the "good old days."" "Because in a Iot of ways, they were Iame-ass!" "The people who made music and were in bands were in a whole nother world far from you." "Come out." "You couldn't have that." "Eventhe skateboards, you know,clay wheels." "You couldn't go in the street." "Those were scooters, huh?" "The same idea." "We were more kept in our place." "You know, nowadays you're kept in your place more by your mind." "More by the herd mentality than actually having the material and wherewithal to do things." "Let's say I got a gun" "In my hand" "Six slugs, six points of view" "materialism." "Let's say I got a book" "In my hand" "5O,OOO words, 5O,OOO translations" "idealism." "Tear up your dictionaries, tear up your dictionaries" "Tear up your dictionaries, tear up your dictionaries" "well, it's no mystery how I met these guys." "Even though we're the same age and we did go to the same school and graduate the same year," "I didn't know them till after high school was over." "And I met Mike at a friend's house." "I think it was the time when he passed out in the bathroom and locked the door on all of us." "[ Laughs ]" "Then he said, "Hey, join my band."" "So I said, "AII right, dude." [ Laughs ]" "And I met D. Boon." "Whatpossessedyou?" "I always thought that was really open-minded of him." "especially in those days where people hated, 99 percent ofpeopIe hated punk." "They thought it was the most insane, horrible thing that anybody could be part of." "And Georgie kind of saw a Iot like us, too." "You know, hey, this is an opportunity to play music, play our own thing." "I think George was the first guy I ever felt was playing funk rhythms." "playing like ParIiament-FunkadeIic and playing really fast." "plus his stick stuck in his sock." "That was a nice touch." "It was no joke." "They could really play." "George!" "Man, George is a powerhouse." "He drives with his upper body." "Most drummers, maybe they'II lead, for the most part, with their kick drum and then everything else." "But not George." "He's a real musician." "AII three of them were, but George had crazy chops." "You would just watch him doing just over/under high-hat stuff." "Like Buddy Rich kind of." "You're like, "Where is that coming from?"" "obviously he had the chopstogether." "You know, he was just as much a central core of the musical sphere that they were spinning asthe bass and guitar and vocals." "He wasn't drumming along." "He was drumming with." "I hadn't played drums that long before I started recording." "Maybe a year and a half." "And I think that you try so hard to play, that you really." "You really make an overall effort to really try and make parts sound right." "You come up with things that maybe someone never heard before or something." "You find a way to make them work, you know, without being too influenced by other drummers that were progressively better than you." "Who the hell made the safe man7." "peripheral vision corkscrews into thought" "Lanterns, mufflers flatten" "Thick and planer, fit into rolls aced and sad" "Syrup, Iackng" "Totaled ack a chunk of the sun" "glue it to your heart, hold on" "We make this band in 1 9T9 called the Reactionaries with me, D. Boon, George hurley, and a guy named Martin Tamburovich singing." "We saw a Iot of rock concerts." "You know, big shows." "The Forum, the california Jam." "We used to go all the time." "We were under the impression you had to be part of the special elite to do music." "The other way it was like models." "You just learned that song somehow in the bedroom, you played it, and you got joy out of it." "We didn't think you could actually do them in front of people." "When we saw these other lame dudes doing it, you know, we thought, "Whoa." "That's not the point."" "The point is just trying to get away with whatever you can." "You don't have to be part of any machine." "Exceptmaybeyourown." "The clash played in Pedro in 19T9." "The clash played up in Santa Monica, but we went to the gig." "And black flag was handing out flyers." "We hadthousands offIyers, and we were putting them on every car at the parking lot for the Civic." "Passing them out to all the people who came in and out." "And we met Mike Watt and D. Boon." "There they were from Pedro where we were putting the show on." "They couldn't believe there was a Pedro band." "Because we said we had a band." "We couldn't believe it, too, that there was gonna be a gig in our town." "Wasn't hollywood, you know?" "So they said, "Why don't you play?"" "So this ends up the Reactionaries' first gig." "actually, our first show was in San Pedro with black flag," "PIugz, alley Cats, and the Descendents." "I think it's in February of 19T9." "And it was over here at a teen post." "This was very heavy hood at the time." "still is pretty gnarly." "They had thesethings inthe'6Os and early'TOs called teen posts." "They try to give kids things to do." "There's four apartments here." "But this was a little hall, and they had fixed it up really nice." "And here Dukowski rented it." "And all these people from hollywood came down." "The cops had to lock all these people from the suburbs in because the locals were gonna kill them because they wrecked their toilet." "It's funny how hardcore is supposed to be kind of revolutionary, but it's not." "I n a Iot of ways it works against the people they're supposedly supposedtosupport." "Maybe that's why a Iot of it went racist and the skinheads and stuff." "Because it's like playground to me, a Iot of it." "We used it for music, for freedom to do what we wanted." "But, as far as -- I couldn't believe it." "They'd come down here into this poor neighborhood and wreck these people's teen post they just fixed up." "This is one of the reasons why the Reactionaries broke up." "[ Laughs ]" "I mean, it was also an idea of D. Boon's." "He didn't think we needed a snger and wanted it just to be a trio." "So he breaks up the band, and we actually." "Georgie joins this New Wave band in hollywood called Hey, Taxi!" "Anyway, here's the apartment." "And there's the window." "That window right there." "That's the bedroom." "That's where we started the Minutemen." "That's where we wrote all our first batch of songs." "And Joe Baiza's living downstairs." "And I heard someone working on a Who song upstairs." "And that's when I was into punk rock, and I