Mike Watt - Hyphenated Man

Digging the new Watt album -- Especially because it is an concept album in the classic sense. After reading about Radiohead and the Flaming Lips' recent efforts to redefine how we consume music, Hyphenated Man shows what a great album can still do. Each song is based on a figure from a Hieronymous Bosch painting and they work together to create a whole just like the figures in the painting would. Each song also reflects a different demon that Watt sees in himself as he reflects on midlife - he describes it like a mirror broken into many different pieces. It also gets back to the stream-of-consciousness-no-time-for-a-chorus approach of the Minutemen, but kind of evolved into more of a jazz-punk fusion. I like it much more than the Second Man's Middle Stand.

This is a nice article on it too:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/27/arts/music/27watt.html

glad this is finally out in America -- really dug it when it came out in Japan last October and was kind of pissed that at the time it wasn't clear if/when it'd get a domestic release. definitely much better than Second Man's Middle Stand, in a weird way it's Watt's most Minutemen-esque record ever.

That is a nice article.

Have to see the band when they hustle into my town next month. I believe Thurston Moore is on the same bill.

Thanks for this BrianB.

http://www.clashmusic.com/videos/premiere-cuz-tamatebako

I quite like this, Mike Watt/Sam Dook frm Go! Team/various

Another Watt opera! w/ Petra Haden!!! https://orgmusiclabel.bandcamp.com/album/planet-chernobyl -- & the rest of the rather remarkable story: http://hootpage.com/hoot_benitovilaplanetchernobylpiece.html

Charles Plymell wrote Planet Chernobyl on a Dell desktop and emailed it to Mike Watt. Mike Watt pulled out his 2015 China-made Hofner "Beatle bass" for this recording, getting its tiny, flatwound strings to give him the percussive, trippy, rubber band sound he wanted. He knew the Hofner was the right "machine" for the piece. Petra Haden used her voice, her grandmother's mandolin and her childhood violin, recording in her apartment, performing live, each take played all the way through, using the Garage Band program that came with her MacBook.

Petra Haden and Mike Watt did this piece as part of their _pelicanman_ proj.

Recorded by Petra Haden and Mike Watt at their own separate pads
Mixed by Mike Watt and Petra Haden at studio tHUNDERpANTS