An interview with David Minehan
by Joey Ammo
Late and rushing, I grab an illegal parking spot in front of the Middle East Bakery and charge in fumbling my things to the table where a man is seated. A charming, elfish grin appears under the bill of a baseball cap and I look down into the face of a Boston legend, stunned for a moment.
“Hi, I’m Dave,” says the man as he extends a hand. I know this hand. At 16, I stood in the Rat and watched this hand jam the living hell out of a white Les Paul as the hand’s owner, a screaming force of musical insistence, blew my mind into the shapes of things to come. I nervously shake it, stumble into a chair, and turn on the tape recorder…
We signed with Atlantic around ’91; it turned out to be the worst thing we could have done. We got no support at all. When Bowie asked us to tour with Tin Machine, they wouldn’t even finance out hotel rooms.
You felt abandoned by them?
We knew we were in trouble when we found out our A&R guy had signed the likes of Twisted Sister and White Lion. That’s what they expected us to be.
The market’s changed since then.
Nirvana helped bring punk back. We can thank them for flushing that music out of the mainstream.
We were teenagers doing it. I still think it’s a pretty weak single, but it has a naive charm that’s kind of endearing.
It’s been a long night for the Stardarts. Not only have they been putting in many graveyard shift hours in the studio for weeks, but they barely made it to their show at Bill’s tonight after rushing back from Providence, RI where they opened for the Hoodoo Gurus. They don’t show it. The lights strike as they tear right into their first tune. The tightly rocking number has a Replacements-like sound to it, which isn’t surprising. Minehan and bassist Darren Hill were both on the last Paul Westerburg tour. Dave has had quite a year, in fact…
How was touring with Westerburg?
A real killer. I really think Paul Westerburg is one of the greatest songwriters to emerge from our generation.
Is that where you met Darren Hill?
I knew Darren from Boston, when he was in the Raindogs. When the tour broke up, we kind of looked at each other and said,”What are going to do?” We decided to start a band!
You sat in for Brad Whitford in Japan. How did that come about?
Brad produced the Hoods’ last record, so we had known each other a while. There was a family illness and they called me. I transposed the songs on the way there in my head. No one spoke English but they knew where I was going. The last thing Steven said to me before we went on was “Just have fun; that’s all we ask.”
The last night of the Hoods’ tour with Tin Machine, he asked us to jam with them. We started plugging in and he re-emerged from a costume change in full Ziggy Stardust regalia. The wig glitter, platform boots, everything. My boyhood dream was realized.
Stardarts are hammering it out to a crowded street full of people on Mass. Ave. at the Central Square Festival. Minehan could be 16 again, throwing his wiry body in every direction, contorting his face with every vocal nuance. His refusal to succumb to cynicism is obvious in the enthusiasm he displays for his new songs. We can only hope he never changes.