thought, "Why would someone be playing the Who?"" "So I open the door, and there's this chubby guy with kind of long hair." "And he has an army jacket and a pil button." ""Oh, hi, guys." "I just heard you play." "I thought I'd come down and say hello."" "And we started to talk some more, and then he was telling me he was in another band before, and he said it was the Reactionaries." "I remembered meeting him that night when Mike broke his bass." "So then we started talking some more, and he came in." "Jack met him, and we were hanging out." "And we became friends at that point." "You're son of a martyr" "You're a son of a father" "Here to look inside you" "Here to look inside us" "You can put it together" "Or pull it apart" "relapse unconscious" "You don't remember" "You don't remember" "Ain't no fucking way" "So the Minutemen get together with this drummer, Frank Tonche." "Get together with him actually at the end of February." "And we do a gig in april with black flag." "Greg Ginn of black flag saw us, our first gig as M inutemen." "When we got rid of the singer and changed our name to Minutemen." "And he said, "You want to make a record?" at our first gig." "CouIdn't believe it." "A month later we do a gig at Harbor college here, where I went to school, too." "Got my degree." "ThatIneverused." "I majored in punk rock." "With PIugz and the Gears." "But the drummer freaks out after the gig." "H e thnks punk roc is an insane scene and quits." "They were gonna record their first single." "And I guess Frank got cold feet and didn't want to do it." ""What the hell?"" "I said, "Mike, I'II do it for you."" "It was seven songs." "That's where we get Georgie, you know, the next month." "Teach him aIIthe songs." "And in the third week of july, we record the first Minutemen record, "Paranoid Time."" "I told them I'd never play with them again." "And that's where Minutemen took off from there." "[ "Fascist" plays ]" "Don't preach your structure of society" "Perverted ideas of reality" "Your words of freedom and common cause" "Your words of hate and war and others lost I can't follow a man on a white horse" "His means of control, they all look too coarse" "Tyranny is the real word" "Where voices and opinions are never heard" "We all work in a working mass" "We all work for the ruling class" "The state relies on the working man" "W ho obeysthe party and the fatherland" "They all kneel to the party elite" "All enslaved to the fascists" "We had in our mind like black flag was sort of the -- that's SST." "At some point in that time frame," "SST Number 2 came out, which was the Minutemen "Paranoid Time" EP." "I thought it was kind of interesting that black flag would use what little money they had to put out another band almost immediately on SST." ""Oh, who's this band?"" "It turned out it wasn't a band that sounded like black flag at all" "It wasn't a band that really that much sounded like anybody." "It was the perfect foIIow-up to "Nervous Breakdown," I thought." "The songs were appealing because although they were "political,"" "they weren't didactic." "They dealt with politics in a really impressionistic way." "And I just said, "This is one of the most original things" "I've ever heard."" ""Paranoid Time" the song I thought was really great." "That was the one that I think, coming out of the hardcore background, that was the one that was closest to my genre." "Where I couId go, "Okay." "These guys are contributing something with this song."" "When you listen to "Paranoid Time"" "You have to realize these weren't just songs." "These people are really paranoid." "This one's for ronald Reagan." "I try to work, and I keep thinking of world War I I I" "I try to talk to girls, and I keep thinking of world War I I I" "The 6:" "OO news" "Makes sure I keep thinking ofWorldWar Ill" "I got a mile of numbers and a ton of stats" "Of warheads, a billion Chinese warheads" "I don't even worry about crime anymore" "So many goddamn scared faces" "I keep thinking of Russia, Mother Russia" "aranoid, stuck on overdrive aranoid, scared shitless" "MOORE:" "Seeing D. Boon just sort of rocking, jumping up and down and just blowing out these songs." "Watt just like completely utter conviction." "And then the drummer playing all this kind of wigged-out prog-jazz fury drums." "And." "So it kind of blew minds." "The record blew our minds." "It was not Iike any music we'd ever listened to." "We couldn't understand how they would have played it." "We couldn't get any idea of who they were." "We couldn't picture them." "The record was just a drawing on the front." "The lyrics are so provocative." "really, Iike, head-scratching." "It was something that you could really spend some time with, and it's a short record." "What is it, Iike 3 1/2 minutes long?" "You know, the songs really went by fast." "They really played a Iot of songs in a set." "And even if they had riffs, bythetimeanybody had something to hold on to, they were on to the next song." "You got to understand we were never called Minutemen for, Iike, minute songs," "like we always got explained by people." "It was this parody on these right-wingers." "And the whole idea of rock bands being big giants, we would be like minute men." "I can't imagine in the early days bands like Hüsker Dü, Minutemen playing arenas." "It was too intimate, the i r pe rfo rmances ." "They don't work with all the smoke and the lighting and the special effects and the airplanes and whatever you have to do on a big stage." "That was not part of the scene." "Part of the scene was you get up, you play your heart out." "Yeah,Iet'stake the essence ofthetune and just do it, and that's that." "Nobody had done that before." "AII the other bands were holding to verses and choruses." "So manyofthesongs, the Iyrics, when you read them, are just like haiku." "Or it's like a proposition by Wittgenstein." "It's just like a really simple statement." "It doesn't have a Iot of floral language surrounding it." "It's just like a little kernel of an intellectual idea." "That always really appealed to me." "It didn't blow away the hardcore kids." "It was a little too maybe grown-up." "It was a different kind of intelligence." "It wasn't like "police beat me" kind of thing." "It didn't have that agony." "Some people just didn't get it." "Being spit on kind of -- That kind