This is about Mike Watt, a legendary figure in the indie / alternative / punk /etc, who is originally from Portsmouth, VA, but became identified with San Pedro, CA, due to his association with D.Boon, which resulted in the formation of The Minutemen by 1980.
As with a few other artists included in these posts who are not from Minneapolis and St. Paul, I’m including my recordings of Watt with the Twin Cities Music Preservation Project, because it always felt like there was a sort of familial bond between the man and his fans in Mpls. One example of this camaraderie was demonstrated in 2005, when a Mike Watt Bass Guitar Scholarship was established at the former McNally Smith College of Music in St. Paul.
I’ve already written about the formidable years of Watt’s musical career for the DAMF Magazine in 2001, but since that time, the number of projects featuring his involvement has easily doubled (tripled?) right up to the present day in 2026, showing no signs of slowing down. But don’t take my word for it – feel free to check out Mike Watt’s Hoot Page if you want to keep up with what he’s up to these days. Or maybe I should say, try to to keep up, if you can. Then again, to steal a quote from Watt himself: “go start your own band!”
Meanwhile, here are a few econo jams from the past that should put a smile on your face – dig it!
[ links to recordings provided in posts below ]
Mike Watt And The Black Gang
Minneapolis MN • 7th St Entry
Sunday 24 May 1998
3rd Time Before The Mast Tour
stereo audience recording
duration (01:21:52)
Contemplating The Engine Room / The Opera:
[01] start (00:31.51)
[02] In The Engine Room (04:23.04)
[03] Red Bluff (03:10.13)
[04] The Blue Jackets’ Manual (02:06.02)
[05] Pedro Bound! (02:47.15)
[06] The Boilerman (04:46.16)
[07] Black Gang Coffee (03:23.24)
[08] Topsiders (02:14.60)
[09] No One Says Old Man (To the Old Man) (05:37.51)
[10] Fireman Hurley (02:00.52)
[11] Liberty Calls! (04:43.71)
[12] In The Bunk Room / Navy Wife (02:19.04)
[13] Crossing The Equator (03:30.46)
[14] Breaking The Choke Hold (04:04.26)
[15] Wrapped Around The Screw (02:04.53)
[16] Shore Duty (04:51.08)
Encore #1:
[17] encore applause (01:41.45)
[18] interim / comments (01:01.29)
[19] The Red And The Black (04:15.71)
[20] Walking The Cow [Daniel Johnston] [beginning cut] (01:51.69)
[21] encore applause (01:47.34)
Encore #2:
[22] Big Train (03:11.31)
[23] Forever… [Dos] (02:08.15) >
[24] One Reporter’s Opinion [Minutemen] (01:14.11)
[25] encore applause (01:31.58)
Encore #3:
[26] The 15th [Wire] (03:00.48)
[27] interim / comments (00:37.58)
[28] Drove Up From Pedro (04:13.40)
[29] comments (02:42.08)
Mike Watt : bass; spiel
Joe Baiza : guitar, vocals
Bob Lee : drums, percussion, vocals
Steve Reed : house mix, vocals from desk
Supporting Acts:
So-So
Scrawl
Watt + The Black Gang rip through the complete Contemplating The Engine Room opera, plus a few covers by Daniel Johnston, Wire, and Blue Oyster Cult
From Mike Watt’s Hootpage
watt and the black gang “3rd time before the mast” tour ’98 (apr – jun). joe baiza was on guitar and bob lee was on drums.
read the tour diaries
There isn’t any mention of this show – or the one from the following night in the same venue – on Mike Watt’s Hootpage, as the tour diaries stop just a few dates before they arrive in Minneapolis. For whatever reason, the last entry on this leg of the tour is from May 14, in Boston. The tour diaries pick back up on September 24, in Tucson, and by then, Joe Baiza was gone, and Nels Cline was on the guitar.
For this show, Watt + The Black Gang rip through the complete Contemplating The Engine Room opera, and then give us a few encores for good measure, including a few covers by Daniel Johnston, Wire [!], and of course, Blue Oyster Cult.
Steve Reed (Watt’s sound person for these shows) added vocals from the sound booth in back of the room. His vocal contributions can be heard on a few songs, actually, but I really liked his vocals during the break on The 15th.
I was running a set-up in the Entry which consisted of two PZMs in an reversed X-Y configuration, sitting on a small plank suspended from the ceiling dead center, about 10 feet or so from the center of the stage. The cables ran to the back of the room, behind the sound booth, so I could bring in a deck (or some times two decks in series), plug in, and run the controls from a somewhat isolated vantage point. I recorded numerous shows over a few years with this set-up, and it worked great most of the time.
If the sound quality of this recording sounds a bit over-saturated, that’s because it is. The problem here is that I would occasionally experiment a bit with this set-up, and the saturation comes from one of two experiments that in retrospect, didn’t fare so well. I can’t tell from my notes for this show, but I was doing one of these two things: either powering the PZMs with 2 camera batteries instead of the 1.5 AA batteries they called for, or running auxiliary PZMs on stage. Both of these techniques could be tricky, depending on the show, and sometimes really over-emphasized the low end signal, resulting in a kind of sputtering distortion that doesn’t really overpower the music, but does interfere with the signal being as clear as it could be.
