Jimmy Guterman's Jewels and Binoculars

A few years ago I saw a documentary about the late, great Minutemen. In it, Flea, the bass player for the Red Hot Chili Peppers, said that whenever he made a career decision he’d ask, “What would D. Boon do?”

We may all ask that, but none of us actually do what Boon would. We don’t know what he would do now, more than 20 years after his death. Some background: When they were a going concern, I loved the Minutemen more than was healthy. When Boon died in a car crash in 1985, shortly after the release of the band’s best album, 3 Way Tie (For Last), he left with his career frozen. He didn’t get old or boring or repeat himself. We could always remember him as one of the guys screaming righeously on the cover of the 1983 EP Buzz or Howl Under the Influence of Heat:

I’m not the first person to ask this question in a blog post, but whenever I read about some performer I like threatening to do something stupid, I wish D. Boon, or at least my idealized version of him, was around to give advice.

Why am I thinking about the Minutemen this morning? Because this morning at the coffee shop I heard a John Fogerty song, which made me think of Creedence Clearwater Revival, which made me think of the Minutemen covering Creedence, which they did not only on record but in someone’s backyard:

And while we’re on the subject of transformative covers of ’60s classics by SST rabble-rousers: