The cheers went up when Mike Watt loped on stage with his bass and his cane, en route to his chair. The beloved bassist from the Minutemen, Firehose, and endless collaborations, at 67 is a punk rock mainstay and hero, who despite the chronic knee problems that require the cane, still lays it down with verve and force, as he showed with the experimental power trio mssv, at the Pearl Street Warehouse in DC Friday.
The improvisatory outfit is led by bespectacled Knoxville guitarist Mike Baggetta, who first managed to convince Watt and no less than rock drummer Jim Keltner—who worked with Ry Cooder, most of the solo Beatles and was drummer for Traveling Wilburys—to join him for his solo album Wall of Flowers in 2019.
It worked so well, they wanted to tour but because of Keltner’s other studio commitments, he was replaced on the road, and on subsequent group recordings by Stephen Hodges, an accomplished drummer in his own right, who had worked with Watt on his album Contemplating The Engine Room in 1997, and had played on several records behind Tom Waits, Mavis Staples, John Hammond and others.
To open the Pearl Street show, Hodges joined in the spirit of experimentation by dragging chains across his drum kit, adding to the string improvisations conjured up by Baggetta and Watt. It was one of several spots on the setlist that began with space for improv before they settled into any structures of a song. And even then, the tunes took some wild swings in dynamics.
For all the hit-and-miss variations, Baggetta restarted their second song of the set after a false turn. “It’s our first gig in DC,” he explained. He wanted to get it right. Maybe because that song seemed perfect for the nation’s capital: “Hypocrite.”
With a band name that’s an acronym for their first album in this configuration, 2020’s Main Steam Stop Valve, mssv depends on live shows as an incubator for their creativity. Their new album, On and On, released the same day as the DC show, was recorded after first playing the whole thing live for a year (something usually frowned upon by bands worried about still-emerging songs leaking to the internet).
While keeping its footing squarely in rock—and specifically the power trio—they have the freedom to explore some sonic areas minus the usual boundaries. And though they never landed completely in jazz, the three showed the seriousness of those kinds of combos, neither inviting crowd participation nor trying to create any particular party zone. They paid attention to one another’s playing, like good jazz players, so they could allow for solos, react to them, or end a song together with some semblance of cohesion.
They were serious enough not to point fans to the merch table, and wore T shirts that didn’t advertise bands or anything else. But all this made it more engrossing.
Most surprising of all were songs that would begin brashly, quiet to a literal spoken whisper, and then crank up again on “Even So,” “Help,” and especially “Boat Song,” when Baggetta’s whisper was so soft to be inaudible and Hodge’s drumming so quiet it was more a visual than a sound.
Baggetta’s commitment to experimentation was total. He’d play every part of his guitar, more with a frenzy of strumming than individual picking. But his playing field explored the whole of the instrument, from neck to toggle switch to rapping the back of the body; from thrumming the pickup with his fingers to plucking the strings at the headstock. All this and not messing with effects knobs as much as other guitarists do.
They played about half of the new album, and just the title song from their 2023 album, Human Reaction, meaning the balance of the show was likely material from the next album, still incubating before our eyes.
While he uttered the occasional verse here and there during the set, Watt got his showcase late in the show when he greeted the “good people” and introduced a cover important to him—the version of “Another World” that Richard Hell and the Voidoids put out on Ork Records in 1976 when he was in high school. A great moment: seeing one punk legend sing another.
Almost as interesting in a support slot was an innovative DC band with the unfortunate name Motherfuckers JMB & Co. (I missed the first band, Bed Maker). This power trio was all instrumental, creating what sounds like full-throated, guitar-fueled psychedelia.
Except that the guitar-like sounds are from a student-sized hurdy gurdy, hand-cranked and played by Brian Weltz, the member of Animal Collective known as Geologist. Never a guitar player before, Weitz, who handles the electronic sounds for Animal Collective, said he wanted to create the same kinds of sounds. He does so through that unusual instrument that originated in the 13th century, which involves a hand-cranked wheel rubbing against the strings like a bow, creating a drone that can be manipulated by keyboard-like tangents—and of course many modern effects boxes..
And this band went on a lot of tangents itself, powered by a rhythm section that included hard-hitting drummer Jim Thomson, once of GWAR, and Marc Minsker, a bass player who seemed to preside over the jams, such that he’d have to sometimes kick the drummer to let him know they were ending a song.
The mssv continues through May 3 in Los Angeles. On and On is available on Big Ego Records.
