The Minutemen Play Lincoln Center

Last night I saw Film Comment's screening of "We Jam Econo", a documentary about punk O.G.'s, The Minutemen at Lincoln Center's Walter Reade Theatre.

The film was split pretty evenly between old performance and interview footage of the band, new short interview segments of people who'd interacted with the band, and extensive narrative rambling by band member Mike Watt, who's known throughout the music industry as one of rock's best storytellers.

Some of the best moments of the film were when friends of the band related old anecdotes, including Thurston Moore explaining how they appealed to him because they looked like "a bunch of doofuses", Flea telling how they didn't realize guitars needed to be tuned when they first started playing, and Ian Mackaye of Fugazi showing the handwritten note given him by Henry Rollins informing him that D.Boon had died.

As a casual Minutemen fan, I enjoyed the film quite a bit, but I can't imagine this film would appeal as much to non-fans.

The non-film related highlight of the night for me was realizing I was sitting directly behind one of my musical heroes, Rachel Trachtenburg, who was with her dad, Jason.

More on the night at Greg Wallach's Blog, The Simple Mission, and Waved Rumor.