Movie Details
| Title: | We Jam Econo: The Story of the Minutemen | |
| Director: | Tim Irwin | |
| Year: | 2005 | |
| Genre: | Documentary | |
| Times Seen: | 1 | |
| Last Seen: | 04.14.24 |
Other Movies Seen By This Director (0)
| Date Viewed | Venue | Note |
| 04.14.24 | Internet | As mentioned in my Decline notes, I'm reading a couple books on the LA punk scene and so I've also been listening to some of the bands mentioned therein. I'm not typically a huge hardcore punk fan. Clutch started off in the DC hardcore scene so I got a taste of that growing up (this is the mid-90s scene so not the same but similar enough) and I'm... just not that angry. I got all that angst out with Industrial music instead I guess. So a big revelation for me is a lot of the earlier LA punk bands didn't really play hardcore music. X is kind of sped up rockabilly, The Weirdos and The Screamers are artier, The Blasters are straight up rockabilly. Yes The Germs fit the bill but I still found their album more interesting than stuff like Black Flag and Circle Jerks and Misfits and whatnot, although the power behind Black Flag's logo is undeniable, but I digress. Except there's this band called The Minutemen. They were on SST records (started by Black Flag guitarist Greg Ginn) and a lot of their songs were up tempo, but the music wasn't so simple. The basslines are melodic and interesting, the guitar firmly in the treble and kind of funky, the drumming frenetic and complicated. I listened to their first EP and a lyric in one of their songs is "I try to talk to girls but I keep thinking of World War 3." And all the songs are like a minute long. No shortage of musical or lyrical ideas, but the songs just say what they want to say and end. Their first full length is 18 songs in 15 minutes. The guitarist wrote some songs, the bassist wrote some songs, and the drummer wrote some songs. The guitar player sang, the bassist sang. And the guitar player was chubby. So this band really caught my attention. A youtube playlist has their entire discography (minus their most well known double album for some reason) so I've been going through it and really liking it. Plus (i go into this more in my note for the book) Mike Watt's chapter in John Doe's book had such a strong voice that led me to revisit his first solo album that I bought back in the 90s and really enjoyed that as well... so I've been searching youtube for more minutement/mike watt content and found this feature-length documentary. The movie has interviews with all the LA punk guys saying what I just wrote but in a more interesting way, plus the movie has the luxury of being able to show entire live performances of songs because they're so short. There's several songs from a taped set at the old 9:30 club taken from the crow's nest. It was definitely made in 2005, early days of digital video so all the interviews look terrible, but I think it says something that so many people from that world wanted to contribute to this project and talk about this band. It more or less sticks to what's now on the wiki page so there's no shocking twists or really crazy footage of any kind, but it is a nice collection of video from early gigs and hearing from all involved and a good education on the story of The Minutemen. About as much as you can ask. |
