TS: Minutemen vs. Wire

The Minutemen had all the depth, but very little breadth.

(Did I put words in anybody's mouth? Sorry)

I'm going to have to go with Wire, although I have to admit to being hopelessly biased in their favour because of where and when I first heard them.

I'm not at all sure about "apples and oranges" 'though: The Minutemen were a great band and I reckon this is a very good question / comparison.

Minutemen have the best album between the two, Double Nickels. But Wire have the consistency. A split decision for...Wire

A very appropriate matchup though.

for bettering their inspirations, the Minutemen have mine

Equally classic Minutemen: The Punch Line and Paranoid Time. Everything through Project Mersh should be heard before deciding...

I did like Project: Mersh though.

And they weren't "pretending" to be funky. I don't see how their "funky" stuff is any less "funky" than most other post-punk bands' "funky" stuff.

As far as funkiness, I dunno, I just find the post-punk funk of Wire or, say, Pylon, preferable. More tightly coiled.

Buzz & Howl... fuckin' roxoroxorox, tho'.

-- Zack Richardson

Heh heh, my point exactly!

they STILL make good music too. there is 21st century ubu and thomas music that is awesome.

70's american punks didn't really care who they went into the studio with. you got more random results because of this. i kinda like that. there were some odd pairings.

eh, I don't know. That kind of production is just one way of doing things, not THE WAY. Lindsey Buckingham obviously wasn't satisfied with the best that money could buy, and obviously didn't think all the punk sound 'sucked'

no, of course that's true, which is exactly why LA punk was so ridiculous on this point. there is no "THE WAY." there's just "what serves your music best, what presents it in the way that most honors it?" almost nobody in LA got that, because they were too busy reacting to LA studio culture. it's understandable -- they hated the SoCal rock culture, what self-respecting punk wouldn't. except that they then chose to just make their albums sound like garbage in protest. cool, guys, you "win," great legacy, nobody who didn't hear it when it was new will ever know what the big deal was about "double nickels"!

there's a million ways to record music. "I don't wanna be like those guys, so I'm going to reject their methods" is the worst one.

pere ubu also better than minutemen. for the record.

I think I'm in the old bro minority in that Pere Ubu always seemed like a better idea than actual band to me. like, I prefer Peter Murphy's version of "The Final Solution" to Ubu's. ubu could really bring the pain live but I don't give a shit about their records, really.

that's sad.

i mean speaking of production, ubu final solution 45 is up on top of some friggin' mountain to me.

nobody who didn't hear it when it was new will ever know what the big deal was about "double nickels"!

You're out of it as far as what has continued to attract new listeners.

Minutemen doc on Netflix. Where's the Dan Fogelberg doc?

FUCK YOU I'M HIGH AS A KITE

https://thissfest.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/danfogelberg.jpg

You're out of it as far as what has continued to attract new listeners.

dude literally everybody knows the CD mastering job of Double Nickels was a catastrophe. it's terrible. nobody at SST gave enough of a shit to keep track of the original reels so who even knows where they are (in a warehouse in Tyler, TX, most likely, where they'll be when Ginn's estate goes into probate) but that thing sounds awful. it attracts new listeners despite the pedestrian, embarrassing production. the Minutemen deserved about a million times better than they ever got in the studio, as anybody who ever saw them live can attest.

like you're arguing "the minutemen were good, these people whose records sound great are not" -- most folks age out of the punk mindset enough to know which values (make great music, never rest on your laurels) were good and which (pay no attention to whether your music sounds like shit, be bad at business) weren't. I hate plutocrats but I don't pretend that the food they eat tastes shitty, because it probably tastes great.

i love that i had no idea who you were until this thread. cuz this thread is like a fingerprint! hahaha! #onelove

I yam who I yam!! and I'll always be mad that one of the most vibrant scenes in the history of music erased itself by entrusting all its sonic documentation to people who were like https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5c/Elbow_coude.JPG hey Watt is this my ass? if it's not my ass what is it? I can't really tell man I'm all upside down. anyway I guess I'll pan the guitars right and just send the tapes wherever for mastering??? idk w/e at least we're not HIPPIES right

