The Minutemen - Television Tropes & Idioms

Minutemen were a punk rock band from San Pedro, California. Active from 1980 to 1985, when their frontman D. Boon died in a van crash in Arizona. One of the well known bands from the US underground rock scene of the 1980's. A Power Trio consisting of guitarist D. Boon, bassist Mike Watt and drummer George Hurley, they started out creating very short, simple punk songs, usually with a political theme. Unusually they incorporated jazz influences as well other other styles that reflected their DIY ethic.

Tropes related to the band:

Alternative Rock
Author Existence Failure: Frontman D. Boon died aged 27 in a van crash in 1985.
Badass Beard: Mike Watt (though he alternated between having one and being clean shaven).
Beige Prose: "Take 5, D", due to it's lyrics being taken verbatim from a note a friend received from his landlady about a leaky shower. This was Mike Watt's playful response to D. Boone complaining about his lyrics getting too abstract.
Big Fun: D. Boon
Breakup Breakout: After the band disbanded, Mike Watt experienced a bit of success in other bands, such as playing bass for The Stooges and recording with Sonic Youth for their Ciccone Youth album (his voice is also heard on Sonic Youth's "Providence"). He's even played bass for more popular acts such as Kelly Clarkson.
- Watt and Hurley were heartbroken after the death of Boon and both planned to never play music again. However, a Minutemen fan from Ohio, Ed Crawford drove to California to convince Watt and Hurley not to do so. The three soon formed fIREHOSE, a band whose albums sold very well (for albums in the early years of Alternative Rock), scored a big rock radio hit ("Time With You") and even wound up getting signed to a major label before splitting in the early 90's.
Breathless Non-Sequitur: According to Mike Watt, most of his lyrics were like this due to his obliviousness about the nature of most song lyrics, hence moments like the "Big fucking shit" in "It's Expected I'm Gone."
Cluster F-Bomb: Being a punk band, they naturally break this out in their more political-driven songs. Lampshaded in "Political Song for Michael Jackson to Sing" with the line "If we heard mortar shells we'd cuss more in our songs."
Cover Version: "Don't Look Now," "Ain't Talkin' 'bout Love," and "Dr. Wu."
Creator Backlash: Mike Watt (as well as some fans) hated the first CD mix of Double Nickels on the Dime so much that they released a new CD mix only two years later and kept the original CD version out of print. Watt also expressed a dislike for both studio versions of "Little Man With A Gun in His Hand." He disliked the version on Buzz or Howl Under the Influence of Heat for ending in a fade out and also claims he didn't like the take they used on Double Nickels, despite it having an outro.
Exactly What It Says on the Tin: Some of their songs were named this way, such as "Shit from an Old Notebook" and "Political Song for Michael Jackson to Sing."
- "Spoken Word Piece" is, well, a spoken word piece.
Heterosexual Life Partners: Watt and Boon. To the point where, as told in the band's career retrospective documentary We Jam Econo, Watt eerily felt sick the exact minute that Boon was killed.
In Name Only: "History Lesson - Part II" is musically and lyrically unrelated to "History Lesson."
Intentionally Awkward Title: A lot of their songs have titles like "The Roar of the Masses Could Be Farts," "Do You Want New Wave Or Do You Want the Truth?" and "Mr. Robot's Holy Orders."
In The Style Of: They did funk/punk covers of Van Halen, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Steely Dan, and several others.
Meaningful Name: When they first started making music, their average song length was a minute or less. Even if they occasionally moved away from that, their songs still tended to be short.
Miniscule Rocking: Their signature.
Missing Episode: The CD version of Double Nickels On The Dime omits three songs due to limited space: "Mr. Robot's Holy Orders", "Ain't Talkin' 'bout Love" and "Little Man With A Gun In His Hand" are all cut. The version on iTunes also omits these tracks. However, the vinyl version does include them, and is still in print.
Neoclassical Punk Zydeco Rockabilly: Their usual style is a mixture of punk rock, funk, and jazz, though they also venture into other genres.
Non Appearing Title: It would probably be easier to list their songs whose titles do appear in the lyrics than those that don't.
Not Christian Rock: "Jesus and Tequila" is a song that talks about Jesus in a somewhat positive light and "God Bows to Math" references God and Enoch from The Bible in a non-hostile manner (despite the title). Also, in some pictures and videos of the band, drummer George Hurley is seen wearing a Christian cross necklace. Despite this, however, they have enough songs with Cluster F-Bomb lyrics to avoid being remotely categorized as Christian Rock.