of sucks." "But you can't see where it's coming from, so you can't really blame anybody." ""Let's spit on them."" "These kids from Orange County just took after the english really well" "They would spit." "Butanyhow, Ijust gotthe overspray." "Mike and D., they got most of it." "They were always getting colds." "I never knew why." "We're doing it without two strings." "Is that punk enough for you guys spitting?" "I'II come and see your band, all right?" "Huh, fan?" "Huh, punk rock fan?" "[ Crowd shouting ]" "Let's hold the spit down." "Spit on me." "Get belligerent." "Right on." "Right." "Right." "[ Crowd shouting ]" "[ "sickies and Hammers" plays ]" "[ Crowd shouting ]" "ROELAND:" "Dennes was singing, and spit was just going right in his mouth." "They did not care." "They finished their set, and the crowd was kind of like." "And after they finished," "I think the crowd kind of, Iike, changed their mind." "You have to do a Iot of growing up all of a sudden." "If you couldn't get through that." "I mean, where you're singing and some kid gobs a spit wad right in your mouth." "I thought it was funny the way they moved back off the stage." "Like, "We're not going anywhere." "You guys aren't getting rid of us that easy."" "Your face fell into my eyes" "I heard your friend call me a communist" "Smoked butts off the fleetwood floor" "There I was in a vacuum" "pulled down by guilty weights, you know" "well, I am afraid of you" "I'd wear out my knees for you" "But this is not a love song" "Aah!" "WATT:" "Me and D. Boon, you know, we really didn't know that many art people." "B oon was artistic, could paint and stuff like that." "But there was no culture art, you know?" "I guess everybody comes to it in different ways." "But the way we came to it was through punk." "Which is kind of hard for some people to expect." "To believe." "Because they see some kind of violent movement, people beating each other up and spitting on each other." "Shit like that." "There was some stuff like that, too." "But especially in the 'TOs and older punk, there was a Iot of art people." "Had a big influence on us." "For D. Boon," "I know it brought out stuff that was already into him." "For me, it got me really curious." "I started reading about these things like Dada and Futurist and surrealist, stuff like this." "Pettibon turns me on to John coltrane and Ornette coleman." "There are so many ideas in their music." "And Mike's bass playing is so over the top and so full of ideas." "And the band has such an amazing spirit." "The M inutemen give off the vibe of the excitement of that more than just about any band I can think of." "They just seem, Iike, so happy and inspired to be up there playing, you know?" "So it really does make me feel good to think that I played some kind of role in making Mike want to do that." "Rock 'n' roll, as usual, was a fairly toxic concept." "Rock 'n' roll was once an antidote to all this crap." "I always regard the Minutemen as still a part of the solution." "But there was a kind of a respect you had to not be a clone." "It was like if you were gonna be part of this, you had to contribute." "You don't want to be a cookie cutter or a Xerox machine." "Had to come up with your own ideas." "And this is what the Minutemen were doing." "And then some in those days, but a Iot later on, and then with the hardcore people, too, people would say, "How can you call this punk?"" ""Why is it punk?" "You don't sound punk." "You don't look punk."" "You know?" "That would always strike us as such narrow-minded shit." "The Minutemen." "I think those guys, Iike, were total punks in the sense of they were not fitting in the mold of what a punk should theoretically look like." "playing blues to punks, that's pretty punk." "And Minutemen going out there, being Pedro dudes doing their whole total thing." "Some of their music was so abrasive-sounding." "Espec ia I Iy com pa red to the kind of more simple or kind of raging kind of punk rock." "Their stuff is more weirdly off-kiIter and kind of herky-jerky and just wouldn't give you the really." "[ Tapping ]" "Which you kind of wanted to hear." "A ton of white-boy guilt, that's my problem" "obstacle to joy, one reason to use some drugs" "slept on a beach, slept in trash" "American trash" "Thinking too much can ruin a good time" "I asked a Mexican who ran a bar for Americans" ""Who won" l said, "the election7. "" "He laughed, I felt like a gringo" "They played a song, they had some fun with us" "Why can't you buy a good time?" "Why are there soldiers in the streets?" "Why did I spend the 4th in someone else's country?" "The Minutemen, to me, were this band that sort of stood out on the "Rodney on the roa" record." "The first "Rodney on the roa," volume One record." "I had sort of heard their name in FIipside and stuff." "I didn't really get a handle on them." "Their name kind of stuck out because it wasn't the usual kind of West Coast punk rock name." "They weren't BerkIee school of Music-taught musicians." "They were just three dudes from Pedro thatjust happened to play and just had, you know, that mix that they just gelled." "They got lumped in with the hardcore scene." "But they were anything but." "They would cover Creedence clearwater and blue Oyster cult." "And to them, that was just their way of expressing," ""We're not really just punk rock." "We're part of this bigger continuum of rock 'n' roll "" "And D. Boon, I think, was an inspiration." "He's large, you know?" "Watching him play guitar, his fingers were real fat, but he could bust out the greatest leads." "When it came down to playing, they were on top of it." "They just rattled off the songs." "32-song sets." "Just bam!" "They were just great players." "They kind of brought this whole other level of musicianship to this underground music scene." "They had a Iot of comedy in their music." "They could be funny, if you read their lyrics." "And sometimes pissed off." "Dennes seemed a bit angry in some of his lyrics about certain things." "Maybe that's stuff he felt inside and it was coming across in their music." "That's what I sense in that kind of music." "And they're nice guys." "They're always fun to be around and stuff" "Kind of like the Three Stooges in a good way." "Andthey hadthe Three Stooges plastered in the back of their van in the window." "So when they