RECORDS
Got a minute? I want you to meet some cats you’re sure to dig. Ed, Mike and George aren’t my official buddies, but I feel like they’re pals after a few satisfying spins of the new fIREHOSE platter. If an album could kick off its shoes, plop down on your couch, pop open a cold one, and shoot the breeze for a spell, “if’n” would be the disc to do it.
RECORDS
HOSANNA!
fIREHOSE
“if’n”
(SST)
Got a minute? I want you to meet some cats you’re sure to dig. Ed, Mike and George aren’t my official buddies, but I feel like they’re pals after a few satisfying spins of the new fIREHOSE platter. If an album could kick off its shoes, plop down on your couch, pop open a cold one, and shoot the breeze for a spell, “if’n” would be the disc to do it.
Although the story’s been told a zillion times, one more recounting won’t hurt: Mike Watt and George Hurley were two-thirds of the Minutemen, a natural wonder of a band that ceased to be when leader-guitarist D. Boon died in a highway accident. Along with Husker Du, the Replacements and a few others, they grew from punk-hardcore-etc. roots into an exciting, original combo. Unlike those groups, the Minutemen were probably too noisy and too political (i.e., leftist) to ever “deserve” a berth at a major label, thanks to burly Boon’s wonderful bull-in-a-china-shop sensibility.