iggy + the stooges
in the u.s., canada, england,
germany, the netherlands,
france, serbia, russia
and slovenia
august - september, 2008
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a word's-eye view from mike watt
I celebrate myself (first words of whitman's "leaves of grass") jen and marc live right near the cemetery but have never been there. the little crypt where walt's put is real close to the entrance, to the left and down a hill road - marc drives his truck down it and we park (right near where a flock of canadian geese are... he says they're getting to be a prob cuz they don't migrate anymore), I then sit in the dirt by this stone w/an engraving of walt (of course it's him all old - always you see this! what about him in the 1855 first edition, I love how he looks there!) and spiel about what mister whitman's work means to me as mark films. I have lots to say though it's kind of like wondering out loud. I'm wearing my favorite flannel right now - the blue one I got last month w/sam in his brighton, england town and this was unexpected, me spieling like this but I think it's as important in some ways maybe as the d. boon and bass stuff - or maybe it's the way I see things connecting in my life or trying to - even this land I come from, my home. it's a trip and walt's work has been profound on me, how I find myself in these days. I could never thank him more, thank him for his works and the spirit w/in. we then go back across the river into west phily and over on 33rd street we find the house john coltrane lived in from 1952 to 1958, first passing through parkside which was the neighborhood schooly d was from. I tell jen and marc about fIREHOSE playing w/him in phily back in 1987, kim and thurst drove down from nyc to see it - it was such a righteous thing to meet schooly and see his gig after playing before him. anyway, the pad is kind of beat some but I've heard "cousin mary" still lives in it (there's a trane song w/that title, great tune!). I'm too scared to knock on the door but get my picture taken in front of it - first though I run across the road to a driving range and see a portajohn and go dump in there, marc right outside it w/the camera on and asking my thoughts on coltrane. I tell him he's like walt whitman to me, a prophet of possibilities and inspires me to know end. I 'pert-always have a john coltrane pin on my shirt. and like whitman, I could go on and on about mister coltrane - much respect! what a nice journey! I thank jen and marc much and they drop me back at the 'tel so I can hose off and chimp diary before it's time to bail back to 'pert-near where, I was: across the river in camden, where this download festival 2008 is. nine and a quarter and it's our time... just a few minutes before, eric brought me my little bass - feels like helperman chris has put on new strings, hmm... usually I get four or five gigs out of a set - hey, that reminds me, a couple of days ago, a new volume control got put in cuz it seemed like the one that was in there was linear and not audio taper. anyway, we follow ig out to the back of the stage-port side, at the bottom of some stairs. this venue's what they call a "shed" in the racket (this one called "the tweeter center" w/a capacity of twentyfive thouand), hooded over the stage and kind of an amphitheatre trip where the folks sit, this is a bigger one but maybe too big for the crowd here? the vibe of ig though is intense - right away I think of the gig of last month's empuriabrava (catalonia) gig and how he came out of the gate charging hard, how I love this man's spirit. he lifts the band right up w/him, lifts the folks right out in the crowd w/him - we're all w/ig and trying to charge as hard as him. boom! goes "loose" - we're off. one string again w/the riff, I think of dave and wonder if he did it this way cuz it sure sounds and feels like it - not the way I've been doing it and I have to say it takes focus for me to make these moves but I will get better at it - I'm here to learn! "down on the street" and the knobs on my svt amps survive ig's accession, me on my knees. before "1969" he tells the gig-goers how he's glad to be here cuz "we believe in you" he tells them. his singing is strong and his abandon has that righteous wild focus - yeah, wild focus! does that make sense? does to me! "I wanna be your dog" next and scotty re-starts his drum intro (love it so w/him on the lower riser - he's got a gold sparkle drum kit) to follow ig but me and ronnie get a little tangled but get all straight quick once it's riff time - during ronnie's solo, ig launches himself into javaline heave mode and flies straight into folks! it's been a few show since done this cuz the euro festivals have huge open moats between the stage and the peeps, not so here cuz they're right up front. it's beautiful, my mind is blown. he asks if anyone's thirsty - it is humid hot up here - we're into "tv eye" and it's some pummels in the middle chug part w/words towards u.s. commercial television, good ones to the gut, yeah! he calls out "real cool time" and after singing his verses, puts out the invite for dancers - they come and they're great, stage invasion! "no fun" comes and two dudes jump on my amps, like where ig was but they're both standing straight up (ig just sits and humps!) w/their hands in the air, each one on each of my svt stacks and then one leaps off and up - whoa, he gets some fucking air and comes down (I've moved to the side to give them room, I kind of seen it coming), then the other cat does the same - so glad they did get hurt cuz that was some leaping! ig says over the mic "thank you philadelphia punks and dancers!" (I know, it's camden but he keeps saying philadelphia and probably there's a lot of folks from there cuz it's just across the river) ig means it too, he's so happy people come aboard and dance w/us, make things alive and not just the "mersh rock show" thing... it's spontaneous, it's fun. band intros and then "1970" - boom, round II w/steve coming on board w/his sax: "blow, steve - blllllooooooooooooowwww!" reel it back some w/"mindroom" (check your tuning watt!) and then ig hollers "fun house" and so that's what I do and we slam hard (only stooge song w/out a countoff we do!) and then boom boom boom, into "l.a. blues" and soon I'm rolling on the deck after humping the amp speaker front. check the tuning again, "skull ring" yeah! "my idea of fun" yeah! and here's the closer: "search and destroy" and it turns out to be the send off - ig says we're done. wow, that was a great sweaty gig, wow! I see jess on the way back, she was running the tour of the guy madden "brand on the brain" silent movie I was asked to be one of the guest narrators one night when it was at the egyptian in hollywood - big sweaty hugs for her, aaaarrrrggggghhhhh. we're only here a tiny bit cuz we're leaving on a private jet, an embraer legacy 600 - in fact the same kind we used from vassa last week to london heathrow. it's a one hour flight north to cover the four hundred miles to montreal. maybe one and a half bells when a van brings us to an embassy suites (maybe run by hilton? I don't know much about fancy pads) - damn, this room's like a pad w/a big frig, living room and jacuzzi tub that can fit two! go figure. I konk on the deck in my clothes w/no blankie. sunday, august 3, 2008 - montreal, quebec, canada pop at seven bells and try that jacuzzi thing. I've tried before but this has tinier jets so maybe better? don't really have enough experience to have a real opinion but it does feel trippy - like I'm being cooked up in a soup, like it was boiling from heat and not from water and air being blown through