drove by, you'd see the window." "And there would be the big poster of the Three Stooges." "Maybe more like Abbott and costello with somebody else thrown in the mix." "Mike and D." "No, I'm just kidding." "It's laurel and Hardy." "Mike and D. Boon, it was like twins." "They had like a secret language." "And you could just see them. ." "I mean, when they would communicate." "they didn't have to really speak." "They were just these little evil twins that would just sort of push each other into things." "Mike Watt, to me, was the heart of the band." "He was the heartbeat." "He was the bass player, right?" "Ba-boom, boom, boom, boom, ba-boom" "He was the heartbeat." "And D. Boon, to me, was the soul" "They lived what they said." "They believed in it 1OO percent." "1,OOO percent." "And the more you spent time with them, the more you realized that this was so real" "And it just felt so good to be a part of something that was absolute truth." "As truthful as it could be with its faults, you know?" "And they were the first ones to admit if they were wrong." "They made their own world in a rock band." "And so." "That's even more rare than just being a good band." "They were all, George, D. Boon, Mike, all great musicians and performers and writers." "But the Minutemen really " "There wasn't very many punk rock bands that could play at all" "The Minutemen could actually play their instruments." "They were so unusuaIon stage." "especially this interplay between Mike and D." "You know, D. being this really heavyset guy bouncing around like he was lighter than air on the guitar." "And Watt being really." "Just being Watt on stage, I guess." "And this great drummer in George hurley playing really different stuff than you would imagine a hardcore-type band's drummer playing." "He was such a finessey drummer that had all these different things he could do." "I guess in general all three of them were like that." "They were real players in a certain hand." "And that sort of put them aside from the simple three-chord punk rock thing." "I'd always try to push articles on them." "I'd try to sneak them into " "people would say, "I want a thing on hardcore bands."" "So I'd put them in." "people would say, "I want a thing on psychedelic bands."" "So like, "Oh, yeah." "I'II put them in."" "You know, stuff like that." "You know, you could sort of squeeze them in to almost any kind of generic overview of contemporary L.A. stuff." "Because they really were unique in terms of what they did." "It was just a brilliant moment in time thatthey hadthatenergy to transcend any and all musical boundaries." "Without getting bogged down as a rockabilly band or as a hardcore thrash band, that they could not really fit or belong anywhere, which was part of their magic." "What can be romantic to Mike Watt7." "His body's only a skeleton" "A series of points" "With no height, length, or width" "In his body he feels life" "His only connection" "Between the yelling and the sleep" "His life's the toughest riddle" "He's chalk" "He's a dart board" "Sex disease" "He's a stop sign" "He's chalk" "He's a dart board" "Sex disease" "He's a stop sign" "We were recording the "Fat" EP with Spot." "And Spot, in between takes, basically, was editing the "Punch Line" EP for the M inutemen." "I hadn't heard too much of the M inutemen, and I was hearing snippets of "Punch Line" all the time." "I was just like, "Wow." "These guys are really wild." "They're really different." "It's bizarre music."" "To me it sounded very bizarre." "WATT:" "Some of these songs have like only two lines of lyrics." "They're so bizarre." "A Iot of these songs aren't even a minute." "A Iotofthem are 4O seconds and stuff." "38 seconds." "Again, they weren't supposed to stand on their own." "They were supposed to be part of this big river." "And the ability for them to just kind of shift gears from song to song in the way they did." "Where in a way the Minutemen sets created their own momentum." "It wasn't about so much individual songs." "It was about the entire process that you were going through." "It seemed abstract to me and angular kind of music, you know?" "I was just "Wow, " you know." "I was listening to that." "Andthe songs were so short,too." "I wasn't used to that." "Just when I didn't think the song was done, it'd stop." "Or Mike was kind of nervous, and he'd thump a few more notes and mumble something and just kick into the next song." "A measured distance between centuries" "Issuesyouyournumber, you poseur" "WATT:" "So with Minutemen we really wanted to have more of our own sound." "Soweusedthese" "still, you know, the culture of copying records and stuff." "We were still influenced by other bands." "Sowehadthesebands from england called Pop Group and Wire." "Wire are quite aware of the fact that we were influential on a few of the kind of hardcore bands in America." "And I think specifically how it happened was that Wire's kind of minimality, the kind of brutal way of, you can do a song with one chord." ""Wire do it." "Why don't we do it?"" "I think that had an effect in America in a way that it didn't have perhaps in Britain." "Then Pop Group took Captain Beefheart and mixed it with FunkadeIic." "You know, funk music had a big influence on me because I couldn't really hear, except for guys like Jack Bruce and John EntwistIe, I couldn't really hear bass." "IcouIdn'thearthe bass on a Creedence song." "So it had a big influence on me." "And then Captain Beefheart." "When we first heard punk, you know, we thought Beefheart, Stooges, these guys were way ahead." "They already were punk without there being that label yet." "We the black sheep" "Found, forgive" "Choose ourself, make or gain" "Neednotourconscience" "The strongest survive" "The blind lead the blind, decree not our method" "Size up our effort, make our way" "Bleed our minds" "Make our way" "Bleed our minds" "[ Cheers and applause]" "I got to tell you how excited we were to be asked." "to do this album." "I mean, "Punch Line" came out in December." "And they pressed 3OO, and they all sold right away." "So I think maybe that's why Greg asked us." "But he was a big fan of the band, too." "So we started writing songs for our first real album." "We went back to Dennes' place in Torrance." "He had an apartment there." "He played us an acetate of his new record, "What