The power trio is a rock music institution. It is, on paper, quite a simple formula — one guitarist, one bassist, and one drummer. One of, usually, the guitarist or bassist will also double up on vocal duty. There have been countless iconic power trios in rock music, be it the Jimi Hendrix Experience, Rush, the Police, Nirvana, the list goes on. My favorite power trio did not take the route of worldwide stardom and celebrity status that many others did. In fact, quite the opposite. Three ordinary, working class dudes from San Pedro, California joined forces to become punk rock royalty.
The Minutemen are a fascinating band —one of the most fascinating bands in American rock music. The band consisted of, for practically their whole existence, drummer George Hurley, bassist and occasional vocalist Mike Watt, and front man/guitarist D Boon. Their absurd, virtuosic musicality, ferocious energy and bite-sized compositions have passed the test of time with flying colors, as they’re one of the most celebrated and remembered bands from the Southern California hardcore punk scene.
As so many have pointed out before, they were truly more than a punk band, combining elements of blues, flamenco, and avant-garde on their seminal 1984 double album Double Nickels on the Dime. The album is a classic and for good reason. Spanning over 40 tracks, only a handful of which surpass the 2-minute mark, the record gets my vote for probably the greatest punk album ever recorded. It’s more punk in its ethos and execution than in its pure sound, which is wild when considering the band was comparatively run-of-the-mill as far as hardcork punk goes just 4 years earlier. The artistic evolution of the band is reminiscent of the Beatles’ artistic arc, albeit in a much shorter time and within wildly different subgenres of rock music. However, the transformation from straight punk band to the boundaries being pushed on Double Nickels is enough to cement them in the history of American rock music. The untimely and horrific accidental death of D Boon in a van accident prematurely ended what was sure to be an even more legendary career.
When the album was originally released during the digital CD revolution, it necessitated, as many other ambitious double albums, a bit of editing so as to fit on one disc. The first CD release, appearing three years later in 1987, was a wildly remixed and reverbed-out mess, with five entire tracks removed entirely. Revolted by this remix, Watt and SST Records re-re-released the album in 1989, restoring the original mix and two of the five cut tracks. To this day, the remaining three tracks have only ever been released on the vinyl pressing of the album, with the record’s full artistic statement sinfully never seeing the light of day again.
That really is a shame, because for my money, the record’s best track is one of the three forgotten soldiers. “Little Man With a Gun in His Hand” was not a new track to seasoned Minutemen listeners. The track first appeared as the closer to the 1983 Buzz or Howl Under the Influence of Heat EP. The second half of that EP, including the original version of “Little Man”, was produced by SST’s in-house go-to, Spot, a legend in his own right. However, the group was impressed enough by Ethan James’ production on the first three tracks of the record to enlist him as the producer of Double Nickels.
The original cut of “Little Man” is regarded as a classic in its own right. The song’s structure stays mostly the same between its two releases. However, the recording on Double Nickels remedied the original’s most glaring flaw — finalizing a clean ending to the song as opposed to the fade-out represented on Buzz or Howl. It is for this reason, as well as the overall tighter performance and cleaner production, that I consider the Double Nickels recording to be Minutemen’s peak recorded performance.
The band had already experimented with extended, more traditional song structure before the track’s inception, though at the time of it’s release, “Little Man” was the most fleshed-out song the group had ever written. Beginning quietly with Boon strumming the song’s main chord progression, the band quickly builds up before exploding into the song’s instrumental intro. Watt straddles the fretboard like a maniac while Hurley furiously and speedily keeps up. The song’s intro, especially the staccato chord strikes and tom rolls right before the verse, show that this band was tighter and more in-tune with each other than anyone else in the scene at the time.
It is at this point that Boon begins the tracks abstract verse section:
“A woman’s touch, the highest love
Strong mind, strong body
All the things he could’ve had
All the things he should’ve been”
The song’s oblique nature can be attributed to Black Flag bassist Chuck Dukowski’s writing credit. Dukowski was known for his bleak, philosophical, and sometimes nihilistic insight on the world, which is hilariously displayed in a testimony from his bandmate Henry Rollins, during which Dukowski persuaded Rollins to eat handfuls of red meat in the middle of a grocery store (Dukowski is never mentioned by name, but the story is heavily implied to be able him).
It is from here that the band breaks down into a full-on avant-jazz fusion jam section, featuring deep and foreboding bass work by Watt and Hurley’s impeccable time-keeping ride cymbal groove. Over this backdrop, Boon makes love to his instrument, coming off at different times sensual and violent through his playing. His screeching, discordant hits are scary and build great tension alongside the rest of the instrumentation. Seemingly out of nowhere, Boon comes back to his senses, uttering the song’s title into the microphone, before the band nosedives right back into the driving staccato section heard before the song’s verse. Boon repeatedly screams the song’s title as the band ruthlessly backs him. Much like a David Lynch film, the song ends where it begins, coming full circle back to the intro figure. It is here where the cold ending the band carefully manicured gets the spotlight. Hurley blasts incredible single stroke rolls faster than the mind can process, Boon’s guitar wails into the abyss and Watt frantically runs up his bass guitar.
Then, it all ends. The band comes back down to earth, only having kicked the most ass in the recorded history of human civilization. The song fucking rocks. It rules. It slams. It fucks. There’s not many things it doesn’t do. It is the all-time testament to why the Minutemen were one of the greatest bands of all time.
The track was the third-to-last track on the entire record as it was originally released. The three members of the band all picked their personal favorites to represent the album’s first three sides, appropriately named after D, Mike, and George. The fourth side was the leftovers. Side Chaff. It consists mainly of odds and ends, covers, and tracks that would point in the direction the band was to go on their final couple of releases. How not one of the band members picked this song to represent their side befuddles me. How the track didn’t make it to either CD release of the album is even more confusing. This is punk rock music distilled to its purest form. Full-on, in-your-face, fuck you attitude and all. And I love it.
Listen to the 1984 recording of “Little Man With a Gun in His Hand” here.