Minutemen >> Serious as a heart attack

I can't believe it's still California Month, tremor #57:

Minutemen - "Anxious Mo-Fo"

(SST Records, 1984)

The double LP Double Nickels On The Dime came out in '84, a CD version came out in '87, and another (remastered) CD edition came out in '89.  This mp3 is from my '87 CD.  I used the line "As serious as a heart attack" in my list of awesomest basslines.  There's not much to say about this album that hasn't already been said, and I think most of its songs are between mediocre and submediocre, so I won't sit here and pontificate about it.  Lots of mediocre albums have changed the course of music history, and this is one of them.  Almost every time I've gone to Euclid Records in New Orleans, the guy has played this album, so if you live in NOLA and have a hankering for some Minutemen, you know where to go.  I don't know if Flea would have a career without Mike Watt.  This song has so many astonishingly sick basslines that I almost can't believe my ears every time I hear it.  The drumming is also amazing, of course.  Overall, I just wish it was two or three times longer.  I prefer their album The Punch Line, though it's barely EP length.  I bought a Minutemen compilation cassette called Post-Mersh Vol. 1 from SST mailorder in '96, but didn't get Double Nickels until many years later.  As most people know by now, their song "Corona" was used as the theme song to MTV's show Jackass.

Another example of Watt's bass mastery is his guest playing on Sonic Youth's "In The Kingdom #19".

On the subject of heart attacks, my initials are CPR.

Today I found a little place in Houma called Mommie's Mediterranean Lebanese Market, which has been open for about a year.  I had a chicken shawarma sandwich (w/ free hummus and salad), a beef & lamb gyro (w/ same sides), two little spinach pies, and this sour / slightly spicy yogurt called labna, which I could only stand a few bites of.  Not bad for only $18, and comparable with Byblos in New Orleans, which I view as the gold standard for this kind of food.  I then hit Bed Bath & Beyond for some random little things, such as little plates to use as trays under my cactus pots; then shot hoops at Gray Park for 1.5 hrs. in windy 50º weather with puddles everywhere.  In other words: paradise.

Planets with similar climates: The Prime Movers - "In Touch With You" (1984), The Pop Group - "We Are Time" (1979), Bauhaus - "Kick In The Eye" (1980), Moonshake - "City Poison" (1992), Enon - "Murder Sounds" (2003), Sushirobo - "Talk Show" (2004), Pavement - "Stereo" (1996).