D. Boon
Southern California punk pioneers
Minutemen, consisting of drummer
George Hurley, bassist Mike Watt,
and guitarist Dennes “D.” Boon, were
shocking and eclectic even by early punk
standards. As other bands in the ‘80s
SoCal hardcore scene turned up the
tempos and the distortion, Minutemen
played rather cleanly, grooved hard,
and specialized in concise, sparsely
arranged songs that revealed a diverse
range of decidedly non-punk influences,
from John Coltrane to CCR. And unlike
many punk and hardcore musicians of
the era, Minutemen had serious chops.
Watt and Hurley hit hard, and were funky
and tight as hell, while D. Boon’s guitar
playing incorporated dense, jarring
chordal stabs and fleet-fingered, jazzy
fretboard runs that perfectly punctuated
his vocals. Unfortunately Boon died
very young at 27, as a result of a car
accident, but his musical legacy is rich
and has remained deeply influential to
the generations of adventurous punks
that followed. Many admire his deftness
and musical sensibilities, as well as his
politics and songwriting, but his tone is
altogether another, more controversial
matter. Boon achieved his signature
sound by plugging a Fender Tele Deluxe
into a Fender Twin, cranking the treble,
and rolling off the bass and mids. The
result is a tone that is cutting and harsh,
but absolutely shimmering with high end
harmonics. It’s hideous and beautiful all
at once. The theory behind the creation
of this tone is that Boon and Watt strived
24
TONE TALK //
PHOTO BY GLEN E. FRIEDMAN
to exaggerate the space between bass and guitar
in the Minutemen mix, keeping each instrument
distinct and separated in its own frequency
spectrum. This goal was certainly achieved, and
D. Boon’s guitar sound will remain on record and
one the most distinctive, personal tones in rock.
The 5 Best “Bad” Tones in Rock History