Interesting discussion - fwiw I find the production on most of the Minutemen's records a lot less of an issue than then production on most other SST records from the same timeframe. E.g. Zen Arcade I think is almost ruined by the production at times, just how tinny it sounds, but Buzz or Howl, What Makes A Man.., Double Nickels mostly sound fine to me?
People on here with actual experience of recording music please correct me if I'm wrong but - I'm wondering if this is because the type of music the Minutemen were making was less 'heavy' than some of the other SST bands, like there's not many sonic layers to it, not much going on in terms of processing or effects on the guitars, so recording it just becomes about capturing each instrument with some degree of clarity - which I feel like they did OK at?

they were so stoned. they didn't know. what are you gonna do?

lou barlow is playing solo at my store tonight. i hope he does some acoustic deep wound songs.

There's no real desire for Watt and Hurley for Minutemen to get the Meat Puppets Ryko treatment is there?

great great band.... pere ubu "I Will Wait" predicts the Minutemen composition style pretty effectively

― Vic Perry, Sunday, 6 September 2015 20:23 (59 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Totally.

land speed record is my favorite sounding husker album. i actually love how recurring dreams sounds on zen arcade. dub metal. to quote an ilm thread. probably my favorite song on the album too.

Minutemen music was made for small clubs. Husker Du you can imagine getting away with going a bit bigger - bigger sound, distortion heavy, longer tunes.

I'm wondering if this is because the type of music the Minutemen were making was less 'heavy' than some of the other SST bands, like there's not many sonic layers to it, not much going on in terms of processing or effects on the guitars, so recording it just becomes about capturing each instrument with some degree of clarity - which I feel like they did OK at?

yeah, some of it is that the Minutemen's aesthetic was largely "record it, document it." but Double Nickels was mixed at Radio Tokyo in a single eight-hour session. That's just stupid, really. Most mixers, if they're working with anything at all, will mix two to four songs in a day. I once made somebody mix seventeen songs in two days, but there were no drums on the tracks. I do think, as Vic says, there was a reaction against perceived excesses of the LA industry -- coupled with mythmaking about Never Mind the Bollocks (which cost plenty to make and is beautifully recorded and had an entire pre-production run at the whole album) being a just-play-your-tunes record. Also, economically, punks and post-punks couldn't afford proper LA studios, which were then some of the most sought-after spots in the world and priced accordingly. So if it came out of LA, there was a good chance it was a guy who'd gotten some equipment and built himself a space. You can make good-sounding records in those spaces for sure, but not on 200 bucks all-in from SST.

that's what i said above. about LA studios. they had to be pricey for even a shitty one.

"Good Sound" is no objective entity, but an opinion. Punk records sound great. 50s records like "Book of Love" and "Get a Job" sound great. Jamaican dub records from the 70s sound great. Early 80s hip hop records sound great. Old 78s of all sorts sound great - especially over a gramophone, wow, ever heard that? so loud, so clear.

And Slanted & Enchanted sounds great, and Swordfishtrombones sounds great. They sound great because they have sounds you don't get anyplace else. I put my ear out the window, what do I hear? Plenty of good stuff. Just not that.

High fidelity to what exactly? It's Platonism run amuck. Super produced records are creations, not mirrors, and the values they embody do not come free.

I love Steely Dan, love them deeply, and accept their bizarre sense of what "sounds good" as a necessary spur to their own art. Wishing it on everybody else is quite another thing.

Cheers for the response JCLC - I do find the details about this sort of thing fascinating.

how do we feel about bob clearmountain's take on the dead boys?

was listening to the Homosexuals box set the other day and man oh man it just sounds so friggin' cool! and they made that stuff for what a dollar? something in the water in the u.k. 1979 to 1984 is just...there are few comparisons in the states at that time. so many VARIED sounds and techniques and engineering jobs. we had mitch easter in his garage...

(really really glad that chris blackwell made that first B-52's album. it's a work of genius. some cali stoner would have made it sound like the manhattan transfer...)

everyone from cali should have gone to ohio to make their records.

"Good Sound" is no objective entity, but an opinion.

this is totally true -- pretty much nobody would cast me as a sound nerd. I made my bones on fuckin direct-to-cassette! but LA punk records sound pretty crappy by punk standards imo. listen to the shit coming out of SF during the same period - the music's not as good, but the producers seem to have been listening to the bands, trying to capture the energy. LA punk records just sound two-dimensional and drab imo. not universally, there's decent ones, but for whatever reason LA punk & post-punk producers are just profoundly uncurious. but it's not any "there's a right way and there's a wrong" way schtick I'm on. it's "some producers are curious and engaged, others are pretty bad at their jobs." it's not about money, it's about talent.

