Double Nickels On the Dime

Double Nickels on the Dime serves as an affirmation of punk rock liberty from a band that believed in it more than any other. Spread over two records and a staggering 44 songs, the album’s girth spoofed the seventies excesses of Peter Frampton and Yes, yet it was also a verification of the band’s creative stamina. There was no reason for these blue collar “corndogs” to think they could indulge in the rock god fantasies of Frampton or Kiss, yet the Minutemen lit every inch of their double-wide opus with off-kilter imagination. For a band that thrived by attempting the unexpected, Double Nickels continued to thwart anyone’s ability to categorize the Minutemen. Anxious outbursts fall next to free-form guitar noodling, and as soon as you think you have the band’s agitprop agenda pinned down, they will completely disarm you with gentle, forlorn strumming on “Cohesion” and “History Lesson Part 2.” With its outlandish plays on political sloganeering, Double Nickels indulged the group’s love for leftist rabble-rousing, yet they spurned self-righteousness. They embraced their roots as working class everymen from the port town of San Pedro, California, and their emotions — confusion, frustration, nostalgia, humorousness — feel genuine. No band believed in sincerity as much as the Minutemen, and it is the undercurrent of earnestness that makes Double Nickels a heroic work.