By Charles Lieurance

Thursday, March 19, 1987 Daily Nebraskan Page 5 WVlm Doug CarrollDiversions By Charles Lieurance I saw D. Boon and the Minutemen for the the rewards for following their brief trains of student at Ohio State. Crawford tracked was lost. On March 27, flREHOSE will be in first time in the summer of 1981 at some the thought were manifold. down Watt on the basis of a false rumor that the Haymarket Square, 813 'Q' Street, with DC-- 3 flRE- small dive in L.A. The joint was spinning, The last lime I talked to D. Boon was in he and the minutemen's drummer George fellow SST artists and Crimony. HOSE is a blast of more sustained and partly because I'd been alternating beer and Boulder, Colorado at the Blue Note in 1984. Hurley were actively seeking a guitar player energy more mature Minutemen speed most of the evening and partly because The bar was huge and a lot nicer than the dive for a new band. Crawford had been playing than anything the less the skinheads on the dance floor were going in L.A. The skinheads were circling on the guitar for only about six months but he was did. The Minutemen were conventional, wild-lookin- g, with of in a band the Minutemen were less to be in restless circles, hunched over and dance floor. I was trying to figure out where possessed the idea being likely played He for California on the and the Minutemen were more like a pack of wolves surrounding a these kids hid from Boulder's annoying popu- with his heroes. left Ohio on radio, less a and found on the But flREHOSE as a band for all camper with one bullet left in his gun. The lation of rich and Buddhist yup- a little than wing a prayer, edge. Mike Watt and savecThinCSaved him in the the bands in the world to reckon with. With skinheads shadows moving along the wall pies during the day. There weren't enough most innocent one human can save Watt's free-for- bass the role of made the walls appear to move. Like I say, I'd skinheads to make the room spin. The music way being style taking without that lead Crawford's been drinking. had matured, become as complicated and full another, completely knowledge instrument, leaping through was needed. rhythm-guita- r flREHOSE The only song I'd heard by the Minutemen of ideas as the best jazz but without any of the any saving stuttering bursts, has little to do with hardcore or punk. It was "Like a Gringo" off of a Radio Tokyo sanctified subtlety of performance that can Crawford, Watt and Hurley began playing I transcends haircuts with a leap of flame. The compilation. It was the closest thing to what make watching jazz a bore. together as flREHOSE in the late winter of I first cut from the album on SST, "Ragin' Full then considered "music" heard the whole but 1986, with Sonic Youth, probably the It was freezing outside, Boon, wearing touring is a like the There seemed to be structures to the in with the Min- On," political anthem nothing night. a : flimsy, plaid shirt, came off the stage only other band the nation so abbre- Minutemen produced. "Brave Captain" sparks music, but the structures were covered in sweat. 1 asked him, stupidly, if he utemen's unrelenting power of musical expres- could feel a a funky, jagged style that charges through the viated that by the time one thought that punk music was keeping some sion. it was whole first side. groove, gone. of these kids from ever growing up, keeping "1 first had to learn how to play with people at the micjrophone was the Side two is more introspective, consisting Up front biggest ; them filled with adolescent angst just a little I didn't grow up with." Watt is sounding a bit ; I'd ever seen. The face was connected to mostly of ballads. Raging ballads, but ballads face too long. frayed on the edges over the phone. His voice, of canvas balls you used nonetheless. Some of them are elegies. "Can- one those huge gym Boon said the audience was going to grow four years ago, sounded light and shy; now it's to kick into the air with feet in grade dle and the Flame" is a gorgeous sad song your up as fast as the band grew up. He said deeper and less immediately able" to com- school. The ball had and arms that that the Minutemen could never have pulled . legs anyone who could follow the Minutemen's municate words. "I leaned on D. Boon very and flailed as if the creature had off in the midst of their experimental didac- twitched music was grown up enough for him. heavy. Now I'm Independent enough to appre- for bones. The face yelped and ticism. And it would have been a shame had it springs True enough. A few years later Boon died ciate other people . ." shrieked a few slogans. that sat atop the noisy never been recorded. on an Arizona highway. The first thing I It's the name D. Boon that his voice riffs and grooves like an oil fire on the ocean. "I'm amazed the the album has gone, thought of when I heard was a Meat Puppets catches on. Whenever I ask any questions way about the Holocaust and Amer- it's know." Watt really can't Something song the Minutemen covered called "Lost," that Involve the Minutemen, he says "D. Boon popularity, you ica believe it. I know an honest voice when I hear sucking. about being lost on the freeway, lost in every was or "D. Boon was a great and The next morning, the closest I could come ..." ..." it. way a person can be lost. trials off. He doesn't have any answers for to remembering what had happened the "I and I were bass and But since we don't know where people go questions like that, so I stop asking them. mean, George just night before was that I'd been swallowed by of rock roll." when die and how or sad that "I admired the of Edward, to drum, the janitors V the mouth on the cover of King Crimson's "In they happy spirit coming place is, the only one who was really lost, in California with nothing . .."His voice picks, "I suppose it counts for something that the court of the Crimson King." flavor-of-the-wee- a can be on that high- a little now we're out of the we're not in the rock V roll k In the between 1982 and 1985, 1 saw every way person lost, up graveyard, years the Minutemen's bass Mike Edward started was true to the club." the Minutemen seven times. Their blend of way was player, "getting spirit Watt. of the Minutemen, to give a kid a chance. I Must count for something. funk, country, jazz and hardcore was never For another and a half, Mike Wat was saw a chance to put our ideas into practice What would D. Boon say? easy to take, but once you get used to the year " bv or with Edward." "He'd say 'cheer, and the Minutemen's complete indif- lost. Last year he was found Ed Crawford up, fer.' brevity trained And flREHOSE is miles from the The flREHOSE show starts at 9 ference to how songs are traditionally con- Ed fromohio, a classically trumpet graveyard p.m. and and more miles from the where Watt Tickets are $5 in $8 at the door. structed, the music was full of passion and player, Minutemen devotee probational highway advance,.

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