Mike Watt

To begin our discussion concerning Mike Watt, his new CD and the tour he has embarked on to promote the CD, I’ll open with the last question I asked him: “In Salt Lake City the wise sage states, ‘Old punks don’t go out anymore. They stay at home and watch TV (ESPN).’ Do you have any words of encouragement for them?”

Watt: Yeah, really, well they shouldn’t let the meat loaf. A lot of these kids would really love to know what it was all about. There should be a lot more connecting. It doesn’t have to be some old “Happy Days/American Graffiti” thing. It can still be living. When I met those kids, the rrriot girls up in Olympia, and Mac in Superchunk and his little Merge label, the shit’s still going on. The only difference is time and our bodies changed.

Excitement filled Watt’s voice when he said this next: “The attitudes are still out there… check it out!”

He made some other statements about what he termed the Grand Canyon separating the previously mentioned independent labels and the Toys R Us attitude surrounding music today. It is interesting to note some changes occurring locally. The Moroccan is the underground venue of choice these days. While that tiny room is playing host to some exciting music there are shows at the old Stonewall Center, the Bibliotheque Cafe has some things going on and the dark crowd has McCollough’s. Spanky’s continues to bring all manner of music to town, but the point is — get out of your fucking house once in awhile because Salt Lake City is becoming known nationally as the town with adventurous promoters and no audience.

I love record label press materials. Many of them are written with the full knowledge that the recipient is a former sports writer who has moved to the “entertainment” desk. “Columbia Records artist Mike Watt, whose early punk bands the Minutemen and FIREHOSE helped launch the alternative rock scene…” opens the kid. The two “buzz” words are “alternative” and “punk.” Contemplating The Engine Room is the title of Watt’s new CD. I wouldn’t consider the disc to be punk or alternative, although Watt has called it a punk rock opera. Joining Watt on the CD are Nels Cline on guitar and Steve Hodges on drums. Nels Cline is also featured on one of the most tragically overlooked CDs currently sitting in the shots. He won’t be joining Watt on the tour because he is touring the creators of Lost Somewhere Between Earth and My Home; The Geraldine Fibbers.

It is time to begin at the beginning. The label representative connected me and here’s the opening, “It’s Watt.”

SLUG: How are you, Mr. Watt?

Watt: Well, I’m Pedro.

SLUG: Yeah, and you’re doing phone interviews all day, or at least in the morning.

Watt: Yeah, yeah, in the morning, but I want to let people know about the new record. It’s harder working in a salt mine, believe me. In fact, I like talking to people. 

To imagine what Mike Watt’s speaking voice is like, simply think of “The Big Rock Station, The Bear,” morning jock, Uncle Nasty, except with a brain. Mike Watt is no stranger to Salt Lake City. He told me that he’d played in a downtown storefront club with the Massacre Guys before the infamous speedway existed. He even remembered that two of the Massacre Guys had gone on to fame and fortune as members of All, the same two have been touring as bass and guitar in the reformed Descendents.

Here’s Watt with a memory of Salt Lake City: “In fact the Tour-Spiel Minutemen EP that Bob Mould put out was recorded in Salt Lake City and there’s pictures of us sweating to death on the cover.” According to my reference materials, the EP was released in 1985 on the Reflex label and it consisted of a “live-in-the-studio performance done for a Tucson radio broadcast.” Either Watt’s memory is fading faster than mine or incorrect information has become truth. It’s a small matter anyway, but it’s admirable of him to hold Salt Lake City in such high esteem, correct or incorrect. He also remembered Raunch Records. When I told him that Raunch had become a skate shop and a record store he chuckled and said, “You know, I always tried to play my bass like I was riding a skateboard. You fall down, you can’t really get up and talk your way out of it, you just gotta get back up on the board.”

I spoke to Watt the day after Elton John’s “Candle In The Wind” single was released. We talked about the single, but Watt is an Internet kind of guy. He knew the latest conspiracy theories. “I like the Lady Di conspiracy theories,” he says, “Where like Prince Ranier had her killed as revenge for Grace Kelly getting killed because it’s actually the Vatican against the Windsor family.” He laughs. “It looks like a gimmick to sell the record. People are trying to run hustles on people all the time. I think with Elton John it is probably sincere. He probably liked that lady.” 