Swordfishtrombones is an expensive ass record though fwiw. Sunset Sound. That's a costly, costly studio, and Waits wasn't there for a day-and-a-half like a lot of the SST bands got at Radio Tokyo

Well those are not typical audiophile statements, so, no further quarreling and quibbling from me.

The Clean are the best sounding band that belongs to the energy of that era. By the way.

yeah I consider the whole New Zealand scene an example of how to do zero-budget, make-your-own-rules recording the right way - or a right way. people really tinkering and exploring, making much out of little.

doses. i don't think i've ever been able to listen to double nickels all the way through. but i've listened to zen arcade a million times. in 2015, i'd rather just hear up on the sun.

I love the Minutemen forever but up on the sun is by far the winner of SST for me today too. It's a good sounding record too. Better sounding than mirage IMO. Though not by miles.

I always liked the songs on Up on the Sun better but there's something about the Mirage sound that's so pristine. Those staccato bits on the title track under the vocal harmonies. So great.

Joanie otm. I do like double nickels but its practically in spite of the dry, thin sound.

Scott also otm about the jett germs record, which sounds great.

i love the dry sound of double nickels
not that familiar with the last 3 bands mentioned itt but after sampling the clean, the germs and meat puppets doesn't sound that great to my ears

How much of the perceived thinness of the Minutemen studio sound is due to d boons deliberate cutting of all the bass and mid frequencies from his guitar sound in order to leave watt with his own sonic real estate. That telecaster sounds like an am radio but it is on purpose.

I prefer Curt Kirkwood's tone, that sparkly sound with his bro's tone is q special

Oh god curts guitar sound 84-86 is like the home of my spirit

Jon not Jon is on the right tack. The Punch Line sounds like Trout Mask Replica (another record recorded in 15-20 hours or whatever it was) to me except I think I'm just not as wild about the sound coming out of the amps (or like Watt's ringing round wound strings vs. Mark Boston who I'm sure had flatwounds).

the weirdos were the best recorded la punk band by a mile. kudos to the dude who produced "we got the neutron bomb", it still sounds amazing.

ubu never had a guitarist who Verlaine couldn't shit on

Who knows who plays what on the first two singles. Laughner, Wright, and Herman are all credited with guitar and bass.

They made one more stab at being a two guitar band in the early days with a brief stint by a guy named Alan Greenblatt. I believe he only plays on one song, "Untitled," but that is a totally great track.

after sampling the clean, the germs and meat puppets doesn't sound that great to my ears

penetrating analysis after thoughtful examination of the catalogues of these unimportant artists, deeply charitable of you

kudos to the dude who produced "we got the neutron bomb", it still sounds amazing.

Geza X btw! still produces. did some DKs stuff back then, and the Germs. (and pre-Rollins Black Flag, which sounds terrible to me, but I don't like Black Flag so I would say that.)

i was gonna mention Weirdos! always sounds great.

had a nice chat with lou barlow tonight about hardcore. he used to play shows with Deep Wound at the grange hall here in Greenfield. he saw Flipper there! everybody played the grange hall back then. they had amazing bills. he mentioned reflex from pain and i mentioned 76% Uncertain ( both CT hardcore and connected to each other) and the young band from CT that opened up Lou's show tonight had a kid in it whose dad was in 76% Uncertain! which was funny. the New England circle game. (also the young band played music that totally sounded like 90's indie rock a la sebadoh, etc.)

I have never heard minutemen on cd, and I think the records and cassettes sound fine. I have heard really bad things about the cds from people I trust, though.

was listening to the Homosexuals box set the other day and man oh man it just sounds so friggin' cool! and they made that stuff for what a dollar?

yeah but those records were all recorded in a "real" studio during the off-hours, and they spent a lot of time on them, it was some kind of sweet backdoor deal iirc

Studio where the Police recorded, right?

man i love the sound of the minutemen records, especially "what makes a man start fires?" i mean i dont think there has ever been a more brootal bass tone ever. seriously. pere ubu are like a dad band.