Protest Song
Pun-Based Title: "The Toe Jam."
Real Song Theme Tune: The theme to Jackass being "Corona" from Double Nickels On The Dime.
Record Producer: All their material up until Double Nickels was recorded by SST Records' in-house producer, Glen "Spot" Lockett. Starting with Nickels they switched to former Blue Cheer keyboardist Ethan James.
Rock Trio
Rockumentary: We Jam Econo: The Story of the Minutemen.
Rule of Funny: Mike Watt admits he only wrote the line "Big fucking shit" in "It's Expected I'm Gone" because he thought it'd be something funny to hear D. Boon say. Some of their other lyrics and song titles also appear to follow this rule.
Self-Backing Vocalist: Their cover of "Dr. Wu" had Mike Watt do two tracks of vocals. In one, he sings the lines and in the other, he speaks the lyrics amelodically.
Self-Deprecation: "One Reporter's Opinion" is a song whose lyrics make fun of bassist Mike Watt, who wrote the song.
Shout Out: The title of Double Nickels on the Dime alone has a few. Double Nickels is trucker slang for 55 miles per hour (if you look at the dashboard on the album art, you'll notice the speedometer reads 55). The Dime is a nickname for California Interstate 10.
- According to Mike Watt, "on the dime" means "on the spot." They thought it would be funny to make the album's title a response to "I Can't Drive 55" by Sammy Hagar — they thought the idea being the song wasn't rebellious, so they decided to mock it in the title of the album.
Watt, about Hagar's song title: Okay, we'll drive 55, but we'll make crazy music!
- Double Nickels also had a solo song for every member ("Cohesion" was D. Boon's, "Take 5, D." was Mike Watt's, and "You Need the Glory" was George Hurley's), which was inspired by Pink Floyd's Ummagumma.
- "History Lesson - Part II" lists several of the band's influences like Joe Strummer and Richard Hell.
- D. Boon stylized his shtick of going by his first initial and last name after E. Bloom of Blue Öyster Cult, a band they often covered and referenced in songs like "History Lesson - Part II" and "Tour Spiel."
- The title of "Spillage" was meant as a shout out to The Descendents, a punk band who were fond of making their song titles end in "-age" ("Bikeage", "Myage" and "Marriage" for example).
Spiritual Successor: fIREHOSE
Step Up Tothe Microphone: D. Boon did vocals on most songs, but Mike Watt did vocals every now and then. George Hurley also did vocals on two songs: the "speech" during "Ruins" and the scat singing in his solo song, "You Need the Glory."
Take That: Lyrically, "#1 Hit Song" is a parody of bland chart-topping love songs. "Bob Dylan Wrote Propaganda Songs" is a weird case, because while it parodies Bob Dylan's early lyrical style, it also pays tribute to him, especially since Dylan is one of Mike Watt's heroes.
- The liner notes of Double Nickels on the Dime reads, "Take that Hüskers!" According to Mike Watt, he wrote that to give them credit for giving the Minutemen the idea to record a double album (Hüsker Dü's double album, Zen Arcade was in the same year as Double Nickels), in an odd case where a Take That doubles as a friendly Shout Out.
- The origin of the title, though, is less friendly. The band said it was a mockery of Sammy Hagar's "I Can't Drive 55", and their feeling that protesting the national speed limit wasn't a terribly rebellious thing to do.
- Also "Political Song for Michael Jackson to Sing" and "This Ain't No Picnic," the latter targeted at a racist auto parts store owner who wouldn't let Boon play jazz on the radio.
The Something Song: "Song for El Salvador," "#1 Hit Song," "Political Song for Michael Jackson to Sing," and "Untitled Song for Latin America."
Three Chords and the Truth: The Punch Line is Three Chords and the Truth turned Up to Eleven. The songs had a very stripped down style with no choruses or guitar solos, making the 18 songs on the album over in only 15 minutes.
Title Only Chorus: "This Ain't No Picnic," "Nature Without Man," arguably "Little Man With a Gun in His Hand."
What Could Have Been: In addition to seeing the direction the band would have taken if D. Boon were still alive, it would be interesting if Michael Jackson agreed to sing on "Political Song for Michael Jackson to Sing" instead of ignoring their offer.
- Before D. Boon's death, they planned on putting together a triple album combining live recordings and new studio material called 3 Dudes 6 Sides 3 Studio 3 Live. The track list for the live portion was to be determined by fan vote, with the band having ballots handed out at shows. Boon died before any new material could be written, but what was going to be the live half of the album was released on it's own as Ballot Result (albeit with some of the voted-for songs missing because live recordings of them just couldn't be found).