MINUTEMEN GRUDGE MATCH : my first bells vs. double nickels on the dime

everything that came before vs. a relatively little-heard sampling thereof

the 'My First Bells' cassette has everything that came before, from Paranoid Time through Buzz or Howl

my bad i thought it was just a cherrypicked comp

yeah, it's everything, including some tracks from comps thrown in for good measure

it's quite a listen, can't imagine it would be too hard to reconstruct a digital version in this day + age

i guess -- i've been just slowly going thru the discography over the years by sticking to the Post Mershes and anything not collected on those

My First Bells 1980-83
1985
Cassette-only.
CT: 1985        US SST SST 032
Paranoid Time:
                Validation
                The Maze
                Definitions
                Sickles and Hammers
                Fascist
                Joe McCarthy's Ghost
                Paranoid Chant
Cracks in the Sidewalk:
                9:30 May 2
Chunks:
                Clocks
Joy:
                Joy
                Black Sheep
                More Joy
The Punch Line:
                Search
                Tension
                Games
                Boiling
                Disguises
                The Struggle
                Monuments
                Ruins
                Issued
                The Punch Line
                Song for El Salvador
                History Lesson
                Fanatics
                No Parade
                Straight Jacket
                Gravity
                Warfare
                Static
“bean-spill” e.p.:
                Split Red
                If Reagan Played Disco
                Case Closed
                Afternoons
                Futurism Restated
Life is Beautiful, So Why Not Eat Health Foods?:
                Prelude (Bolan)
What Makes a Man Start Fires?:
                Bob Dylan Wrote Propaganda Songs
                One Chapter In The Book
                Beacon Sighted Through Fog
                Fake Contest
                Mutiny in Jonestown
                Pure Joy
                Faith/East Wind
                '99
                The Anchor
                Sell or Be Sold
                The Only Minority
                Split Red
                Colors
                Plight
                This Road
                The Tin Roof
                Life As a Rehearsal
                Polarity
Buzz or Howl Under the Influence of Heat:
                Self-Referenced
                Cut
                Dream Told By Moto
                Dreams are Free, Motherfucker!
                The Toe Jam
                I Felt Like a Gringo
                The Product
                Little Man With a Gun in His Hand

havent heard these i think:

Cracks in the Sidewalk:
9:30 May 2
Chunks:
Clocks

Cracks in the Sidewalk is a New Alliance ep, I think. Has a good Black Flag tune too, plus tracks by Saccharine Trust and Kindled Imagination, which is George Hurley's brother, if I recall correctly.

i'd like to see a poll with Black Flag vs Minutemen vs Meat Puppets

a wider SST poll with Sonic Youth, Saint Vitus, Saccharine Trust etc would be interesting too, but I'm more interested in the split between those three in particular. i can never start polls though. poll-banned or something, i think.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

My First Bells was one of the finer acts of generosity, allowing me to acquire their complete discography for not so much money, after loving Double Nickles and being confused by Project Mersh. All that great pre-Nickles music had the nifty side effect of making them in to my favorite band of all.

Easy vote for me, but I've only ever heard Double Nickels, sadly.

If you have the Post-Mersh CDs and download a few stray tracks from http://www.corndogs.org/corndogs_misc.html you can nearly recreate MFB (minus "Clocks"). BTW this page also has tracks left off the CD version of Double Nickels so you can fix that, too.

I love how well the sequencing turned out on MFB, even if it is just chronological. It works better than the Post-Mersh CDs do.

i wish i understood what people saw in DNOTD.

Bells is probably my favorite cassette release ever (maybe Harvest/Everybody Knows This is Knowhere comes close), lost my copy in a caselogic pilfer in San Diego about 17 years ago.

Reconstruct this and YSI?

here you go... now all you ppl who voted for dimes can listen and regret yr votes

side a
http://www.mediafire.com/?homm3ykkhaa

side b coming soon

<3, E3

and yes that includes "clocks"

you are welcome

side b
http://www.mediafire.com/?mzmjnyi4noy

sometimes with ppl I fake I've seen movies to round off the edges

subset of history I lose my identity start bumming at parties

prop up two tents with one piece of rope a curtain inside me

purge and reform but admit that you failed start bumming at parties

what is compiled on Post-Mersh Volume 3 (or the cassette comp "My First Bells" with the Pettibon cover) is the best music the minutemen ever recorded.

― gygax!, Thursday, February 7, 2002 5:00 PM (8 years ago)

maybe one of his first posts... RIP duder.

Much gratitude, Ed

For The Punch Line alone, it has to be My First Bells. That record kicks my ass every time I hear it (and it's been hundreds by now).

Guess I gotta go with "Bells" and its huge assortment of stuff that I've probably played it (even) more often than DNOTD over the years. A spectacularly efficient repackaging effort of the sort that those money-grubbing major labels rarely compile. (But it's a vote I give grudgingly, because to my snobbish mind, compilations lack the prestige of "real" albums. Also, cassettes suck - "Bells" is one of maybe two-dozen I still own.)

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

you call those results

In spite of side two of the generously provided MP3 example of your first bells, I can't get past the fact that Double Nickels on vinyl is one of the best sounding and most cohesive band records I've heard.

Minutemen's single greatest or intense moments might be found here or there, but that one double album works.

in all honesty I can't hate on double nickels that much, it's a miraculous record, I just listen to the earlier stuff way more

I definitely prefer the earlier stuff. This band is a miracle, in general, tho.

first google result for "start bumming at parties": How to Hold a Sex Party | eHow.com

second result: this thread