Ready to abstract. Avatar: Joe Pekar’s OC Lydia on her motorcycle. Banner: Alpha from ヨコハマ買い出し紀行 (Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou “Yokohama Shopping Log”) by Hitoshi Ashinano.
![Wikipedia entry on the artwork and packaging for The Minutemen’s Double Nickels on the Dime.
“Artwork and packaging
The album was named Double Nickels on the Dime as a reaction to the Sammy Hagar song "I Can't Drive 55," a protest against the federally imposed speed limit of 55 miles per hour on all U.S. highways in place at the time. Minutemen decided that driving fast "wasn't terribly defiant", Watt later commented that "the big rebellion thing was writing your own fuckin' songs and trying to come up with your own story, your own picture, your own book, whatever. So he can't drive 55, because that was the national speed limit? Okay, we'll drive 55, but we'll make crazy music."
The band illustrated the theme on the cover of Double Nickels on the Dime, which depicts Watt driving his Volkswagen Beetle at exactly 55 miles per hour ("double nickels" in trucker slang) traveling southbound through downtown Los Angeles, where Interstate ("The Dime" in trucker slang) meets the San Pedro Intersection of Route 11/110, also known as the Harbor Freeway, toward the band's hometown of San Pedro. "The title means fifty-five miles per hour on the button, like we were Johnny Conservative." Dirk Vandenberg, the band's "buddy/contributor," took photos from the backseat as Watt drove under the sign to San Pedro; it took three circuits of the highway and two days of photography before Minutemen were happy with the cover. Vandenberg later commented on the cover art: "There were three elements that Mike [Watt] wanted in the photo: a natural kind of glint in his eyes reflected in the rearview mirror, the speedometer pinned exactly at 55mph, and, of course, the San Pedro sign guiding us home". However, when the cover was presented to SST, "someone botched the cropping for the print and cut off the end of the word Pedro."
In 2020, Watt revealed that the front cover of the album was also inspired by the cover of Kraftwerk's 1974 album Autobahn.”](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:rm7slisxyizymw7cux5nd5w6/bafkreifpz2xtmvhosuyyyu3iif7niscxrt7kgsp4qj2b6lydu5fr4c5nzq)
Ready to abstract. Avatar: Joe Pekar’s OC Lydia on her motorcycle. Banner: Alpha from ヨコハマ買い出し紀行 (Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou “Yokohama Shopping Log”) by Hitoshi Ashinano.