them little jets. did you know "jacuzzi" came from the last name of some italian brothers who moved to cali? I didn't 'till I just looked it up on wikipedia. I shovel from the free trough downstairs, a big zoo w/all kinds of peeps but I keep out of the cook-to-order line and use scrambled eggs and sausage from a less crowded end of the room. trippy, eggs almost every morning on tour for me but at home only on sundays w/my ma and sisters for breakfast. I chow some yogurt and strawberries too. today's kind of unusual for stooges cuz not only are we playing on the day we travelled, we're also playing two gigs in a row which ain't too often for this team. I go and chimp diary after hoofing around. montreal is a beautiful town, probably the most europe style of any I've been to in north america. we're to go at six pm so we bail at four bells and ride through town to an island next to this one (montreal's an island) but it's manmade - built w/what was dug up for the city metro. it's very pretty, stuff from the 1967 expo w/lots of trees and a beautiful view of the city. it's been raining we were told but the stooges brought the sun w/them yesterday, the ground still muddy but I hoof around and find lots of parts by the water vacant so I can talk to myself in the nature w/nobody getting bothered. cat power is on before us so I hoof back to the "compound" - where the dressing rooms are, by where the big caltria sculpture is and there's chan! I'm already in the boilersuit so I have to laugh but she likes it. she's going on now - I see her drummer jim white and guitarist juda too... we talk some and then her gig starts, I watch from the front cuz the side of a big stage is always just the worst but I'm inside the barricade thing so I don't have the best angle. their bassman couldn't make it over the border so keyboardman's doing double duty but they're still cookin' w/chan leading them strong w/such great singing and much feeling - wow, a great thing to inspire me for the stooges gig next. even a ccr tune, yeah! our turn soon so gotta hoof back - hey, there's sam and ian of the go! team, wow! what a surprise, beautiful - big hugs for them, big ones! it turns out they're playing at this osheaga music and arts festival on the second day (tomorrow) but came on the first time to visit me and see the stooges - damn, big hugs for them, big ones. I see tourboss henry and ask if I should wait here for the guys but he says ig wants me riding w/them so he can see I got focus so I say bye to sam and ian and run back to the stooges crew by their trailers. there's a little delay but not much... I roll in a van w/them, it is quiet so I am quiet - we get out... we're underway w/the sun still up but on the way down. from ig's "go!" I charge up the stairs w/the little bass, we roll out "loose" and let it rip - right away the montrealers are way w/us and it's crazy time for stooge music, me staying on the 'a' string again the whole tune. "down on the street" number two - right into number two, the way we do. number three "1969" w/ig first telling the folks "we're the fucking stooges... we believe in you!" outside festival w/stage up high (low riser for scotty's drums though, way into that) so number four "I wanna be your dog" has no stage dive but he gets on the grassy deck to work the crow hand-to-hand, man-to-fan while ronnie's never sounded better w/his own marshall twin stacks - wow, they sound incredible! oh yeah, I'm using the two stacks of eden vt-300 amps I used for last year's u.s. tour and the difference in punch and directness of each note compared to ampegs is lightyears for me. "tv eye" number five is come even more alive time, up and up and up we keep racheting up the set' intensity... getting folks up on stage w/us for six "real cool time" and seven "no fun" takes a bit but security relents to ig hollering "let 'em up here!" and soon it's yes fun! yeah, a very much real cool time! intros and "1970" following, steve making his entrance to close it w/soul tootin' sax wails cuz we're all the way feel all right... some water for watt cuz no bass in "mindroom" - hey, there's jim white and chan stage starboad! I bow. number ten gets the shoutout from ig: "fun house" - bass ignites, band blows up, bass w/it! pieces of us freak out and whirl for "l.a. blues" - the screw holding my strap on the bottom of little bass comes out while I'm putting her between me and the amp in some thrusting - oh oh but helperman chris is there quick w/some gaff tape to get me back shipshape and up for "skull ring" at number twelve. a trippy hat comes flying upstage, maybe a cap? the brim is so tiny... no time to ponder too long cuz "search and destroy" is right up for number fourteen, last on the list - ig makes sure we run the set tight by hollering out each title but for the closer, "I got a right" - scotty here's it as "not right" - this tune was an audible, not listed so the intro's a clusterfuck and it's much clam chowder 'till ronnie just forcefeeds the riff on us and we follow him, ig yelling encouragement in a particularly creative way... it comes together though and we finish strong. yes, we are finished, they holler for me to get in the van cuz I'm still up on the stage... I don't walk away like the stupid move I made last gig in finland when ig wanted one more tune but there is no "one more tune" this time and I hand the little bass to helperman chris and ride back... I most time hoof back but I was asked to get in so I ride back. soon though I do hoof back to the stage, all wet in the boilersuit still but I wanna see sam and ian. jim white and chan are there too - so is jimmy from sparta (he's got a new band now but fuck, I spaced on the name - sorry!)... once when the asheton brothers w/j mascis was doing asheton, asheton, mascis and watt (the band ig heard about doing stooges and maybe had him think to ask ron and scotty to write and play four songs on his "skull ring" album) at pukelpop like five years ago along w/sparta, I asked him to sing "no fun" w/us so he wrote the lyrics on his arm just in case but he used blue marker and it turned out the stage lights we're all blue - aaaarrrrrgggghhhhh! he did great anyway, much respect. he tells about just getting held up by gunpoint in atlanta but got away safe (thank god!) and it made it to the press so he says omar (both were in at the drive in, before sparta) just called him, first time in a long time - maybe they play again together? yeah! we decide to all meet up at casa de popolo (run by the same folks who across the street have gigs at la salla rosa where I've played gigs, great great cats) in montreal cuz the stooge boat is rolling and I gotta be w/them. I get back to the 'tel and then take a cab to find jim white and chan and some of their team watching a four piece instrumental actually called the trio (they have a guest on trumpet). I ain't really got to talk w/jim white for a while, at the 1996 "big day out" in australia, the band he's in w/warren and mick, the dirty three, would have me guest for each gig - yeah, turning into "the filthy four" for one tune! jim white's and incredible drummer. and chan, yeah, getting to see her again after a while too, so SO great. she's in the greatest spirit. of course ian has more of the most interesting ideas, telling me about a deck a cards he gave his bro for xmas, something from eno to promote chance in experimenting w/music - maybe call "oblique strategies" or something like that? then look who comes? sam and ian - they made it! wow, what a blast! in fact I get a little excited and foam up some which also means a little loud and this one young man as me to lower my voice so I am embarrassed