Makes a Man Start Fires?"" "And that's when I thought," ""These guys just ain't your garden-variety punk rock thing." "|" "There's something really good 9OIn9 On.'" "They were moving beyond the initial aesthetic." "And they were showing the rest of the punk rock community that you could make a more expansive statement." "When they put that out, then it was like, "Oh."" "Sort of like when the Germs put out their first record." "Everyone kind oftookthem for granted." "And then they realized, "Oh, my God." "This is art."" "They were exciting." "They were different." "They had a Iot of elements to them." "And they mixed them up as they went along, too, so that was cool" "It was almost like not avant-garde, but kind of like avant-garage." "The pieces were so short." "And I found that attractive and fascinating." "The Pettibon drawing on the cover was really fascinating." "Everything about it fascinated me." "That's when you notice that Mike stopped playing with a pick and started playing with his fingers." "Man, they really got funky on that record." "There's a song on this record called "The Anchor."" "Georgie wrote the words." "It was about a dream he had." "And it's our first song where we go over two minutes." "It's two minute and five seconds or something." "No, it's 2:3O." "Whew." "It's our opus." "Made a dream last night" "Wish I hadn't awoken" "Wind blew warm in my face" "Naked in an Epsom" "Five beautiful girls raped me" "I was so damn bad" "I took them on" "One at a time" "One at a time" "Wake up" "Heartyanked out" "Anchor" "Dragging" "Behind" "Anchor" "Dragging" ""Bob dylan Wrote P ropaganda Songs. "" "A Iot of people ask me about that song." "Why I wrote it." "I was kind of feeling insecure one day about writing songs that had intense ramifications." "You know, that weren't maybe musical" "ThenIthought, man,you know," "I never knew what words were about, really, as a boy." "They were always like some kind of lead guitar." "But except for Bob dylan." "I used to hear him a Iot." "And his words, I thought, were sort of like your pop talking to you or something." "So I thought, "Oh, man, it's okay if I write songs like that 'cause Bob dylan wrote p ropaganda songs. "" "That's why I wrote that." "[ Man laughs ]" "Some of the people thought" "I was really angry at Bob dylan and everything." "I'm telling you, us Minutemen were insular." "A Iot of our things kept way inside us and never really got out." "So to really know about us," "Ithinkyou haveto ask about us,thesethings." "Because it doesn't seem like anything got out that was understood by people easily." "From our name to our records to our songs." "It all got twisted up." "That's okay." "That's why we do things like this." "I'm waiting in third person" "I'm collecting" "Dispersing information" "Labeled rations" "Bob dylan" "Wrotepropagandasongs" "Bob dylan" "Wrotepropagandasongs" "Manifestos are my windows" "And my proof" "Locations and more rations" "outline my route" "Bob dylan" "Wrotepropagandasongs" "Bob dylan" "Wrotepropagandasongs" "It was really easy writing a song for D. Boon." "I would never have to show him guitar parts." "Sometimes I would write chords on guitar." "I'd show him the chords." "But a Iot of times I couId just write the bass line." "And because we had grown up together, he could immediately come up." "something compatible with it, complement it." "And he was very generous that way." "D. Boon almost had this." "Like, you know, "Chank."" "That guy Jimmy NoIan that plays with James Brown." "He had that kind of funky edge when he played the telecaster." "He was kind of a punk rock." "...Wes Montgomery, without being that breezy." "Like a really aggressive jazz player." "You know, there was a Iot of stuff you could hear in it." "I couId hear some of this country influence." "Like BakersfieId country-western kind of stuff that was in his sound because I grew up listening to some of that stuff as well" "I think more than anything he just developed this sound that was uniquely his own." "He was kind of a contradiction as far as guitar styles go." "He had all that, and to him it was all music." "And his tone was really spiky." "It was really trebIy." "Which I Iearned later from M ike was completely political" "It was a political decision for them to separate bass and treble in a very, very distinctive way as sovereign states." "political sovereignty, anyway." "He had a guitar sound that was like a buzzing insect and a dentist's drill all at the same time, that really cut through the mix." "And it was just real angular and sharp." "And he started developing this really great style that didn't sound like anybody else." "Yeah, it was really brittle and bright." "If I were to get his sound, I would try something like that." "[ Staccato chords play ]" "Oh, there you go." "Yeah." "Isthat close enough?" "I just remember D. Boon careening around the stage and into the audience and bowling people over and not missing a lick." "And I was so blown away by that." "And Mike Watt would do this thing where he'd be standing with his legs spread apart." "And one leg would just be shaking." "He'd puff his cheeks out as he's playing because hejust was sointense." "George hurley had that big lock of hair that would just." "He always wore it up, and then he'd take it out." "Since my legs and arms were busy, all I couId do was shake my hair." "So that's what I did." "D. Boon's just bouncing all over the stage." "I never saw a fat guy move that much, I guess." "There would be this interlude where they'd play just an instrumental part." "And D. Boon would just do this crazy dance." "He did it every night." "Andhehadtheworstshoes I'veeverseenanybodywear." "I was trying to talk him into getting tennis shoes." "And he's, "No, no, no." "This is part of my uniform."" "When he hit the ground or hit that stage," "I mean, things were really "Kuh!" "Kuh!" "Kuh!"" "I think that really amazed them." "They weren't really used to seeing a short-haired guy, as pretty rotund and round as D. Boon was, to be jumping and just going crazy in the air like him." "The people will survive" "In their environment" "AII the dirt, scarcity" "And the emptiness of our South" "The injustice of our greed" "There on the beach" "AII the dirt, scarcity" "And the emptiness of our South" "I couId see it in her eyes" "There on