fIREHOSE: Ragin’, Full-On (SST)

LIFETIMES AGO, in 1982, the Minutemen titled their debut album What Makes a Man Start Fires? The Political power trio proceeded to answer their musical poser time and again — with knobs on — over the next few years, spewing forth hundreds of pop miniatures that jammed together punk, jazz, funk, and metal while articulating the canniest rebellious stance of any American band heard from during the Age of Reagan (as if by necessity, the group was conceived in 1980, the president’s first year in office). Above all, the Minutemen were about history and friendship, and frontman D. Boon’s death in an automobile accident in late 1985 brought the ultimate tragic reality of those ideas into grim relief.