New Song On Sunday

 

Working Batterie is a ne collaboration by New York based producer and multi-instrumentalist Pierre de Gaillande and Minutemen's Mike Watt. Batterie is the French word for drums and so many of the songs starts with them played by different drummers and Watt's joins with his bass. It is a mixture that spreads from pop-rock to jazz-punk and many in between. It is always great to hear Mike Watt playing the bass and at the best moments it remains to Watt's joyness of experimentation. Get more here.

When Ohio Joins San Pedro

One thing I really love about the blogs I constantly visit is that sometimes you are surprised about a post you didn't expected and your musical fondness changes rapidly. This happened when Brian posted about fIREHOSE last week. When Minutemen appeared on the scene nothing was like before. I played Double Nickles On The Dime at these days very often and was deeply sad when I heard about D.Boon's deadly accident and thought by myself that another band will vanish in history. The more I was surprised when fIREHOSE revived from the fragments of Minutemen. Ragin', Full On was a highlight in 1986 but for me they're second record If'n means more to me. Moving away from the tradition of Minutemen to more extensive song. This album is more different than their first and showed their mellow side and their heavy side as well. I think that Mike Watt was the leading figure in this band at this time. He wrote most of the songs and the way he played the bass was extraordinary. I spent the last days for hours listening to their old output and never got tired listening to them. Great band, great songs, great fun.

fIREHOSE - Something
fIREHOSE -  Windmilling
fIREHOSE - For The Singer Of REM
fIREHOSE - In Memory Of Elisabeth Cotton

Drove Up From Pedro

Yesterday I had to take part in a rating workshop with colleges from other institutes. It took place in an academy close to Stuttgart airport. Taking the public transportations it will take me hours to get to and from there. So I decided to take the car. And for the fact that I don't listen to the radio I grabbed me a couple of CD's without selecting. One of them was the 1995 album by Mike Watt 'Ball-Hog Or Tugboat?'. For those who don't know the co-founder of Minutemen and Firehose can get more informations here.

I really forgot how great this record was. It was the perfect further development from the sound of Minutemen. It was his first regular solo album and he collaborated on it with Eddie Vedder, Dave Grohl, J. Masics, Even Dando, Henry Rollins, Mark Lanegan and many other well known musicians from the American independent scene. That might be the reason why this record was more successful than his others. By chancing the personal on every track make the album so different. And Mike Watt shows that he is a fantastic bass player.

The only thing I don't understand is the meaning of the title of this record. I know that ball-hog is a perfect throw in American Football and tugboat is a nickname of a famous wrestler. But I don't understand what it means in combination with wrestling.

Mike Watt - Drove up from Pedro
Mike Watt - Against the 70's