Played like a Hollywood tearjerker, We Jam Econo follows two young lads pushed into picking up instruments by their moms as a means of staying off the streets. From the key moments of finding out the knobs topping their frets did a lot more than style-obsessive skateboard kingpins, to dealing with fascist, hardcore-spitting punks who got kicks from ripping out mic chords; this documentary captures all the tribulations of being DIY in the Reagan Era.

On another note, it establishes the impenetrable bond between Mike Watt and D Boon. Watching Watt skew the recording session of, “History Lesson Part II,” by cracking when Boon boasts “Me and Mike just playing these here guitars,” is a Polaroid-party scene freezing these two man-children at the peak of their majestic uni-stride. And the slide from the wide-eyed Watt reenacting meeting Boon as a youth to the dire depression of the fatal day Boon died in a car wreck in ’85 provides a darker transition than any dramatic spill Hollywood jizzes to cum awards season.

While you scrap through mindless books and teachers to find your life’s so-called meaning, the blueprints of DIY are right here: The only driver behind the Minutemen’s classic Double Nickels On The Dime was an attempt at topping a Husker Dü record, and at that, they were striving to combine Pink Floyd with Sammy Hagar. So you can drive at 55 all you want, but D Boon is no longer here to cheer you on.

You feel like a gringo, yet? If not, no worries. After all, we are deemed the post-lit generation. As Boon valiantly said, “Let the products sell themselves…psychological methods to sell should be destroyed.”

-Zach Stephenson

(best low-bud vid sesh of all time?)