and go out on the sidewalk. I meant no disrespect and when the band finishes, I go and shake their hands... later the guitarman coming up and saying he just recognized me so hopefully that young man (I think maybe a friend of the band?) knows I did mean to be so stupid. that was just a little hiccup though in a very happening night w/friends for watt. we spiel out on the sidewalk about music and all kinds of stuff 'till go home time and again I konk on the deck in my clothes... I was tuckered but really really happy, a very very fun time for watt! wednesday, august 6, 2008 - toronto, ontario, canada I pop at six bells and use the shower rather than the bubbler tub - feeling more like hosing off than soaking, I feel alright! go down to shovel the free trough - maybe beat some zoo and anyway, shove-off is at nine so... I see helperman jos and he's got an intense look on his face. I tell him thank you for the good job he did last night but ask if anything's wrong and he says the rental truck w/all the equipment might've been towed cuz there's a time of the morning when parking where it was (right across the street from the 'tel's front hatch) is supposed to be free for rush hour and I tell him "damn" but he answer that would be good if it was and like an idiot, w/out thinking, I ask him why and he answers "cuz then it means it hadn't been nicked" w/"nicked" meaning stolen in england slang and I think "fuck, of course!" and mutter even too. I go and shovel slow. as time goes by, it's more and more clear it's a major donate though we do have our clothes sacks - it's the yellow penske rental truck and all the musical equipment in it that's gone - all except steve mackay's tenor sax (the same one he used on the "fun house" album) cuz he had that w/him in his chamber. there is an intense sadness in me cuz of losing the little bass but on a parallel track, almost immediately I feel what seems like a very honest reaction that's telling me it was meant to happen. for the last several months I have these visions of a picture forever fading and that being most appropriate... to resolve a karma, naturally but now though, like a guillotine move - here for me is a proper resolution. there's a minutemen song on the "double nickels on the dime" album called "please don't be gentle w/me" - I think saccharine trust's singer jack brewer's cousin joe brewer actually wrote the words - god, we had to write a second album really quick cuz having already done what we thought we be our next one - a single album (this was in the late fall of 1983), we changed our minds quick and wanted it to be a double one cuz our friends husker du had just come to cali from their minneapolis town to record "zen arcarde" maybe around xmas. we "outsourced" some words cuz it was intense enough to come up w/the music so on that album you'll find lyrics by all kinds of cats like joe carducci, chuck dukowski, hank rollins, joe and jack brewer, dirk vandenberg - even a landlady of his, mary macono who's note about his tub leaking from his upstairs apartment was never ever intended to be part of a song (I used it in my "solo song" - all three of us had a "solo song" on that album, part of a joke along w/the title being ironic to a sammy hagar song) but d. boon was telling me my lyrics were too spacey so I asked him if her note was "real enough" to use (he bust a gut laugh when I asked him that). ok, I'm getting a little carried away here on a tangent? aaarrrrrgggghhhh. I actually really feel bad for ron and scotty's stuff, that they had to be plucked also. I have no feelings about them deserving that and think it's a very grave injustice, just like sonic youth losing a rental truck w/all their equipment in irvine, ca (orange county) the night before I played w/them at the 1999 "this ain't no picnic" festival (hey, they named that festival after a song from "double nickels on the dime" - maybe I didn't spin off on a tangent!). brother lee eventually got three of his guitars back. hey, maybe I should write here about the little bass, about it actually be stolen from me before - and it came back. yep. I was on tour in 1996 w/the crew of the flying saucer (myself, nels cline, michael pruessner and vince meghrouni) and the morning after a gig in charlottesville, va I got a call from my sister melinda saying my apartment had be broken into and everything scattered/ransacked but not a lot missing except for some monies and two basses - my minutemen telecaster bass and that little red gibson bass. aaaaarrrrggghhhh. again, I was kind of resigned 'pert-near right away and was just hoping someone would be writing and being creative w/that minutemen bass and it wouldn't be just hanging on a pawnshop wall somewhere. well, about three years later, there's these three younger men in my pedro town that ask me if they want me to come watch them do prac and I said sure. I go w/them there to their prac pad and the bassman pulls out the little bass! I ask where he got that and he said he got from a guy who's pop was a methamphetamine enthusiast and know maybe some break-in people who partake in that to support their methamphetamine research and self-study so it was like he didn't know and was kind of embarrassed and just gave her to me. so some kind of invisible bungie cord snapped her back. I have had trips like that w/women too, where they come for a little bit before the forever split. I've learned to reconcile that and have peace w/it - every woman I've been in love w/I still love very much - just in a different way, sort of like the way life is a journey and I think that's cuz love is part of life. actually it's too hard for me to get all what I think about in words or even in thirteen hour spiel if I was sitting right across from you so I hope it don't appear all figured out in the stupid tour spiel I chimp here. if anything, I'm just trying to convey in some sense a kind of feeling - hence all the pseudo-details (I mean they're accurate but the reality is something's - or most - is bound to be left out), part of a device to try and let that emotionally part of me that's always doing flying karate kicks on the inside of head bust out. back to touring in stooge-land... ronnie is hit hard by this and can't even speak - this will go on for a couple of days. scotty's philosophical about it and is actually feeling more bad for me, same w/the bosses eric and henry but I try to relieve them of that cuz I wanna keep the team spirit up and also in my head is that stuff in the paragraph I've just written though it probably ain't that clear - sorry. maybe one word will help: cathartic. now I'm speaking for me, not for ron or scotty - knobman rik too cuz he also lost a lot of stuff. my heart goes out to those guys, truly. we take an airbus 319 (trippy, there's ac power and usb ports on the chair in front - this back in peasant class!) and get to toronto in an hour, this is canada's big town, the one w/most peeps. as soon as we land, we're shuttled to a four seasons fancy pad up in a part called yorketown which is like for bourgeois chowing and clothes shopping but at least there's a subway sandwich pad so I get a tuna one later but right quick, eric and chris come to my chamber to draw up a list of the shit stole - henry joining us later and rik flowing an email w/his donate list cuz they want me to set up a web site and do a email flow to get the word out about the heist. I do just that and the response is immediate, damn. friends of chris, the hard knocks write me a song about me losing my bass, just like that. perk calls and asks if scotty needs any drum stuff. yauch says he's got a bass for me for the gig in