Formation
Minutemen began when D. Boon and Mike Watt met at age 13. Watt was walking through a park in their hometown of San Pedro, California, when Boon, playing a game of "army" with other boys, fell out of a tree right next to him and found that his friends, one named Eskimo, must have ditched him. Both boys shared a passion for music; Boon's mother taught D. to play the guitar and suggested Watt learn to play bass. At first, Watt did not know the difference between bass and standard guitars. The pair eventually started playing music together, mostly covering songs from artists they admired. In the summer of 1973 Watt and Boon formed the Bright Orange Band, with Boon's brother Joe on drums. In 1976 they discovered punk; Boon's mother died, and the Bright Orange Band disbanded shortly thereafter. The next year, the two joined a short-lived band called Starstruck. Following Starstruck's disbandment, Boon and Watt met drummer George Hurley and formed The Reactionaries with vocalist Martin Tamburovich.
After the Reactionaries disbanded, Boon and Watt formed Minutemen in January 1980. Watt has said their name had nothing at all to do with the brevity of their songs; rather, it was derived partly from the fabled minutemen militia of colonial times and partly to lampoon a right-wing reactionary group of the 1960s that went by that name. In the documentary We Jam Econo, Watt also states that the name was a play on "minute" (/maɪˈnjuːt/ my-NEWT). After a month with no drummer, during which Boon and Watt wrote their first songs, the band rehearsed and played a couple of early gigs with local welder Frank Tonche on drums. The group had originally wanted George Hurley to join, but he had joined a hardcore punk band called Hey Taxi! with Michael Ely and Spider Taylor after the Reactionaries disbanded. Tonche quit the group, citing a dislike of the audience the band initially drew, and Hurley took over as drummer in June 1980. Their first live gig was as an opening band for Black Flag.
Read more about this topic: Minutemen (band), History
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