George Hurley

1994 – 4th Annual LA Music Awards “Founding Member of the Minutement and Firehose”

George Hurley (born September 4, 1958 in Brockton, Massachusetts) is a drummer noted for his work with Minutemen and fIREHOSE.

Even though he went to the same high school as D. Boon and Mike Watt he did not meet them until around 1978. That same year, Hurley formed The Reactionaries with Boon, Watt, and Martin Tamburovich. After The Reactionaries split, George joined a Hollywood new wave band called Hey Taxi!. In 1980, Hey Taxi! disbanded at the same time the Minutemen’s then drummer Frank Tonche left the band. Hurley reunited with his two former Reactionaries bandmates in Minutemen.

Hurley is also known for his distinctive hairstyle that he sported in his later Minutemen and Firehose days, a protruding clump of hair that he nicknamed “The Unit”. Hurley explained in the 2005 Minutemen documentary We Jam Econo that since his limbs were all busy when he played drums, he grew “The Unit” so that his head movements were more noticeable on stage.

Hurley has played with The Red Krayola and Tom Watson from Slovenly. He also plays with his surviving Minutemen cohort Mike Watt on occasion, usually performing a set of Minutemen songs without a third person substituting for the late Minutemen leader D. Boon under the name George Hurley and Mike Watt. In addition, he occasionally performs with improvisational group Unknown Instructors with Watt and members of Saccharine Trust and Pere Ubu. Their first album, The Way Things Work, was released in late September 2005 by Smog Veil Records. In October 2005, they returned to the studio to record their second album, this time with Pere Ubu’s David Thomas as an added participant. He has been married since 1997 and has a son Garrett who was born in July 2002.[1]