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again, I'm enlisted into contributing and I jump at the chance. at the time I was just embarking on an attempt to enlarge the power trio setup I've grown w/through the years with by adding another drummer and I was thinking of making the band even bigger for this track. on hand were the crew of the flying saucer (nels cline, michael preussner, vince meghrouni, and myself), woody alplanalp from nels' stable of new music monday at the alligator lounge alumni plus two dudes from pedro, scott mclean and eric binkley. not only was I going to add three more guitarists but I was going to have nels over dub two more times so we'd have six guitars, two drum sets and one bass going - all for wire - my biggest landscape ever, even bigger than "intense song for madonna to sing" from my last album (referred to as "the wrestlin' record"). again, I got my first pick at a song and I can't believe anyone didn't choose it, it's called "the 15th" and it's off their third record "154". it's a very trippy narrative that leads you down a skewed landscape bent on the kafka certainty of where you're going doesn't really matter or does it? here's the blow-by-blow:
nels - guitar (x3)
michael - drums
vince - drums, background singing
scott - guitar, background singing
eric - guitar, background singing
woody - guitar
watt - bass, spiel
bobby seifert engineered this at north vine studios (the old crystal studios) in hollywood, ca in the early summer of '95. I dug recording this so much that I included it in my sets for the next two tours and I thank theses guys for lighting this tune up for me, giving it the gusto it deserves.
- another band from the old punk days (late '70s) that was what I call crucial for me along w/the germs and others were these guys from england called wire. here's what I wrote for them in this tribute's liner notes:
"in 1977 I saw (got) this record called 'pink flag' I couldn't believe it when I heard it. here was music that used formulas that were entirely their own. they owed nothing to the traditional verse-chorus-verse-chorus thing. they had an authentic voice. it seemed like the song itself was the focus. it would seem impossible to ever estimate the effect wire had on me and d. boon when the minutemen started. the perspective they lent us by them just being themselves was a mind-blow from which we never recovered."
this release is out on wmo - p.o. box 29133, los angeles, ca 90029 usa.
loop back to mike watt's hoot page
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