Release
SST Records released Double Nickels on the Dime on double vinyl in July 1984. SST delayed the release of Zen Arcade by Hüsker Dü so that both albums could be released simultaneously. After the release of Double Nickels on the Dime, Minutemen toured almost constantly to promote the record. One 1984 tour saw the band playing 57 dates in 63 days. The album sold fifteen thousand copies during 1984, a respectable amount for a band on an independent record label. As of 2008, Double Nickels on the Dime remains Minutemen's best-selling record.
No singles were released to promote Double Nickels on the Dime, but two videos, "This Ain't No Picnic" and "Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love" (a cover of a song by Van Halen, which the aforementioned Hagar would eventually join), were released as "flyers". Made for $440 by a University of California, Los Angeles graduate, Anthony Johnson, "This Ain't No Picnic" was Minutemen's first video and was later nominated for an MTV award. The video for "This Ain't No Picnic" features the band playing amidst rubble as a fighter plane "piloted" by Ronald Reagan, edited from public domain footage, fires at them. The video of "Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love", released by SST as a promotional video, was a 40-second recording of a live performance.
In August 1987, Watt and producer Vitus Matare remastered Double Nickels on the Dime for a CD release. To ensure that the CD would be compatible with all players, they omitted all car jams, except Boon's, and three songs: "Mr. Robot's Holy Orders", "Ain't Talkin' 'bout Love" and "Little Man With A Gun In His Hand." Watt commented later that the remix was a "nightmare" and "totally worse than the Ethan James mix." Watt reverted to the original mix for a 1989 CD release of Double Nickels on the Dime, but did not include the previously omitted songs. In a January 2006 interview, Watt announced his intention to discuss a remastered full Double Nickels on the Dime CD release with SST owner Greg Ginn.
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