{"id":2066,"date":"2009-03-18T19:35:07","date_gmt":"2009-03-18T23:35:07","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2009-03-18T20:43:46","modified_gmt":"2009-03-18T20:43:46","slug":"firing-on-all-cylinders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/firing-on-all-cylinders\/","title":{"rendered":"Firing On All Cylinders"},"content":{"rendered":"<iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/fLRj253FelU?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><p>A few weeks ago, I downloaded a copy of the <strong>Minutemen<\/strong>&#8216;s <em>Double Nickels<\/em> onto my iPhone, and it&#8217;s been in heavy rotation.  Listening to it with the kind of focus you can achieve during the commute to and from work has made me realize more than ever that <em>Double Nickels<\/em> is one of those true rarities: a flawless album.<\/p>\n<p>A week or so ago &#8212; after I&#8217;d fully assessed the greatness of <em>Double Nickels<\/em> &#8212; I received a copy of the Minutemen rocku, <em>We Jam Econo<\/em>, from Netflix.  In it, <strong>Mike Watt<\/strong> reveals that the band was recording a single LP during the <em>Double Nickels<\/em> sessions, when they heard that <strong>Husker Du<\/strong>&#8216;s next album &#8212; <em>Zen Arcade<\/em> &#8212; was going to be a double.  This caused the band to start writing in a frenzy, and after a week or so had passed, they now had double the number of songs they had before, and were well on their way to recording their <em>own<\/em> double LP.  This, by the way, meant that they now had <em>22 new songs to record<\/em>, bringing the album total to 44.<\/p><iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/KTLzAMQU3_M?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><p>My point in this thread is not to sing the praises of the Minutemen or the <em>Double Nickels<\/em> album.  We&#8217;ve all been down that road before.  My point here is:  holy SHIT.  How hot do you have to be &#8212; how completely at the peak of your musical game &#8212; how effortless must the writing process be &#8212; to thrash out an entire records&#8217; worth of new material <em>from nothing<\/em> in a freaking WEEK?!  And have it all be perfect, where not one note ought to be changed in any way?  That&#8217;s what I call firing on all cylinders!<\/p>\n<p>I admit I&#8217;m veering into back-story-land here, but <em>how many other examples of this kind of lightning-strike brilliance can we think of?<\/em>  I&#8217;m not talking about &#8220;five-star albums&#8221; or &#8220;great albums that were recorded quickly;&#8221; I&#8217;m talking about albums that were produced in a similar blaze of effortless brilliance, by bands that were so freaking tweaked that they produced perfection at a pace that makes the rest of us just gawk in slack-jawed amazement.  The Beatles&#8217; <em>Rubber Soul<\/em>\/<em>Revolver<\/em> run in the middle of the Beatlemania frenzy is the only other one that comes to mind.<\/p>\n<p>Curious to get your thoughts &#8212;<\/p>\n<p>HVB<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A few weeks ago, I downloaded a copy of the Minutemen&#8216;s Double Nickels onto my iPhone, and it&#8217;s been in heavy rotation. Listening to it with the kind of focus you can achieve during the commute to and from work has made me realize more than ever that Double Nickels is one of those true <a href='https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/firing-on-all-cylinders\/' class='excerpt-more'>[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[342],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2066"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2066"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2066\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2066"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2066"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2066"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}