Minutemen-We Jam Econo

I can’t tell you how important SST’s “The Blasting Concept” compilation albums were to me growing up. Priced at a mere $3.49, the album provided a glimpse of the SST Records roster. How could you go wrong? Certainly at that price, you’re sure to find a few tunes that you liked.
The album did more than that; it provided a glimpse into a different world of music. Meat Puppets, Black Flag, Husker Du, Saccharine Trust, and other SST labelmates were included on it. Starting it off was Minutemen’s “Paranoid Chant.”
“I try to talk to girls/And I keep thinking of world war three!” barked the singer. Underneath those effectively simplistic lyrics was a curious racket; a power trio that meshed together a unique version of punk rock that managed to epitomize the “paranoid” in “Paranoid Chant.”
For a young dude using a cheap compilation album to discover new music, the Minutemen were unlike anything else on the landscape. For an old dude talking about a new Minutemen documentary, they are still unlike anything else on the landscape.
You need Minutemen’s “Double Nickels On The Dime” in your record collection. It’s that simple. And once you’ve purchased that album, you may find yourself enamored in learning more about this power trio curio. That’s where the new documentary “We Jam Econo” comes in handy. For the novice, you’ll get to hear firsthand the Minutemen’s all-to-brief existence and you’ll learn of the incredible bond between bassist Mike Watt and guitarist D. Boon. If you’re already familiar with the oft-told story of the Minutemen, there are new stories to hear, concert footage to examine, and reminders as to why their legacy is so critical to underground music. If there ever was a band deserving of a documentary, the Minutemen are it.

The key is that even though “Double Nickels” stands sonically on it own, the Minutemen story is almost as critical. Even if the Boon/Watt story wasn’t part of the overall plot, you’d still have an important tale: Three ordinary guys from a blue-collar town whose musical inspirations far outweigh their potential. Their image, their political ideology, their musical lineage, their locale, their intelligence, all worked against them. It didn’t matter. Punk rock changed their lives.
Of course, the D. Boon story ends and begins with tragedy. The very moment this little band from Pedro was poised to go on to the next level, D. Boon dies in a car wreck, leaving his childhood friend Watt to spin briefly into a funk that seemed too deep to escape from.
It’s the magnitude of D. Boon’s death on Watt and how deep their friendship was that’s evident from the first five minutes of the film. Footage from 1985 shows the two talking about how they first met. Watt explains that he was walking along when Boon, literally, fell on him from out of a tree. A more recent shot then shows Watt walking the very same path and points to the exact tree where Boon fell on him. It’s heartbreaking. And it perfectly establishes how, almost twenty years after his best friend’s death, he’s still with him.
The only thing that’s really missing from the movie is an idea of how Boon’s death affected others. Sure, there are plenty of cameos from some of underground rock’s most elite names, but I know firsthand that the Minutemen were the catalyst for hundreds of upstarts and I know that Boon’s death ranks just as tragic as a Lennon, Cobain, or Strummer. We see the actual note that Henry Rollins sent Ian McKaye, notifying him of Boon’s passing. What I would have liked to have seen was a “soldier child’s” perspective too. I’ll never forget a conversation I had once with Dave Diebler about Minutemen. His band, House of Large Sizes, was clearly aligned with Minutemen’s d.i.y. ethos and his lyrics were clearly influenced by D. Boon’s. Diebler would go on about how important this band was to him and at the end of the conversation he shot me a look of sadness with an equal part of anger and said “Do you know that son of a bitch would still be with us if he had just put on his fucking seat belt?” I wanted to see just a few more examples of this in the documentary, for some reason. Some proof that it wasn’t just underground a-listers, art-types, and rock critics that felt something from this band, this artist. Their importance was felt all the way to Iowa, and it was large enough for others to start power trios of their own.
Nonetheless, this is a very good piece of work and there’s certainly more than enough information included to keep those who deem themselves to be familiar with everything Minutemen entertained. I wasn’t aware that “Double Nickels” contains a nod to both Pink Floyd’s “Ummagumma” and Sammy Hagar. I didn’t know that the reason Boon’s guitar was so trebly was because the band viewed the bass guitar and electric guitar as “sovereign states.” I didn’t know that legendary SST “producer” Spot was such a riot (I should have, if I’d only remembered side four of Black Flag’s “Everything Went Black” album). And I didn’t know that both Grant Hart and Richard Hell look like they’re one good vein away from an overdose. Greg Norton, on the other hand, looks pretty good lately.
The bonus material is excellent and I enjoyed almost all of the deleted scenes including Ed Crawford’s telling of how he literally called Watt up from Ohio after Boon’s death and pulled him back into where D. Boon would have wanted him to be: on stage with his “thunderbroom.”
The documentary ends where it should: a modern day Mike Watt driving around San Pedro in a Ford Econoline van. He narrates “So, December 22nd, 1985….” He starts to slowly shake his head, trying to ward off the approaching tears. He clears his throat and continues, “Heavy day for me.”
The shot continues and Watt tries to surmise it all by saying “Big change in my life…meetin’ D. Boon.”
We’ll never have the opportunity to meet D. Boon anymore. The only thing we can have is a chance to hear about him, and “We Jam Econo” is a great way to do just that.