Noah’s Beat Box

This column is a reprint from Unwinnable Monthly #193*. If you like what you see, grab the magazine for less than ten dollars, or subscribe and get all future magazines for half price.*

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Now this.

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I was recently digging around Wikipedia, and ran across the Minutemen. “How,” you may ask yourself, “did Noah, music critic of a sort, make it to almost 40 years and never run across this incredibly influential band?” Well, you’ll see across this little bit of writing that, as the kids say, I am the problem. As quickly as I discovered the Minutemen, I realized I had run across them before, and in fact knew one of their songs quite well – the twanging guitars of the *Jackass *theme song are hard to forget. But I also discovered that the Minutemen were incredibly consequential on my musical tastes outside of the realm of theme songs, and the only reason I hadn’t really discovered them was that I hadn’t looked very hard.

If you, like me a month ago, aren’t aware of them, Minutemen were three guys, who, in the late 70s and early 80s, formed a punk rock band in Southern California and recorded four albums, before their lead singer died in a car accident in 1985, after which they disbanded. They were influenced by the hardcore scene, but also by artists like Creedence Clearwater Revival and Captain Beefheart, and went on to influence a whole host of artists, including some I even know and like.

First, The Red Hot Chili Peppers came to mind. Formed in Southern California while Minutemen were active, RHCP has obviously gone on to become one of the largest rock bands over the last 40 years. I know they’re problematic, and I know audiophiles hate the mixing on many of their albums, and I know that they have just been playing the same song since 2000, but I also know that I grew up in the 90s and had two ears and a heart, damnit! Please don’t email me about this. When I started digging into Minutmen’s sound, the obvious connection was to RHCP’s similar post-punk blending of genres, especially funk and punk rock. Echoes of their early work in the 80s felt presaged by Minutemen’s aural aesthetic and punk rock ethos. This line seems undeniably clear.

Likewise, as a child learning to understand music from 90s alternative radio, Sublime has always had a place in my musical life. So when I threw on Minutemen’s “History Lesson Part II,” I was pleasantly surprised to hear: “punk rock changed our lives.” I immediately caught Sublime’s sample from the opening of 40 Oz to Freedom. And as I dug a bit more, I learned that Nowell name-drops all three of the Minutemen members in the final track on that album, where he thanks a litany of important figures. Suddenly, some of the stranger songs from Sublime, the short, punk rock tracks infused with aggressive guitars and lyrics (“New Thrash,” “Paddle Out,” “Same in the End”) made more sense, nestled between their reggae infused pop tracks. Pieces of my taste were starting to fall into place.

But perhaps the band that was farthest away, geographically, at least, from Minutemen but who also must be considered as influenced by them: Ween. My boys from New Hope Pennsylvania clearly draw on many of the same sonic influences, but also are influenced by their DIY spirit and the “econo-jam” sensibility. Yes, Ween tours with jam bands and has a 45-minute, live version of “Poopship Destroyer,” but many of their songs are much more economical, especially their early work. On their debut, GodWeenSatan: The Oneness, most songs clock in under two minutes, with only four out of 29 tracks breaking the three minute mark. Now, I will also admit, “Nicole” and “L.M.Y.P” both clock in at around 9 minutes a piece, but please, take my point for what it’s worth. Also, like Minutemen, as well as Sublime and RHCP, Ween blended the punk, DIY ethos with funk, and even added some noise rock vibes into the mix.

So, all these connections between some of my favorite bands and Minutemen raises the initial question: why, if some of my favorite bands from the 1990s (and beyond) are so influenced by Minutemen, had I never listened to them? My friends from college are all familiar. A bunch of midwesterners, the guys are all well versed in the punk scene, some leaning more on the emo side and some more on the hardcore end of things, but all much more interested in that music scene than I ever was. While I was personally busy digging into the roots of Wu-Tang and the legacy of MF DOOM, our group chat has many more references to Jeff Rosenstock, Idles, and Pup.

I ultimately think it comes down to a combination of factors: 1) As I’ve mentioned in the past, my parents weren’t fans of popular music, so I mainly listened to classical at home and the radio when I was able. I wasn’t exposed to the deep lore of the midwest punk scene the same way my friends were. As such, I’ve always been a bit more ambivalent about the genre of punk, especially in the hardcore realm of things. 2) I moved around a lot as a kid. Between the ages 0-18, I lived in 3 countries, 4 cities, and 5 houses. It’s not the craziest amount of moving, but in comparison with my buddies who grew up exclusively in the heartland, it definitely meant I wasn’t running across the same music they did growing up.

Instead, when I got a chance to plug in the aux chord, I found the vibes from the Cross Bronx Expressway calling out. I found a feeling of aesthetic freedom, a sound rarely found within the limitations of European music–something I needed to really dig deep on, at the expense of most other genres. As I rustled around in the mud of the underground hip hop space for 20 years, my friends were in another space, another realm, listening to bands like Minutemen, and fully grasping their influence.

As I said at the beginning, I’m the problem. I haven’t stumbled across Minutemen until the 40th anniversary of their dissolution because I purposefully put up blindfolds, honing in on a single genre until that made sense, ignoring the others that were out calling to me on the winds of the songs of my youth. But now that I have found Minutemen, what’s my next step? I checked out Hüsker Dü, and I’ll let you in on a secret there: I am NOT a fan. But, I seem to have stumbled into the world of post-hardcore, so I guess I have to dive in there. My first step should probably be to see where it connects to hip hop.

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Noah Springer is a writer and editor based in St. Louis. You can follow him on Bluesky @noahspringer.com.