Enough with the current events. The seventh song on Contemplating The Engine Room is “Topsiders.” Watt has a litany of names from his SST days as a portion of the lyrics. “The names? They’re crewmen,” he says. “Work in the old days was a big boat. That’s what that’s like. The boat’s a metaphor for the old days. We’re all on this boat. We’re in different rooms, all the bands got their own room, but then we’re all on this big boat. It was a weird kind of movement, a very autonomous collective.”

I asked Watt about some of those names from the old days and what they were up to now. I learned some stuff about the Kirkwood boys (Meatpuppets) that was sad, but of more interest was Keith Morris. He put out a pretty astounding record and toured once again as The Circle Jerks’ leader. His performance at DV8 several years ago remains a landmark on the wasted landscape of reformed punk rock bands. Where is he now?

Mike Watt isn’t one to sit around on his hands. Since he toured Ball-Hog Or Tugboat? in 1995, he’s been busy with some side projects. He’s toured with Porno For Pyros, he’s gigged with dos, the band he has with his wife Kira, he plays with Banyan, a band which includes Stephen Perkins, Money Mark and Nels Cline and he has the Madonnabes, a Madonna tribute band. Why the Madonnabes? “For me to play bass, I have to practice everyday to keep my fingers in shape. I had this little practice band where I just interpreted Madonna songs. First, I had a band called Ciccone Youth. It was a project I did after D. Boone got killed. It was something to get me back into music. After FIREHOSE I started practicing and these people would come by the pad, pretty soon I had dancers, everything. So I started doing gigs. I wear a mouse suit. It’s pretty ah… well you know last year was weird. I played ah, I helped Perry out for ten months, I was a deckhand in Porno and he had dancers and I said I want a band too with dancers,” says Watt. “These girls are very genuine, they love Madonna, they worked out all these routines. It’s a really neat band in a way. I can’t play until December because the girls graduated high school and they’re in college now and that’s when the break for their college is. We’ll play again in December.”

Scan back through the printed page and find the section where Watt says that he wants to let people know about the new record. The more astute reader will note that we hadn’t discussed the new record much. I believe that I could have talked to Mike Watt for several hours. He’s a talker and he’s the kind of man who can discuss any subject presented to him at length. I’ve learned over time that the guys who were present when punk rock began are among the most intelligent musicians in the world. They were/are misfits and the reason they were/are misfits is because they could/can see through all the bullshit. When I compare the so-called revolutionaries of the ‘60s, the outspoken, socially conscious musicians of that decade with those who followed, I find the “boomers” lacking. The Rolling Stones? Shit. Jackson Browne? Shit. The Eagles? Shit. Bob Dylan? More shit. Jefferson Airplane? Starship is the worst shit. Who among the hippies remains exciting besides Neil Young?

Contemplating The Engine Room is like Primus without the cartoons. Rather than go off into some never-never-land of progressive rock, why not release an album with feeling? As Watt says in the record-label-provided materials, “Each song is a piece of the day, starting from just before dawn and ending 23 + 1 hours later. What I really wanted to do was make one whole piece that celebrates three people playing together.”

Arise before dawn and begin listening to Contemplating The Engine Room. Listen throughout the day. Stay up all night and listen. Watt compares his life as a musician to the life his father led as a sailor. Life in the van is the same as life on a ship. And for the rest of us it is the same. Life in a cubicle with breaks for lunch and visits to the water cooler is the same as life on a production line producing goods for consumption or a life spent attempting to satisfy the needs of consuming customers. Interaction with inanimate tools of work and with other humans produces mood swings and that is what Mike Watt has created — an emotional, mood swing of a disc.

He and the Black Gang Crew will play the music in its full glory, without costume changes when they arrive at Spanky’s on October 14. The touring Black Gang Crew is Watt on bass, Joe Baiza (Saccharine Trust, Mecolodiacs, Universal Congress of…) on guitar and Steve Hodges (Tom Waits, Lotus Eaters, James Harmon Band) on drums. —Sin-Bad

Read more interviews from the SLUG archives:
Everclear
Mansun

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