Former Minuteman Mike Watt's been honoring the legacy of his best friend and former bandmate, D Boon, in just about every musical venture he's undertaken since Boon's death, in December 1985. He shows up here on five of 35 tracks, playing bass with friends like Thurston Moore and D's brother Joe Boon, and his own wife, Kira. But this is mainly a chance for others -- Lou Barlow, Seam, Meat Puppets, the Brain Surgeons, Tsunami, Jawbox, the Meices, Unwound, to name a few -- to rediscover the power and passion of one of America's punk treasures and maybe learn something in the process. They all rise to the challenge. And who knows, maybe the Meices covering "Political Song for Michael Jackson To Sing" or Seam's haunting take on Boon's raging "This Ain't No Picnic" can help bring some of the Minutemen's gritty iconoclasm back into punk.

-- Matt Ashare