the beach" "But I only had a Corona five-cent deposit" "So "Buzz or howl," we made it for 5O." "That's the Iast record I really played with a pick." "And half of it is done with Spot, the guy who produced all" "Mixed all the Minutemen records up this point." "I think Watt and D. Boon were both saying," ""Let's do something really simple."" "So they were talking about going back to four-track." "So I told Watt, I said," ""Hey, Iet's forget about this multitrack stuff." "Let's just set it up and do it live to two-track."" "You know, one take." "Bam." "It's done." "You mix it while you're playing it and be done with it." "And that's what we did." "The other side, we then met this guy named Ethan James who had a studio called Radio Tokyo." "He was putting together a compilation." "He said, " If you give me a song for that compilation," "I'II record a song free for you."" "So we went, did three songs, put them together, and told him it was one big song." "So we did the other side for free." "I put a letter from Richard MeItzer on the back." "I wrote to Mike," ""Oh, sorry I got to go to this wedding."" "I think it was Vinny GoIia, the saxophone player, was getting married." "And so he actually put my letter on the back of one of the albums." "Richard MeItzer was a big hero to us." "He had written lyrics for the blue Oyster cult." "He used to write for Creem." "We used to read his rock-write as teenagers." "Then we got to meet him, and he wrote us a letter." "And I put it on the back with a Raymond drawing." "actually the album cover was going to be." "I found a picture in national Geographic of all these tropical tree frogs, all these bright colors." "We found out how much it cost for the color separation." "It was 1,OOO bucks." "So I asked Joe Baiza just to draw something about me and D. Boon." "He came up with this in one night." "D. Boon also had a drawing in it, too." "He's getting yelled at at work again." ""Eat your lunch at noon, understand?"" "He had some guy eating at the wrong time." "[ "D.'s Car Jam/Anxious Mo-fo" plays ]" "Serious as a heart attack" "It's the fall of '83." "We have this whole batch of songs ready to go for an album." "Then Hüsker Dü comes to town." "And they had found out that Hüsker Dü was putting out a double live record." "So they went back to my studio, and they start writing more songs." "I guess, Iike, within two weeks they had 2O more songs written and were back in the studio again." ""double nickels on the Dime."" "Remembering 46 songs for a record." "It's kind of crazy." "It took us a Iong time." "I think about a week or two." "You do things when you're young that, man, sometimes you look back, and it's kind of amazing." "I don't think I've gotten any better, though." "I listen to those records," "I wonder how I did some of that stuff." "BOON:" "List monitors arrive with petition." "Iron-fisted philosophy" "Is your life worth a painting?" "Is this girl versus boy with different kind of symbols?" "Being born is power" "Scout leader tagged as big sin" "Your risk chains me hostage" "Me, I'm fighting with my head, am not ambiguous" "Must look like a dork." "Me, naked with textbook poems" "Spout fountain against Nazis" "With weird kinds of sex symbols" "In speeches that are big dance-thumps" "If we heard mortar shells we'd cuss more in our songs" "And cut down on the guitars" "So dig this big crux." "Organizing boy scouts for murder is wrong 1O years beyond the big sweat point" "Man, it was still there, ever without you" "Coming around forjust a second" "Apeek,aguess atthe wholeness" "Then you look at it and it's all together" "At the wholeness that's way too big" "At the wholeness that's way too." "Part of the joke." "Since we didn't have a concept like Hüsker did, we had to kind of make one up." "So we did two themes paraIIeIing each other." "One was "Ummagumma," this Pink floyd record." "Which was a double album, and each got a solo song." "Like a quarter ofone ofthe records." "And then this Sammy Hagar." "Sammy Hagar had come out with a song, you couldn't drive 55." "And called himself the Red Rocker." "So we said, "well, we'II drive 55 and be crazy with the music instead of crazy with the cars. "" "'Cause we thought his music was pretty safe." ""double nickels on the dime"" "means gong exactly 55 miles an hour, which was the freeway speed in those days." "Jimmy Carter, in the 'TOs, had lowered it to conserve fuel" "'Cause ofthe oiIcrunch." "But no one got it." "No one got the Sammy Hagar part." "No one got the "Ummagumma" part." "And then leading up to "double nickels on the Dime,"" "which I think is the greatest record of all time." ""double nickels" is one of the most incredible outpourings of creativity ever." "I'm sure you're going to get everyone in this documentary saying that over and over again, but it's true." "It was this whole new direction." "And it just seemed like music was going to explode into this cacophony of color and sound and creative ideas." "And it seemed so limitless." "probably the best record I ever played on, and it came about totally by accident." "Just 'cause of this process we were engaged in, you know?" "Trying to push our limits, push ourselves." "Pushthescene." "Working on the edge" "Losing my seIf-respect for a man who presides over me" "AII the principles of his creed" "Punchin,punchout" "Eight hours, five days" "AII the sweat and the agony" "On Saturday, I'II get paid" "This ain't no picnic" "This ain't no picnic" "This ain't no picnic" "This ain't no picnic" "Hey, mister, don't look down on me for what I believe" "I've got my bills and the rent" "I should pitch a tent" "But our land isn't free" "So I'II work my youth away" "I n the place of a machine I refuse to be a slave" "This ain't no picnic" "This ain't no picnic" "This ain't no picnic" "This ain't no picnic" "They did "Project:" "Mersh," and that record." "That was a confounding record." "Because on one hand, it was clearly an attempt to be commercial" "But are they trying to hit it?" "I was trying to get my head around it." "And what was even more puzzling about it is how much I Ioved the record." "It has one of the greatest covers of all time." "So D. Boon made this painting of a boardroom where the guys, some record putzes are, Iike, scheming." ""Oh, what will we do to make them accessible?" "I got it!" "We'II have them