nyc... beautiful, generous just lovely lovely people to help. like I said, in my heart I know why the little bass had to go and accept it but I feel so bad that ron and scotty's stuff had to be w/it and get taken too. it's a weird thing for me but eric and henry are intent about it and man, if we could at lest get ronnie's stuff back and bring some peace to him, that would be righteous. I do radio interveiws, canadian ones - a montreal one and they ask if I hate their town now... I say of course I don't - hell, I've been robbed at gunpoint in my pedro town (in fact in george hurley's pad!) but I didn't move. humans do shit like this everywhere and then humans are generous too - just look at the response from the flow. I tell them I have perspective and anyway, if that montreal gig was her last gig w/me - what a way for her to go out cuz it was a righteous gig, her last one a stooges gig that was smokin'! I think about when we were doing "l.a. blues" her the screw for one end of her strap came out and I think she was telling me "you gotta let me go, watt... it's time for me to go" - yeah, I think about that. roadboss eric had is phone number and email on the flow so he's getting big time responses. I gotta chow and dark's coming so everyone finishes up and leaves me - that's when I get what I like at those subways sandwich pads - tuna on italian w/no cheese, black olives, chilies, jalapenos, pickles, onions, mustard and salt/pepper plus I pack it w/potato chips from a little sack I get w/it for crunch. then I hoof to find some beer and it's hours of me w/fruitless searching - nothing around here, holiday too I find out but mostly (I did see one closed pad) it's not zoned for that around here, in this part of town. fuck it, at least I got real tired and it's easy to konk. I hose of first though cuz it was humid and sweaty. yeah, toronto's kind of safe for hoofing, I didn't get back 'till almost eleven and people were out. soon I'm on the deck, out. tuesday I pop at seven bells and after hosing off, search for a chow pad cuz there's no free trough here and it's probably forty bucks or something (by the way, the canadian dollar is worth now a little more than the u.s. dollar - I think you get 97 u.s. cents for 100 canadian ones - I remember when the canadian dollar was down to around sixtyfive u.s. cents at one point!) so on bay street I find this little diner w/four dollar eggs, sausage and toast including coff. it's run buy I think vietnam people by the sound and look of them - many asian folks in toronto, lots of all kinds of different folks here - very cosmopolitan. I like. today we're gonna have prac - not just cuz of the donate but it was planned before we left cuz ig wants us to bring in songs from "the weirdness" album we haven't done in a while. I do more interviews for the theft thing, tv and radio - one cbc cat named michael follows me to the "gibson showroom" and the nice lady tina there gives me a new version they have of the eb-3, a powder blue sg bass - yeah, that's what they call it now which is funny cuz people are always asking me about my "sg bass" and I have to tell them its's an "eb-3" and explain the guitars were called sg but the basses we eb even though they had the same body, they had different and of course different bridges, pickups, electronics, tuners and strings. this bass has some differences though, like just two volume and one tone - ronnie had one of these that was in the truck and got stolen. at three we bail for a prac pad by the water - toronto is one of the great lakes called lake ontario. it's a huge prac pad, big as a small club but w/a higher ceiling. we prac for three hours, ig keeping it very very focused and never mentioning the theft once which I think is good. we can't get distracted w/that shit - it's out of our hands. what I've been saying in my spiels is that what's in my hands - what I can control - is me playing the best I can for the stooges and for the stooges, it's playing as good as they can for the people of toronto. we do them tunes from "the weirdness" ("trollin'," "end of christianity" and "she took my money") and focus on some detail on "I got a right" (ig asks me to use a pick and explains the syncopation: dig-diga-diggity-dig-adig-dig) and "my idea of fun" to get things more down. I love the way ig runs pracs, it's the best - he is sensei, it's all business but you really feel a sense of getting stuff done and not just going through the motions. much respect. during one little break I go out in the back to look at the lake and the sky just opens up w/one of the most pounding rains ever but it turns out be not long. we go back and I do one more tv spiel and then head over to this place called the phoenix theatre cuz sam and ian asked me to come to their go! team gig. now I was in a weird mood - not so much cuz of the heist or even spieling so much about it but rather cuz of some news back from cali that raymond was feeling down and there was no way for me to be there for him. it really was stewing inside me though ig running the prac the way he did had my mind be somewhat relieved or not relieved but more focused on the stooge music at hand but now I'm starting to freak and can't stop worrying about him - if I lost raymond, it would kill me... their roadboss david has a fifth of beam, down it goes - well, sam has a little bit. I sit on the deck and tell chi about my ma "loaning me out" as in my first months of life everyday while we lived in the navy housing in portsmouth, virginia (I was born there) to this lady from japan who had married a sailor and they were unable to have children... my ma sharing me w/her. not on purpose but by accident, when the backhatch first swung open, I saw miss kaori - stupid startled watt surprised stare w/the fucking jim beam bottle in my hand david gave me, put it down - and I see jamie too - he's better now from a sickness that had him down and missing some gigs, I'm so happy for him but I squeeze his forearm hard like a borrach dumbfuck... I'm kind of wishing he would've knocked my shit out for that cuz it was so stupid but he is just the most gentle of me - he let me use his bass to make cuz w/sam last month and gave him as part of payment walt whitman's "leaves of grass" - I got right there in brighton! I can't even remember what nonsense I started going off then, back sitting on the deck but sam and ian join me 'till my knees start to freak (they do that from sitting crosslegged sometimes) and I gotta get up which brings on a headrush and at the same time, my leather bracelet splits in two (the leather cracked and snapped) and my mind freaks on maybe this is a sign something really bad has happened w/raymond - fuck, fuck... then miss kaori comes back from shower and changing, no make-up and I almost cry - get back to the deck watt, get lost in spiel and bourbon. I get back to the 'tel after seeing my friends off but I cannot konk and just pace and think the worst - we're three hours ahead of cali time so I gotta hold on 'till I can try and call again... gig day. the sun comes up and the inbox on the 'puter is full of much kindness from folks about the heist of the stooges stuff, both condolences and then from some, anger at the thieves... I personally have to write here I don't want revenge on my part, I feel no hankering for that - I have to be honest... I hope it doesn't sound like I'm trying to be "holier than thou" or stuff like that, I just don't feel that. hoof around, chow at the same pad where those vietnam folks work, hoof/think/fret/repeat... get back to the 'tel... thurst writes to tell me: "They cannot steal yr soul!"  then his wife kim writes: "It's hard to move