Michael T. Fournier - "Double Nickels On The Dime"
In honor of Bloomsday, let’s post a review of Michael T. Fournier’s Double Nickels On The Dime, an examination of probably the only hardcore punk album that consistently makes Top 10, Top 25, Top 100 lists, and is largely influenced by bassist Mike Watt’s reading of James Joyce’s Ulysses. (There’s even a track called ‘June 16th’.) Watt himself says: “It seemed to me then, and it still does now, that (Joyce) as trying to write about everything. And in that way The Minutemen were trying to do the same.”
Continuum’s 33 1/3 imprint is one Hellbomb wholeheartedly champions and Fournier’s is the most rewarding of the six I’ve read so far. As someone turned onto writing by reading an epic Rolling Stone review of The Beatles in a paperback hocked from the corner pharmacy, I definitely think there’s a place for books offering insightful, copious dissertations on important recordings; books like Fournier’s because a it is well considered, well written, and even has the warm and willing participation of Mike Watt himself, who welcomed the author to San Pedro, drove him around town and pointed the sites, such as where guitarist and vocalist D. Boon lived and The Minutemen played their first show.
I bought The Minutemen’s Double Nickels On The Dime the week SST released it and still own the vinyl as well as two CD versions with differing mixes (I apparently am one of the few to have the 1987 mix, which I prefer, but Watt has repudiated.) So, I thought I knew it pretty well, but reading Fournier’s book I found out:
• Drummer George Hurley who never sang (except for a scat solo on ‘You Need The Glory’ often write lyrics
• The album structure is modeled after Pink Floyd’s Ummagumma
• The album title originated as a mockery of a Sammy Hagar pop hit
Fournier follows a format I favor: after a few introductory paragraphs providing an overview of the history of The Minutemen leading up to the recording of Double Nickels On The Dime and then his history discovering the band, he delves track by track into the 4-sided, 44 vinyl version. (Some cuts from Side Chaff, the fourth side, are omitted so Double Nickels On The Dime could fit comfortably on one CD.)
A skateboarder, Fournier was turned onto The Minutemen by hearing ‘Paranoid Chant’ on a skateboarding video and wanting to hear more. He found a cassette of Double Nickels On The Dime and so, it being a cassette, he was most familiar with Side D, D. Boon’s side (each member has a side (like Ummagumma). What makes this a good read though, is that it is an act of discovery for the writer as much as it is for the reader. He didn’t realize how literary Side Watt was with it’s Joycean influences (as well as Ludwig Wittgenstein and Umberto Eco or what to make of Side George when trying to write about it. Along with Fournier we learn the influence of the obvious (Wire, CCR, Meat Puppets) and unobvious (Pop Group, Dead Kennedys, Birthday Party) has on this recording. Learn from Watt that “Punk wasn’t a style of music, it was a state of mind, and the state of music was up to each band playing it. Understand that to The Minutemen, “their message, spoken as often as not, was that you didn’t have to be _________ to be in a band (or write a book). You had to be yourself.”
That’s very inspirational and akin to the message of The Clash. ‘History Lesson, Part II’ is famous for listing musicians who had influenced them: Richard Hell, E. Bloom, John Doe. And Joe Strummer. Joe, shortly before his death in 2002, in a Spin article in an issue commemorating the 25th anniversary of punk, returned the favor when he named The Minutemen as one of the three best punk bands ever.
Mission of Burma bassist Clint Conley says of The Minutemen: “These short, strange eruptions had no specific reference to any spot on the rock spectrum, really – Chuck Berry to Velvet Underground. It was completely original music and brave.”
And still is.
Nearly 30 years later, nobody sounds like The Minutemen, except maybe, sometimes, Fugazi. So I recommend you buy and read Fournier’s book and then listen to Double Nickels On The Dime, preferably a vinyl version because the CD is missing some key tracks such as ‘Dr. Wu’ and ‘Little Man With A Gun In His Hand’. It will be a revelation; if not The Minutemen, then the indefinable guitar playing of D. Boon, who died in 1985 in a car accident, robbing music of one of its most visionary guitarists.