write hit songs."" "" P roject:" "M e rsh " was no more a Career move than our first record, "Paranoid Time."" "It's just a different way for us to tell our story." "We were trying to get rid of the chains people had on our description of us." "They wouldn't let us be Minutemen." "We had to be filed under Dewey decimal system unde r "Punk/Funk. "" "So we said, "Okay, Iet's use choruses and fade-outs."" "It's only mersh 'cause we said it was mersh." "It sold half as much as our art record," ""double nickels on the Dime."" ""Project:" "Mersh" was, I think, a conscious attempt at actually writing a song that could get played on the radio." "Of course, it didn't." "I mean, radio at the time was more interested in Men At Work or Men Without Hats." "Not the Minutemen." ""Project:" "Mersh," we actually practiced these songs in wilmington at Saccharine Trust's." "Jack Brewer's garage." "The Minutemen were rehearsing in the garage." "I had this neighbor who I'd known for years." "He called me one day while I was in my backyard." "He said, "Jack, talk to you about that band you got rehearsing back there. "" "I said, "Oh, I'm real sorry." "I'II ask them to turn it down. "" "He said, "No, the music's fine." "But in between their songs, these guys are just yelling and hollering and cursing." "It's really disturbing."" "Sometimes michael would just come back, and he'd be like," ""Dennes is writing these songs that are like." "I don't know if I want to play songs like that."" "You know, and I'd go," ""well, you told him to do what he feels is right."" "Right, right." "So the song differences were really extreme sometimes." "You'd seethese." "Yes." "Because michael would write about something he saw on, Iike, some talk show or something." "And Dennes would write about total political unrest in another country." "Oh, they did." "They'd fight over ideas." "They'd fight over a Iot of different things." "But, you know, you don't fight with a stranger the way you fight with someone you love." "And that cover of "Buzz or howl Under Heat, "" "or whatever the name of the record is, that." "I think that's a Joe Baiza drawing." "That was them." "Either about the Communist Manifesto or workers' rights in Cuba or whatever." "They would just." "The relationship between these three guys." "As far as I can tell, it was many things all at once." "Man, they were just going at it." "They were both in the front seat." "D. was driving." "We're saying, "Keep your eyes on the road!"" "He's pointing, and they get real into it, you know?" "And finally, I don't know if it was Mike or D. first." "He said, "When we get home, the band's over!" "That's it!"" "And he goes, "well, George is coming with me!" "George is gonna play in my band!"" "And then D. goes, "George."" "And he, Iike, hits him on the leg." "Georgetakestheheadphonesoff." ""George, when I get back to Pedro," "I'm gonna start my own band." "Are you gonna play with me, or are you gonna play with him?"" "And George said something like," ""I'm not gonna play with either of you." "I'm gonna start my own band."" "Like, screw both of you." "You can't have a revolution without pounding your fist on the table a little bit." "And that was the nature of their relationship, that they used to get into it quite a bit." "But it was always.." "I mean, they were best friends." "There's no tension in between writing songs." "We all write different stuff." "We have our different ideas." "We want a bunch of dimensions to make it look real" "We're into the freedom, you see?" "One of the things that makes us a band is that we all choose our own destinies in what we want to put into the band." "And we don't collaborate on lyrics hardly." "D gets his." "I get mine." "George gets his." ""I want some, too."" "The music is what we mostly collaborate on." "That's what you can share on." "The statement thing, that's real personal" "Words, to us, are constantly changing, you know?" "real personal, too." "It's the music that we spend a whole lot of time on." "You know?" "usually the Iyrics we write down in one day, and there they are." "He writes his in one day." "I take time with mine." "Yes, we have a new album coming out." "Nove m ber." "In the middle of November sometime." "You can't really predict what exact day it's gonna come out on." "It's called "3-Way Tie (For Last) "" "WATT:" "On SST Records." "Yes." "There's five copy songs on it." ""3-Way Tie," us doing these covers, you know?" "We're now confidentenough orsecure enough to laugh atourown background." "So there's Creedence." "There's blue Oyster cult." "There's Roky Erickson." "3-Way Tie (For Last),' we made a conscious effort to just make it a rock record with us." "But I sang one of the songs over the phone with a guitar." "So it's artistic." "We're trying to give..." "We use acoustic guitars." "AII kinds of things." "They're just devices." "It's all for us to use." "Fade-outs are the same as a horn or the saw." "I Iike the saw." "That's a new angle." "Just the instrumental cuts of "3-Way Tie," guy was so excited." "The vocals weren't dubbed yet." "But he was just so excited just playing the tape for me while I was at his house." "That's a memory I have of him." "He loved whathewasdoing so much." "I know that "3-Way Tie" isn't one of Mike's favorite records." "But I think it's a great statement of the way, again, the two of them interacted." "It's like Mike's side and D. Boon's side." "And yet there's crossover." "There's a song on each that's kind of from the other, and there's some of my lyrics on both." "And there's this completely intertwined effect even though it's all so very much like," ""Nobody's the leader." "We're equal" "We ' re wo rk i n g -c I ass." "We're a democracy."" "It's exactly how they were." "A friend of mine told me once that Don Van VIiet," "Ca pta i n Beefh ea rt , told him that he went to go see TheIonious Monk play at Carnegie hall" "And that he walked in and there was a grand piano." "It was a solo performance." "There was a grand piano with a pot of flowers on it." "And TheIonious Monk walked in, looked at the audience, threw the pot of flowers in the piano, slammed the lid down, and sat down and went, "Bing!"" "And hit one note and left." "And Beefheart said, "It was the greatest note I ever heard!"" "That's like the kind of feeling I get from a Minutemen note