Greg Ginn of Black Flag and SST Records produced this San Pedro (California) blue-collar trio’s first 7″ EP, Paranoid Time.
Like most punk bands at the time, the band sold the EP at their shows, and at a few local record stores. It became a minor hit with the hardcore scene.
By their first LP, The Punch Line (1981), they had found their voice and began touring non-stop around the US, releasing a second EP, entitled Bean-Spill.
The group cut Double Nickels On The Dime in 1984 in response to labelmates Hüsker Dü‘s epic Zen Arcade. The breathless double album also parodied Pink Floyd‘s Ummagumma with each of the Minutemen programming his own side (Side D, Side George and Side Mike – the fourth side was titled Side Chaff).
Across 45 short songs, they framed witty left-wing discourse in punk-funk, jazz-skronk and protest folk, alongside condensed covers of Van Halen, Steely Dan and Creedence Clearwater Revival.
This Ain’t No Picnic was nominated for an MTV award (they lost to Kajagoogoo) while polka vignette Corona became the theme music to Jackass.
27-year-old Boon was killed in a van accident in the early hours of 23 December 1985, as he, his girlfriend Linda Kite, and her sister Janine Garfias, were travelling through Arizona on Interstate 10, en-route to visit Kite’s family Near Phoenix.
Kite, who was driving the Minutemen van, fell asleep and the vehicle veered off the highway. She awoke and attempted to get the van back on the highway but turned the wheel too hard and rolled the van.
Boon, asleep at the time, was ejected from the van and broke his neck. When the Arizona Highway Patrol arrived, he was dead.
His death effectively put an end to The Minutemen. Watt and Hurley dropped the name and formed fIREHOSE with guitarist Ed Crawford.
D Boon (Dennes Dale Boon)
Vocals, guitar
Mike Watt
Vocals, bass
George Hurley
Drums
