Brother’s Sister’s Daughter
Iggy Pop and Minutemen bassist Mike Watt trawls the Japanese underground
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| Mike Watt |
San Pedro, California’s Mike Watt may be the most storied bassist you’ve never heard of. Granted, many rock fans will know
him as the man who first backed D. Boon in the formative Socal punk band the Minutemen, and as the current bassist for Iggy Pop in the reformed Stooges. But unlike colorful peer Flea of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, who
also emerged out of the ’80s LA punk scene, Watt has always operated
just outside the mainstream.
Yet with the recent release of the Minutemen documentary We Jam Econo, the band’s career, cut short by the tragic death
of frontman D. Boon in an auto accident, is undergoing reevaluation. Some of those just now turning on to the Minutemen’s remarkable songs—characterized by brief, manic bursts of intensity from Boon, Watt and drummer George Hurley—included a posse of Japanese musicians Watt met in his recent Stooges’ appearance at the Fuji Rock Festival.
“A couple of them have a band called Mi-gu—they’re the rhythm section for Cornelius—and they found out about the Minutemen through the documentary,” he recalls over the phone from “Pedro.” “There were two reasons why
I decided to do the documentary: one was that I wanted people to hear
D. Boon play; the other was that I wanted people to see that if we could start
a band, then anyone could.”
While Watt’s ferocious playing has made him the bassist of choice
for rock heroes from Iggy to Perry Farrell (Jane’s Addiction) to J. Mascis (Dinosaur Jr), he continues to adhere to the subversive, improvisational ethic of the Minutemen. “I know about the underground scene in the US,
but I wanted to learn about the Japanese underground,” he says. “I’ve done some avant-garde projects in Europe and the US, so getting the chance
to do it over there—I was like, yeah.”
The tour pairs him with “fuzz bassist” Mark Kramer, expat Tokyo drummer Samm Bennett and Dutch multi-instrumentalist Han Bennink in
a pickup unit dubbed Brother’s Sister’s Daughter. While the music may
be avant-garde, Watt says that everything he does remains infused with
the spirit of punk. “People who have a trippy take on music, I can learn
from them,” he gushes. “So I’ll just invite them to jam. It reminds me of the old bebop guys doing jam sessions—just trying to throw stuff at the wall and see what sticks. That’s why I say punk was not a style of music but a state of mind.”
Watt’s ongoing projects number as many as 15, including Funanori,
a unit with Japanese sanshin player Kaori (who also happens to play
with UK rock group The Go! Team). With them, Watt takes a collaborative approach. “It’s funny because my early musical experience was about one guy, D. Boon, who I grew up with. And when he got killed, at first
I didn’t even think anyone wanted to hear me play without him,” he says. “I can’t really relive my childhood again, so I just make every music trip its own entity. That’s how I get into all these things. The lady I did Funanori with is 20 years younger, and we’re from different worlds. Music is kind of like a Petri dish—you can grow weird shit in it.”
So how is it playing with the Ig? “The Stooges were like the common ground,” he muses. “When the punk scene started up in Hollywood, hardly anyone knew each other, but what everybody had in common was The Stooges. People would talk about how they were already doing punk even before punk was cool. So to be playing with them is a mind blower.”
Watt says he’s learned a lot about himself playing with larger-than-life characters like Iggy and Farrell. “I’d never worked with a guy who doesn’t play an instrument, besides Perry Farrell. These guys are very singular personalities: they are like conductors, and you learn to focus and really pay attention.
I remember once, when we were making the Stooges album,
Ig said, ‘Mike I want you to get in touch with your stupid side.’”
In addition to his numerous bands, Watt’s other big undertaking is his “Watt from Pedro Show” podcast. “I never knew about college radio,” he says. “It’s like punk, which was really empowering. If you had some expression, just do it. So playing records with [radio show partner] Brother Matt and talking about it is kind of the same. Basically it’s just about turning people on to my records.
“About 99 percent is stuff that people give me. A lot of it, when I play it, it’s the
first time. I hear some talk about how this is a lame time in music, but I think there are a lot of people doing interesting things. Part of that is the technology has gotten really ‘econo.’ The other thing is a lot of boundaries got pulled down through punk, and people are willing to try anything. The audacity of doing it just because they can—
I like it.”
SuperDeluxe, Feb 8 and other venues. See concert listings (popular)
for details.
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