Mr. Mike Watt

Mike Watt is an American bass guitarist, singer and songwriter.

"He is best-known for co-founding the punk rock bands The Minutemen and fIREHOSE; as of 2003, he is also the bassist for the reunited Iggy Pop & The Stooges and a member of the art rock/jazz/punk/improv group Banyan as well as many other post-Minutemen projects.

"Though Watt has not had much mainstream success or visibility, he is often cited as a key figure in the development of American alternative rock: the Red Hot Chili Peppers dedicated their hugely successful Blood Sugar Sex Magik (1991) to Watt. Throughout his career he has been known for his inventive, melodic playing; his basslines are often quite distinctive." [more...]

In other words, Mike Watts is an innovative, influential and super cool guy. Here are some things he is involved with that available for your ears right now.

Corndogs.org - live and rare audio and video from various Mike Watt incarnations [promoted at Oddio Overplay for about three years now]

The Watt From Pedro Show - radio show available from website or by podcast [rss]

More Watt projects can be found at his website and his MySpace page.

One such project is Funanori, which evidentally means seaman in Japanese. [Any Navy kid seeing that Watt was born in Portsmouth, VA will guess right off that at least one of Mike's parents was with the US Navy.] Kaori from The Go! Team will be playing Okinawan style shamisen, and says that it will be a "Shamisen hard rock band." [I'm guessing something like God of Shamisen.] Looking forward to hearing more from that one!

Enjoy all the great Mike Watt listening. Jazz fans will enjoy his radio show, especially, and if thinking about the shamisen now has you craving that sound, then you might also enjoy the Japan and Okinawa playlist at Oddio Overplay. [m3u or smil or flash player]


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