on "3-Way Tie (For Last) "" "They played really simple, beautiful songs that you can tell that they could do anything." "One of our philosophies in the Minutemen also has to do with that all people, you know. ." "There should be more interaction with music and everyday people." "Because that's what we are." "Thisidea D.Boonhad that working people should be able to go to gigs." "So, "Hey, Iet's start the gig at T:" "3O." "Let's put it where you won't have to drive 3O miles each way."" "This was intense, you know?" "This wasn't like, "Hey, Iet's do a showcase so we can get signed and be in a rock band."" "This wasn't his sensibility at all" "Ornoneofours,youknow?" "This was like." "Ithinkit was because our experience with arena rock and going to the gigs at the Forum and Long Beach Arena and just being so much a spectator that when we came up on this new scene, it wasn't about spectators." "It was more about totally being a participant." "You know, we come from wo rk i ng -c lass fam i I ies , and we play our music the way we want to do it." "And t|s" "people are into it." "We just want to let people know that there should be a band on every block." "There should be a nightclub on every other block and a record label on every other block after that." "Ofcourse, you can understand whythings gotorthodox and kind of uniform and conservative." "Attacking forces from the outside, people hating the scene and stuff." "So people bunch together defensively." "Young people coming in." "Things getting very social" "So you don't want to be too experimental with the music." "You can see." "I'm always getting asked these days by younger people," ""What do you think of this new pop-punk and all this?" "There's no real punk."" "I mean,things happen." "I don't really fault people." "Everybody can't be born atthe sametime." "Some people will be born before, some people born during, some people born after." "A Iot of that is just circumstance." "So what's really the question is," ""What is to be done where you're at?" "And how are you gonna do it?"" "And actually what we were coming on, it was new to us 'cause we were finding out about it." "But this is probably the same kind of traditions people like Woody Guthrie were from, you know?" "And maybe some of them beboppers and stuff like this." "Just taking things in their own hands." "[ "little Man With A Gun In His Hand" plays ]" "A woman's touch" "Highest love" "Strong mind, a strong body" "AIIthethings he could have been" "AIIthethings he should have had" "Little man with a gun in his hand" "Little man with a gun in his hand" "Little man with a gun in his hand" "Little man with a gun in his hand" "Little man with a gun in his hand" "Support all organizations that deal with oppression and stopping it." "[ Crowd cheering ]" "MAN:" "Soyoupsyched abouttheR.E.M.shows?" "BOON:" "Yeah." "should be fun." "[ Dog whimpers ]" "Okay, come on." "MAN:" "I would think that people that are into R.E.M." "are gonna beinto you guys." "BOON:" "See how it goes." "'Cause they're into us." "That should say something." "It's real interesting how we even got on the bill was that michael Snipe and their manager wanted us to play." "Stipe." "But their label, they wanted a band from their label to open up." "And Snipe said, "No way." "We want them to play, and they're going to."" "And their record label is not doing any of the promotion for it." "So the band's doing that." "So it's something they want, and I really appreciate that." "MAN:" "That's pretty good." "I remember the Iast gig of the tour." "Maybe it was in charlotte." "We're playing with R.E.M." "I mean with them." "It's their encore, and they have us come on." "Georgie plays a floor tom." "And me and D. Boon played a few of Pete Buck's guitars." "And we did "See No evil "" "The television song." "And that actually is the Iast time I played with D. Boon." "I didn't even play bass." "[ chuckles ]" "I played guitar." "That turns out to be our last gig." "And I had just gotten these 1 O songs from Richard MeItzer." "Lyrics." "And he wanted to record with us." "And he'd play sax and sing." "We'd play behind him." "So I bring them over to D. Boon's pad." "And, "Look." "Richard's written us 1 O songs."" "We were so excited." ""Let me have those words." "I'II think of licks."" "So that's the Iast time I saw him." "[ "plight" plays ]" "His face is young" "His hands are old" "Past is empty" "Blind and cold" "Mike called me up." "I was at home in bed." "I was asleep." "And he woke me up and told me that D. got in an accident." "It's kind of like having a hole where a heart was." "Grabs the dirt" "Stains his shirt" "So December 22, 1 985." "[ clears throat ]" "Heavy day for me." "sleeps at night" "Won't see day" "He does some hobbies" "He needs a new hobby" "MAN:" "Yeah, D. Boon!" "[ applause ]" "WATT:" "This whole thing with D. Boon and his mother." "This idea where you make up your own entertainment and your own activities." "I think it was really intense on us, you know, this whole idea of DIY and stuff." "I guess there's a debate over this." "You want things for young people to do so they don't get in gangs and in trouble." "But if things are too set up and stuff, you end up creating an army of robots anyway, you know?" "There comes a period whenyou'regonnahaveto comeupanddothings,youknow?" "Become your own person." "Pick your own friends." "Your own guys you want to build dreams with and stuff." "Big change in my Iife, meeting D. Boon." "Our band can be your life." "real names be the truth." "Me and Mike Watt, we played for years." "Andpunkrockchanged our lives." "We learned punk rock up in hollywood." "Drove all the way up from San Pedro." "We were fucking corn dogs." "We'd go drink and pogo." "Mr. Narrator." "This is Bob dylan to me." "I couId be in his songs." "Me as his soIdier-chiId." "Our band is scientist rock." "First I was E. bloom." "Richard hell" "Joe Strummer." "Good ol' John Doe." "Me and M ike just playing these here guitars." "MAN:" "That's great." "Mike or George, you guys got any closing statements in reference to the Minutemen, in reference to this tour or the new album?" "No." "We jam econo." "G eorge?" "No." "That's it." "Thankyouvery much, Mike." "Thanks a Iot." "We got these things." "[ "Unnamed Jam" plays ]" "AII right." "Where were we?" "[ whistling, applause ]"