on. I think it stretches the soul."these words make me think - all of the words in the emails make me feel grateful for the kindness cuz I think one might get cynical of humans if they kept their view narrow especially now. I'm uncomfortable w/making people feel sorry for me though I didn't really intend this cuz I think I had to lose the little bass, I feel that in my heart... I think it's symbolic. I feel bad ron and scotty's stuff had to be plucked w/it, I feel worse about that. from miss yuka: Anyway.. Thurston is right that they can't steal your soul. I think it's also the way that the life is designed; we have to keep losing what's important for us, to learn to let go, and to learn to accept new things in life. It forces us to keep moving and learn to accept new things, like pushing "reset" buttons, and it would stimulate our mind and soul and promote more growth. If these experiences make bullet holes in our heart, we will make flowers grow out of it. May be life is about making this lush flower garden on our heart... try the phone, watt - whoa! I get a hold of raymond! we talk as much as we could 'till I had to bail for soundcheck. I was so scared something had happened - my leather bracelet busted last night at your gig and I thought this was a symbol for a nightmare disaster. I was so afraid, so afraid... the phone ringing... the it picked up, I held my breath and stuttered "raymond, it's watt..." his voice however was full of life, full of raymond! it was beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. I started crying. soundcheck not to far away where we're playing, at massey hall which has incredible history - fiftyfive years ago charles mingus, charlie parker (listed as "charlie chan"), dizzy gillespie, bud powell and max roach performed as the quintet in an amazing gig and here we're gonna work that same stage tonight! if bird did it w/a fucking plastic horn, then I can do it w/a fucking powderblue johnny-one-note toy bass! the strap's too high for me also (maybe a guitar one?) but fuck it, I can hang. at prac yesterday ig said at least this bass they gave would be color-coordinated w/the dark blue boilersuit. I am amazed though when we get out of the boat for the check, there's a young man named andy who drove up from the u.s., up from constableville, ny to give me his bass, a 1965 gibson eb-3, whoa! man, I can't believe it - I hug him much. of course it'll have to be "wattified" and such but what excellent shape and the headstock even not ever broken (kind of rare for older gibsons). what a kind kind KIND man. very beautiful. very generous. I am touched to the bottom of my heart and hug him much and close. wow. this is why you don't lose a spirit of possibility w/humans and not adopt a know-it-all attitude, this is what I think. we do the soundcheck and yeah, this powderblue bass is johnny-one-night, ronnie on white gibson firebird that's tearing his fingers up but we're gonna be good sailors and soldier through. gig time is nine bells and a local band, fucked up is first. great band, really good. singer damian is a hard charger and is smart too, lots of charisma and reminds me of d. boon. me and brother steve watch them for a bunch of tunes. much respect - two of their cats in europe playing in other bands too but the ones they got to cover them are happening. ok, our turn - the pad is packed and three tiers up of balconies (it's like a hundred years old concert hall). "loose" of course first as ig yells to us side starboard "go!" the toronto folks are very up, live and lit from the git go - the gig is on! I know where the notes are on this bass but man does it sound nothing like the little red one - no matter watt, don't get hung up on it. I kick my leg up in front of scotty w/ronnie's eyes on me to end the tune, all us machinery operators in back of iggy locked into a purpose, that purpose: to deliver. "down on the street" right away - of course, ig runs a working man set. I'm playing through two marshall wbv400 amps, each w/a 8x10 cab sideways - ig jumps up and humps them. he prefaces "1969" w/a "we are the motherfukcing stooges and thank you for being here cuz we believe in you!" and I can think of a sentiment any more real. we kick the tune out very hard, as we do "I wanna be your dog" (w/harpoon over the bow stage lanuch by ig), "tv eye" (he sings his "ram it!" parts on the other side cuz I think we hesitated and got on his other side) but then what tune do the stooges do that ain't kicked out hard?! stage invasion for "real cool time" and "no fun" - there's tina w/her buddy! we finish and a young man who was dancing around (it's a good amount on stage tonight but no problems) gives me his copy of the minutemen's "double nickels on the dime" and yeah, sure I sign it - much respect to d. boon! band intros and then "1970" - I back off of the bridge pick up to try and get some kind of punch (good luck!), I think the pad's acoustics ain't helping much - very high ceiling... oh well, ig's on fire, the crowd's w/us, scotty's slammin', ronnie's making do w/what flamethrower he can make of the firebird and I'm shaking my body as hard as I can. I take a whole water bottle down during "mindroom" (don't worry, it ain't a liter one) and then when ig calls out "fun house" this murk issues forth from my bass - is that the lick or what? actually, I don't think can tell cuz he's singing in the wrong part of it but me and the asheton's (steve on sax too) pick up me picking up on that and they follow me switching to get onboard w/ig and were shipshape. dynamic band, huh? yeah! we tear it apart for "l.a. blues" ka-blooey!!! very intense and crazy freak-out... I put parts of coltrane's "giant steps" and "a love supreme" - hell, he lived here some, right? went to the pad in fact last week. into "skull ring" - man, I need two tuners - one always running and then one for muting but only one tonight - aahhh, am I out of tune? stay on the 'e' string - hell I wonder if you can tell w/this bass anyway? and then "search and destroy" - a change-up thought up by ig yesterday at prac. many people putting hands all over ig as he wades into the seats for "my idea of fun" - hell, some cats had hands on him early in the set when he was standing on the lip of the stage - that was trippy but I'm thinking of it only now. we finish up w/a slammin' "I got a right" but ig runs the tunes so tight, I don't have time to fish the pick out of my pocket. we run off and the back on for encore time w/one we bringing back - "trollin'" and then "little electric chair" (wonder how that bass solo sounded!) before going "back to the jungle" (ig's words) for "little doll" and finally finishing w/him fried but still enough to push "I'm fried" into everyone good and hard. whew, that was a gig, great gig. glad to say both canadian gigs were ragin' full-on. great spirit from the canadian cats, both in french and in english. thank you merci. I ain't drinking anything but water tonight. talk to lots of nice people after the gig - hey, there's bob matheu! alright. and martin popoff - riff kills man! great cat, like bob... oh, kathy asheton too - baka watt, you mention her now? she's rode from the 'tel w/us - she's been w/her brothers since we got to town. she's a happening lady, always glad to see her and we get to sit next each other in the van ride back. whew, what a roller coaster for my feelings today but I got to talk w/raymond, got a bass from andy and toronto gave us a very righteous gig. a tuckered watt konks quickly and content (a little bit). friday, august 8, 2008 - new york city, ny thursday morning I pop at six bells and pack which is hardly anything cuz I usually keep