3. MinutemenWhat Makes A Man Start Fires?
I think my older sister’s at-the-time boyfriend hipped me to them. I was 15 or 14, so that’s before I heard any improvised music, right? I’ve been lucky enough to get to play with Mike Watt now and again. We all have people that we owe everything to, an eternal gratitude. I don’t want to call them heroes or idols, but it’s just a very important thing. What Makes A Man Start Fires?, there’s just something about it, in terms of like, how do you make a record from start to finish that sticks together, that means something? ‘Split Red’ is different from ‘Bob Dylan Wrote Propaganda Songs’. The variety they can put on that record… Beyond being music that I love, it’s also inspirational thinking of it in terms of how I want to try and make music for people and put out records.
Is the Minutemen’s concept of jamming econo an influence on you?
Absolutely. I think the first solo CDR I did was all real short pieces. And that was totally a Minutemen thing. You don’t need to repeat the chorus, you just get in and be economical about everything. And most of the stuff that I’m using, like the prepared drum, is just cheap, trash or thrifted stuff, so that economy of everything. To see Watt in action, how he operates, that’s another big inspiration. You have to figure out how to be economical, because if you spend too much of a resource, whether it’s your body, your time, or your endurance, you can burn out and then you’re done. But I want to be around, because the longer I can stick around, the more people I can play with, and the more things I can check out. So, the econo thing relates to that, the logistics of making it work.
