After reading Motomama's review of the premiere, I was kinda expecting a similarly enthused, interactive crowd. Negative. That infamous blasé New York attitude (It's this sort of insouciant, self-conscious, Yeah, I know there's an anvil dangling a foot over over my head, asshole, why don't you mind your own business vibe) was in full effect. There would be no applause after the concert footage.

Some background: As you all know, I love the Minutemen so much I even named this blog after one of their songs, &c. Although I first heard them when I was 14, I knew very little about them beyond their albums and various musical affiliations--there's a dearth of good info about them (though the chapter from Our Band Could Be Your Life is very good). It's odd that no one's successfully put a Minutemen documentary together before, given that every rock critic/musician/nerd on the planet will tell you in no uncertain terms that Double Nickels On the Dime (or What Makes a Man Start Fires, or Paranoid Time, etc...) is one of The Greatest and Most Influential Albums Ever Recorded, Infinity.

WJE has a chronological narrative that starts with Mike Watt describing how he met D. Boon at age 13, playing Army in the park. They became best friends and (with the encouragement of their mothers) taught themselves how to play guitar and bass. Watt, seated behind the wheel of an old van (natch) wistfully explains that they didn't know how to tune their instruments, or even "what a bass was" when they first started out. But playing music--even if it was just the same Blue Oyster Cult riff over and over--was something they enjoyed doing, and it solidified their bond (which, according to how everyone describes it, was stronger than most marriages). They eventually formed the Reactionaries, and then kicked out the lead singer and became the Minutemen.

The "local" punk scene didn't know how to respond to them, evidenced by archival footage of Hermosa Beach morons spitting on them onstage. As many of their friends testify in the documentary, they weren't hardcore, they didn't look punk, and their sound was too unusual to be categorized.

The beauty of this--and a theme that comes across so well in WJE--is that Mike Watt and D. Boon didn't seem to care. They were happy to write and play their music without observing the "orthodoxy" of the scene. I think this is what I love most about the Minutemen--it's not only their innovative sound, it's their total absence of self-consciousness, the creation of (as one friend put it) "their own world."

Without getting into tedious detail here, the documentary covers their early days, their first release on SST Records, their high-energy live shows (with lots and lots of never-seen-before footage), their passionate--even fractious-- friendship, (George Hurley, the other third of the Minutemen, describes D and Watt's legendary battles with the good-humored but scarred nature of someone who grew up in a really big, dysfunctional family.) their failure at commercial success, and D.'s death in 1985.

Fun things I learned last night: They're not called the Minutemen because their songs are short; Double Nickels was composed in an attempt to make a bigger album than Husker Du and the theme was an homage to Pink Floyd and Sammy Hagar; the last song they played together was Television's "See No Evil" (onstage in an encore with REM), and yes, D. Boon was incredibly spry for a fat man.

Some criticism: I would have really enjoyed seeing more original artwork--both flyers and album covers. (Ray Pettibon makes a fleeting appearance--when questioned about that after the show, the director and producer shied away from fully explaining why that was, but having seen Pettibon speak in person, I now have some idea.) And even though the live performance footage was fun, I could have done with less. (I hasten to add that when WJE is released on DVD this fall, they promise it will have footage from three entire performances, and that's something I can get behind.) Also, a couple notable absences/brief appearances made me scratch my head: Pettibon, Joe Carducci, Kira, Rodney Bingenheimer, D. Boon's exgirlfriend.

Still, WJE was fantastic--fun, loud (maybe too loud--I blame Walter Reade on that one), and a truly moving tribute not just to the Greatest Band Evar but also to an exceptional friendship. It's not so inside baseball that only hardcore Minutemen fans would like it--there are enough interesting (and famous) characters in this documentary to satisfy even the Three-Way Tie foor Last dilettante sitting next to me last night. [Zoink!] If you're a fan of SoCal hardcore or of music history in general, and if it's showing anywhere near you (see the site for details), you need to go see it.

Celebrity sightings: Dez Cadena himself, sporting a satin NY Giants jacket, and two members of TV on the Radio. Oh, and every rock critic within a 250-mile radius.