everything in the sack unless I really need it. I go to shovel eggs, sausage and toast one more time from the vietnam people closest econo chow to this fancy pad - oh, forgot to mention I showered last night before konking cuz man, did I push some poison out of the pours w/that swelter gig at massey hall. we're shoving off at ten and half for a one pm flight to la guardia. the canadian airline folks are very nice to let me bring andy's bass onboard into the cabin of the embraer 175 we're taking instead of checking it cuz the case ain't soft (original 1965 one) but it ain't a road one either. thank you, canada! trippy, the u.s. border officer knew about the stooge heist but then later I find out my former customs agent friend lis put the word - damn, did the word get out, ap wire and eveything... perk called out of the blue saying any of his drums are there for scotty - much respect! less than two hours we're back in the u.s. (yeah, immigration/customs is done on the canadian side for u.s. re-entry!) and I'm in the van w/the guys to the london 'tel where they're staying in the midtown part of manhattan but from there I'm picked up by my old friend jimbo cuz I'm gonna go stay w/him, his wife cameron and their little girl lili-kate like I always do in this town when possible - way up in the most northwest corner (really happening seeing the corner of "seaman and cumming" right near their pad - I shit you not), called washington heights. so good to see jimbo again! yeah, they have a car - lots of peeps in this part where they're at have cars. well, first we go to his work down on sixteenth street by union square - jimbo procures music for movies and shit. I'm starving (it's six pm now) so I get a liverwurst sandwich at a nearby deli while he does a meeting - none of those in pedro. speaking of shoveling I'm to chow w/miss yuka tomorrow and call from jimbo's office to see when. she is very wise. she tells me where she's from they say if you lose something dear it's cuz it sacrificed itself to head off an even bigger hell that was about to come on you. this makes me think and resonates well inside me. hey, it's the eighth day of the eighth month of 2008 - the boredoms are doing an eightyeight drummer thing at the la brea tarpit in los angeles - damn, wish I could've witnessed that! last year was seventyseven drummers at the brooklyn bridge... I wonder where/if next year's ninetynine pounddown will be. great fucking band. I go w/jimbo to his pad and talk a while w/him and cameron - she's hurting hard w/nine day old foot surgery - ouch! I'm reminded of my knee surgeries in my early twenties... I think it's worth it though and tell her. my ma and aunt had work done like hers. in the meantime though, itai itai itai! I can feel for her. they got a righteous tiny tiny (full grown too!) dachshund called scout that is one hundred percent love, oh my god. I love her. all affection. no drinking again, I konk early on their couch (hardwood deck here). gig day and I pop early to hose off and then hoof a couple blocks east to the deli for some coff and sandwich (hero bread) w/eggs/sausage. I then hoof west to inwood park to watch the herons, canadian gees, ducks, sparrow, pigeons, etc. - there's an inlet from the hudson river here and you can see where broadway connects manhattan w/the mainland... I feel it's a very nice, peaceful, generous and understanding - I do a final contemplation, a joe christmas revelation and one more from-the-bottom-of-my-heart dialog w/myself in regards to deciding it's full-on correct and right the little bass is gone. I have an audience of tiny sparrow doing dirtbaths to serve as witnesses. I go back up to jimbo's to write jose and then chimp diary. I think about jose some - him using "mike watt" and "normal" in the same sentence, oh boy. soundcheck at four bells - whoa, jimbo takes me again in the car - the westside highway, viva! except for the blight of the sump pump dump trump tower town we have to pass. get me a shovel. we're playing somewhere I've never played before - hardly even been in the neighborhood before except for something or other at the sony studios a bunch of years back - in the mid-fifties near the hudson, called terminal 5 and run by the bowery ballroom people I'm told (same as the mercury lounge, a pad I really like playing). there's a young cat named andre at the stage door w/a 1969 gibson les paul professional bass from adam yauch for me - I knew a bass was coming cuz yauch emailed me (flea offered basses and amps too - much respect!) but didn't what kind, he just said it was a "heavyass gibson" but what a trip - I got one too! never did many gigs w/it but did record some dos, got it cheap during one of the fIREHOSE tours in the 80s. damn, hardly any of these were made, actually a studio bass cuz of low impedance pickups but I'm determined to play it just for the karma. man, this room has bad sound - like a huge warehouse but I know knobman rikhart will do his best - he can only use the mic w/the bass cuz the pickups got too low of an output for the rdi passive one we got (I got one and let him try it - he digs them!). I then take a c train (whoa, rained during soundcheck but it cleared up fast!) down to washington park to meet miss yuka and do chow. on the way walking, she has stop at a tibet pad to get a t-shirt w/their lands symbol but though the got lots of many-arm statues, incense, beads and other kinds of shirts - they ain't got one of those so she sees this japanese chow pad across the street and we chow there. I get squid - she says get spicy... she says she wants to be like a squid cuz sometimes she feels too brittle and wants to be more flexible. we have seaweed salad and cubes of tofu (I put my habanero sauce on it) but the tofu I really like is this fried thin sliced kind in the udon noodle soup. it' all very happening chow but what is even more happening is her spiels, they are great and inspiring ones. very interesting woman, once in a while I meet them like this. we go sit in the setting sun and then I take the train back up to the gig to get into the boilersuit. the guys arrive, we popwow for the hour still to go - we're on at nine and a half and there's no opening act (what?). the gig's clean - old show biz talk for sold-out. we're to wait five extra minutes to make sure everyone gets in. different tonight, we're coming in on ronnie's side, stage starboard so I'm last instead first. ronnie's got his other reverend guitar, the one that was for him in camden. good, his sound. he starts the "loose" chords after his brother scotty hihats him in - yeah, the rental marshall amps he's got are roaring even if they look beat (fuck, I look beat). my double svt-II setup I can't even hear but the monitorman helps me out w/the wedges. ig is flying and spinning, singing and signifying - amazing. the gig is on. wow, my fingers working this bass - find the right notes, watt! "down on the street" right away, right away - whoa, two octave neck and the strings really close together, short scale but more frets (my eb-3 was not two full octaves worth) means smaller... neck is thinner front to back also. I get down on my knees when ig gets up on my amps - I look at the front row of folks and hey, there's some cats older than me... maybe bikers or vets (or both)? "1969" ok... "all across the usa" - I'm messing w/the tuning, helperman chris got me a boss tuner and hey, it tracks fast but I shouldn't drop out any or get distracted - I just hate playing this one sharp. ig runs the tunes butt-up on each other - "I wanna be your dog" next and there's him w/a from-the-stage-launch, they're packed up to the stage's lip and there's