Minutemen/Raymond Pettibon | Bean-Spill

Minutemen 

Bean-Spill 

Los Angeles, USA: Thermidor Records, 1982

7” vinyl

Edition size unknown

I’ve been doing research for a text about Raymond Pettibon and discovered this obscurity in the MoMA library collection. It’s the third EP and fourth release overall by American hardcore punk band Minutemen. 

Early pressings featured a B-side label reproduction of a Raymond Pettibon drawing of a naked man with an erect penis, the spindle hole of the seven inch becoming his asshole. The parenthetical caption below reads “(We need the money).”

Minutemen were the second release on SST records, the label formed to release Black Flag records. It also featured a cover graphic by Pettibon. 

When Henry Rollins joined Black Flag as front person in 1981, he requested a "fuck you" middle finger illustration from Pettibon, for the song "My Rules." The artist’s response was to produce a drawing of a lackadaisical and effete finger (see below). 

“Don’t tell Ray what to do,” Rollins realized, "You'll notice there's a solid year of Black Flag flyers where it's nothing but erect penises."

Pettibon told Time Out in 2017:  “My brother was in Black Flag, and they were very good at self-promotion. I actually used my existing drawings for the posters and other stuff I did for them and eventually for Sonic Youth. I always drew what I wanted; I never listened to any bright ideas coming from punk rockers.”