Mike Watt
The Secondman's Middle Stand

Columbia    WK 75901  (2004)

Rock/Pop
CD, 9   Tracks, 53:08  Length
01 Boilin' Blazes Mike Watt 05:30
02 Puked To High Heaven Mike Watt 03:15
03 Burstedman Mike Watt 05:55
04 Tied A Reed 'Round My Waist Mike Watt 05:59
05 Pissbags And Tubing Mike Watt 06:17
06 Beltsandedman Mike Watt 06:40
07 The Angels Gate Mike Watt 06:32
08 Pluckin', Pedalin' And Paddlin' Mike Watt 07:02
09 Pelicanman Mike Watt 05:58
Music Details
Product Details
UPC (Barcode) 766927590122
Packaging Jewel Case
Spars DDD
Sound Stereo
Extras Autographed
Musicians  &  Credits
Bass Mike Watt
Drums Jerry Trebotic
Organ Pete Mazich
Background Vocals Petra Haden
Producer Mike Watt
Engineer Michael Rich
Cover by Mike Watt
Personal Details
Index # 3768
Owner Dave
Tags Alternative Rock, Indie Rock
User Defined
Purchased New
Notes
There aren't a lot of guys in punk rock (or rock & roll, period) who appear to have their feet more squarely on the ground than Mike Watt, who in his own regular-guy way has been the heart, soul and conscience of the music ever since his days playing bass in the Minutemen. A musical team player who lives by the notion of "jamming econo" (living and touring frugally, with an eye on the music rather than the trappings), Watt is as likely to talk about fixing his van or recording on used tape in his interviews as he is about "stardom" or "career," so when he had a regular guy's sort of life-changing experience -- a close brush with death brought on by a massive abscess in his perineum that eventually burst -- it makes sense that he would chose to write a song cycle about it. Secondman's Middle Stand is a "rock opera" of sorts in which Watt presents a first-person account of his illness and recovery (names of the participants included) which occasionally betrays the influence of Dante's The Divine Comedy, with sickness representing the Inferno, treatment standing in for Purgatory, and the return to health as the ascent to Paradise. If this all sounds a bit grand, it doesn't play that way; Watt's craggy voice (sounding like a deeper, West Coast variation on David Thomas' vocal style) keeps this material firmly grounded at all times, as do the messy realities of tunes like "Puked to High Heaven" and "Pissbags and Tubing" and the everyday joy of "The Angels Gate" and "Pluckin', Pedalin' and Paddlin'." Watt recorded these songs with Pete Mazich on organ, Jerry Trebotic on drums, and Watt himself on "thudstaff" (that's bass guitar in Pedro-speak), and while the arrangements are typically efficient, Watt and his crew are able to conjure up a genuinely epochal sound out of this power trio, with Mazich's organ offering a broad range of tonal colors and Watt's thick bass tone sometimes doubling as a fuzzed-out guitar. Secondman's Middle Stand is a wildly idiosyncratic examination of life, death, and the bridge in between, with its sense of joy in the possibilities of second chances outweighing its very real terrors, and no one but Mike Watt could have made it -- it's harrowing, funny, and genuinely moving stuff from a true American original. -- Mark Deming (allmusic.com)