no chance for a moat plunge only tops of heads and hands for people padding. the body of this bass is really heavy and fits kind of trippy w/my body but not lame... I'm just glad chris taped the strap up good (by the way, he got me a long purple one - like the little bass had! nyc's 48th street's got 'pert-near everything!) on the buttons where the hang, especially the top one - what a retarded place to put it! aahh, I remember, I put it behind the neck on mine and now I remember too, I did use my les paul professional at a dos gig on a radio show bobby alt invited me and k on - baka memory watt! and yeah, now I remember this too: when I first got that bass, I did a fIREHOSE gig w/it in riverside and the strap did fall off the button (I hadn't put one on the back yet) where they originally put it and the headstock snapped. jim foote (a cat in hermosa beach) took three years to fix but did a great job. sorry, I digress... my life is a digression! sorry! very right on the money "tv eye" - there that snaps my attention back. swing the mic, wide circle getting smaller, mic getting faster - ram it!!! why is "dirt" on the set list? well, no worry about the set list cuz after the stage invasion in "real cool time/no fun" - a cat rips it off the stage (the crew tapes that thing on all sides real good too)... I remember a man in a white kind of suit (a wedding suit?) kept asking me but I was busy hugging people - I look over at ronnie's and it's just shreds, either it got kicked to death or tore up trying to be took. the invasion is an invited one, you know that - ig wants folks up w/us and this one tonight reminds me of last year's, taking time to get folks off once we're done but while it was on, it was so great - folks just full of life and expressing it in dance and pogoing, sharing it w/us. iggy introduces the audience to band (!) - time to bring out brother steve mackay as we roll hard through "1970" - him blowing the ending into "mindroom" where he gets his intro from ig while the asheton brothers do guitar harmonics and cymbal splashing behind him. then he hollers "fun house" and now I've been using just the neck pickup but whoa - ronnie gives me "what's that?" look as this muffled version of the riff tries to pry itself from my bass but it ain't as bad as massey hall and the whole room turns into a real hopping dance hall, not the disco it appears it normally would be or was - ig leading w/steps of anarchy meaning no copying any dance moves, everyone's moves w/as much value as any others. freak out next meaning "l.a. blues" meaning pushing this bass now hard not to anchor but see where she goes. hmm... I can feel my fingers w/her but maybe not hear so well - hope the peeps feel it. "skull ring" - jimbo tells me later this makes a slogan in his head, that's a trippy thing and I don't think I ever heard that view before. "search and destroy" - whoa, I know it blew jimbo's mind to hear this, having done the wylde ratttz sessions (fleming too) and the "my idea of fun" which is a trip to do on the bass, the way the strings sit off the body and the upper frets and the neck - upstrokes w/the fingers for watt! there's a pick on a piece of tape on one of the amp heads so I don't have to reach in my pockets cuz ig calls out for us to get right into "I got a right" but fuck, I pull the tape off the amp but it stays stuck to the pick and I gotta fucking try and pull that off - scotty and ron into the intro and my floundering around - fuck, I finally get it together enough to get into the riff... fucking baka watt - I ain't used to anything about a pick but I will learn. the tune is on fire cuz I think ig and the ashetons are - and the crowd... watt is aboard this train w/his mouth open in wonder - and his fingers working bass. it's a trip. we go back out and do "little electric chair" - like in toronto, I'm wondering what the bass must sound like, ig urging me on, "c'mon mike!" he's great! of course I'll come on, try to do it like a ton of bricks. man, it's a blast watch him coming up to each of us and getting the fires blazing... "little doll" - I go from both pickups to neck only... scotty doing the bo diddly riff (I missed his launch last gig and had to let him do a few bars alone but didn't choke on that tonight). the "double dog" reprise next turns out not to be the close - no, it's "I'm fried" - but of course! ig's a genius! I run off stage but don't change out of the boilersuit... I wanna find miss yuka, she's got dougie bowne w/her and dougie played drums w/ig many years ago and it's been like fifteen years since they've talked so I wanna get him backstage to do that. hey, there's jimbo! and juan rosenfelder! amanda from lawrence (kansas) is working here, wow - she helps me find where to look, helps w/security - good to see her again, I find miss yuka and dougie - miss yuka is leaping up and down cuz of the gig, wow, never seen quite like this - she is lit from the stooges! wow. yatta!!!! I bring them backstage. tourboss henry is so glad to see dougie again (henry's been w/ig a LONG time) and then there's ig and dougie together, yeah! good good times, good good spiel. it's a very happy time. I finally get into dry civilian clothes. time for jimbo to get me back to his pad... stanislav is here w/some of his slav buddies, righteous! big big hugs for him. richard reilly too - happy birtday! last last big hugs for miss yuka and dougie, safe seas!! jimbo gets me to his pad and man, am I sore. only a little spiel from watt and much hugs I get from the little dog scout, much kisses. I konk quick in my civilian clothes, jimbo's couch cradling me. whew... sunday, august 10, 2008 - baltimore, md saturday morning I pop at six bells and greet a manhattan sky outside of jimbo's pad full of sun. whew, body a little sore still from last night's gig so I go to the closes deli he's got east to him again and get coff and a hero-bread egg and sausage sandwich then walk back and past his pad to inwood park and sit on the rocks right on the water, many huge canadian geese coming up to greet me or is it to become disappointed that only chow I give is a few crumbs to the little sparrows? not much, just a couple. all the bird eyes, I see lights of life in all of them and the way the ducks land on the water - the way they water ski for a bit as their feet meet the water, amazing! again I drift back in my mind to what's now less and less a riddle: losing the little bass... the water ripples from the ducks and geese swimming calmly expanding circles on their way to dissolving and have calm in my mind. I spend a while there, a good long while. I loafe and invite my spirit (thank you mister whitman)! I get back to jimbo's to chimp diary 'till it's time for me to catch a train to phily. no stooges gig tonight, no, tonight I read two of my poems and then play solo improvised bass behind charley plymell while he reads his poems. it's part of this tour byron coley put together - I love byron. tonight will be the first time I try the bass andy gave me!  jimbo jams me down to penn station on 34th street in his red car (I think one day I paint the bass andy gave me this red) - he has to jam cuz I had the boilersuit being washed in the machine he's got in the basement of his apartment building. not much jamming either after leaving the westside highway cuz early saturday manhattan traff has got enough plug to remind me of so cal! we make it though - when I take the escalator (after hugging up jimbo big time) below madison square garden to get to penn station (cuz that's where it is), a quick port brings me right to the new jersey transit trains and there's jess who's coming too and already got