The good news is that with a little time and the right gear [ I’m talking analog gear, not an app or other software ], I know this could be cleaned up really nice. I’d love to do it myself, but honestly, I don’t have all the time in the world to devote to projects like this, and my analog gear is generally tied up for other projects that pay the bills. Besides, I’ve got a LOT more shows waiting to be digitized, and I really can’t give each one the time some of them probably deserve, so I reckon it’s best to just put them out here, warts’n all. If someone has the ability to download this and play it through an analog equalizer, I’d reckon that some selective tweaking of the low end between 20 – 500 Hz should eliminate most of the saturation noise. If someone was serious about taking that on, it would be best to work from the source tape, so feel free to get in touch. Maybe at some point I will be able to get back to this, but for now, it seems more important just to get this out there to share with other fans. After all, none of us are getting any younger. Hope you can dig it!
Taped / transferred / tracked / tagged / tour shirt photo by: J.Free / Sonic Archives
Download or stream the show from Live Music Archive
Mike Watt And The Secondmen
St. Paul, MN • Turf Club
Wednesday 21 May 2003
stereo audience recording
duration (01:11:05)
[01] start (00:14.26)
[02] Boilin’ Blazes (04:53.50)
[03] Puked To High Heaven (02:54.63)
[04] Burstedman (05:22.42)
[05] instrumental (02:47.59)
[06] Bedtime Story (03:38.30)
[07] Burning Up (02:03.17)
[08] Walking The Cow (03:38.46)
[09] She Don’t Know Why I’m Here (02:35.00)
[10] Sweet Honey Pie (02:07.30)
[11] The Big Bang Theory (03:25.46)
[12] Forever… (01:37.46)
[13] One Reporter’s Opinion (01:24.34)
[14] instrumental (03:12.13)
[15] Genius Or Lunatic? (02:49.56)
[16] Amnesty Report II (01:58.39)
[17] Chinese Firedrill (03:47.19)
[18] interim / comments (01:26.16)
[19] The Red And The Black (03:34.69)
encore:
[20] interim / comments (02:15.34)
[21] Little Doll (07:47.34)
[22] Little Johnny Jewel (06:47.46)
[23] comments (00:42.63)
Mike Watt: bass, vocals
Paul Roessler: organ
Jerry Trebotic: drums
Bill:
Mike Watt & The (sorta) Secondmen
Terry + His Barnacles
Superhopper
Just to paraphrase a few notes from the 13 May 2003 set at Smalls, Hamtramck MI:
Mike Watt & The (sorta) Secondmen were:
Watt, Jerry Trebotic, Paul Roessler
Reportedly, May 13th was Paul’s 1st gig of tour, replacing Pete Mazich.
History lesson:
2, 3, 4 from: Mike Watt: The Secondman’s Middle Stand (2004)
6, 7: Madonna: Bedtime Stories (1994)
8: Daniel Johnston: Hi, How Are You: The Unfinished Album (1983)
9: The Last: single (1977)
10: Roky Erickson: Gremlins Have Pictures (1986)
11: Mike Watt: E-Ticket Ride (1995)
12: DOS: Dos (1986)
13: Minutemen: Double Nickels On The Dime (1984)
15, 16: The Pop Group: We Are Time (1980)
AKA: Amnesty International Report On British Army Torture Of Irish Prisoners
17: Mike Watt: Ball-Hog Or Tugboat? (1995)
19: Blue Öyster Cult: Tyranny And Mutation (1973)
AKA: I’m Peepin’ Through Your Files
also:
I’m On The Lamb But I Ain’t No Sheep [Stalk-Forrest Group (1970); Blue Öyster Cult (1972)]
21: The Stooges: The Stooges (1969)
22: Television: single (1975)
I had been out of the loop for a while, and hadn’t seen Mike Watt in some time, so I wasn’t prepared for the organ / bass / drums combo, but I think it took about two and a half seconds to pull me in, and then I was instantly hooked, in the same way as when I first heard the Minutemen all those years earlier – only different, y’know? At any rate, this didn’t turn out too bad – although a slightly better mic might have separated some of the frequencies a bit better – still, I think the performance might make up for any deficiencies in the sound quality. And, it was an absolute blast to see Mike Watt charging out on a limb in yet another of his daring musical departures from everything he’s done in the past, providing very little clues as to the next step on his musical journey.
Oddly enough, I can’t for the life of me recall what recording gear I used for this gig. Based on the date, it would have most likely been a Panasonic RQ-A200 stereo recording walkman, with whatever mini stereo lapel or clip type mic I had at the time time that still worked. That would probably mean an older Sony clip stereo mic, or maybe even an AT 9841 mic, since all my high-end Sony gear had failed on me by that point, and their service people stopped pretending they were going to fix anything anymore. Sheesh. (Oddly enough, the Panasonic deck, which was a desperate rushed purchase for an out-of-town trip in 2002, still works as of 2023). Anyway, not the optimal rig for a show like this one, but it did a pretty decent job, I think.
Taped / transferred / tracked / tagged / tour shirt photo by: J.Free / Sonic Archives
Download or stream the show from Live Music Archive
Download or stream all sets by Mike Watt from Live Music Archive
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