tickets, one for this train to trenton and then a septa one to phily - $20.50 total. jess is interesting to talk w/and is good listener (better than watt, I need to take lessons!). we decide to shorten the hoof once in phily by taking the blue line subway for another two bucks. three blocks from the stop, in the fishtown part of phily is where the gig is. outside behind these buildings in a fenced-in common area, lots of small gardens - that's where it's going down. very cool people putting it together, the main lady named brooke - much respect to all of them. they got a lot of chow cooking: collared greens, black eye peas, salads, macaroni and cheese, grilled peppers - all really good eating. the weather is a little warm/humid but not too much. charley arrives w/laki, a friend traveling w/him. big hugs for charley from me! he pulls off his shirt and so I take mine off too - he says we're both like iggy! we put our shirts back on after laughing our heads off. we chow. we're on second, after byron reads some funny/serious poems, one of them being inside the dick of the dick who's only got a few months now of vice left. I read my two poems, I wrote them last tour leg when I was asked to do this, "healthy eyes" and "some explaining" which starts my sweating and trembling for the night. man, have I been nervous about this - not just about reading these poems but way more about doing good for charley cuz I love him. all these eyes - I think of the birds this morning and never look up at the crowd again - only cuz I'm scared and not cuz of them cuz I think they're all very kind to have me aboard, both the gig-put-er-togetherers and the gig-goers. I put on my flannel I got last month w/sam in his brighton town right before and it's already drenched. now time for charley - he sits down to read and I stand behind him, a fender silver face bassman provided for me as an amp, pretty good. I just gotta stay tiny enough and hmm... it seems only the back pickup is working on the bass - pretty trebly so I roll all of it off on the amp's eq and put in the "deep" switch. I can't be bogarting on charley's voice. he reads beautiful - I try a boogie-woogie one-flatted-third-flatted-fifth thing he starts reading some of his older stuff, lots about neal cassady in it. now next a slow blues for his next poem, more about the old days. maybe too much jamming around, watt - I settle for a james brown "sex machine" groove for his next one, the longest one and stay just on that - not one fill. I am drenched in sweat now and shitting a pecan log... very intense for me, so much coward trying to take over and fuck up everything. very interesting, charley's take on what I'm doing... I wish I had more confidence, damn it. he goes to what he calls his political ones - I go to kind of an arabic trip - part of my "crossing the equator" thing and for the last one, use what I did for mister tom cuz even though he's out in the west part (pittsburgh) and me and charley are on the east part (phily), it's still pennsylvania, right? much respect to mister tom - he asked for a take on his tunes so me, kira and flea are gonna do a take on his "drippy eye" - kind of a "tres" version of dos, huh? all bass for mister tom! whew, so glad it's done but I wish we kind of kept going cuz I love charley and was getting a little bit calmer than total panic but the wave of relief is intense. of course I have regrets and wish I had another shot but maybe I will, maybe I will! we go upstairs and talk, charley gives me some cigarettes from china called "panda" and they're ok - longest filters I've ever seen. byron brings up some knob creek - biggest bottle of that I've ever seen, same type exactly like the smaller one I more know so it totally looks like I've shrunk when I hold it. charley's friend karen's here too, she's a painter. she said john coltrane played a gig at a coffee house she was having a showing of her paintings in the early 60s. lots of stories of san francisco in the days from these cats, charley and karen are having a good time recounting them and I'm all ears to hear, very very interesting. I go konk on the deck of the floor above. man, what a righteous thing - to share w/charley, righteous! gig day and the sun's up to greet me, seven bells. wow, that was late last night. I go hoof to find coff - this part they call fishtown has taken blows - pretty huge blows but it looks like there's folks trying to get a renaissance kind of thing going. I find coff and then go chimp diary 'till charley and laki get me and drive me the eighty miles south to baltimore for my stooges gig. big hugs and thanks to jess before shoving off, most grateful to you, jess. damn, soon the sun gets swallowed by some very heavy thunderclouds and then soon there's like nickel-sized hailstones! the storm's travelling north though and soon we're past it and when we get to pimlico racetrack (this is where the preakness is run), the weather is kind of a little maybe too humid/warm - no trace of the pelting and gray blanket we just cleared... trippy. this is the second day of what's called the virgin mobile festival and shit, my buds in the go! team are going on at twenty minutes past noon - damn, just missed them. mister jamie and miss kaori coming back as I have my stuff in the backstage parts by the gate (laki drove right in!) and am waiting for roadboss eric to get passes - I show them andy's bass and they say andy was a righteous man for being so generous - I agree! their fellowbandman sam arrives - hey sam! happy watt. they go to get changed and less sweaty. I see matt ward, great! the first three missingmen gigs were playing w/him, a great singer and a great guitarist besides being real good people. that's the thing about these festival things, folks back into your life - especially if you're holing yourself up in pedro lots of the time. later me, sam, charley and laki go watch matt play in him and her - a neat proj he was telling me about. we gotta separate now, I got stooge world and a boilersuit to get put on... I check out the chow tent - nothing chowable (I did have two little pucks earlier they had on a tray in another tent when I first arrived) but I see old buddy shawn london, we first worked together thirteen years ago when I was learning from and helping porno for pyros - we have some good laughs and memories. we're on at 4:50 pm. the idiots who set up the big "north" and "south" stages didn't set them up "north" and "south" FACING so we're pointed right at a setting sun on the north one - dohh!! luckily clouds move into to diffuse and a breeze comes up making things nice but that don't mean this boilersuit ain't gonna get sweated big time! I spend the hour before downbeat w/the stooge team, getting our focus together - shit, I'm in good spirits... I wonder what andy's bass will play like in stooge mode? no better way to find out than a big outdoor festival gig, huh?! let's do it... we take a econoline clubwagon up to backstage, at the foot of the stairs ig asks if we're ready and when we all nod, says "go!" and up them stairs I go to grab andy's bass - yeah, I didn't even warm up on it - too much! "loose" let's loose... feels like the nut is a little more narrow than my old one... the monitors have the bass real loud - a really good job, wow. the sound out the two stacks of svt-classsics sound good too - these kind have gain and volume controls - I'm doing the one string version for this tune so maybe a couple of either sharp or flat clams, a little? ig is blasting off and I don't think acting insane but for sure FULL ON ALIVE AND ALL STOPS PULLED - I love it! "down on the street" - go scotty-san! ig jumps on my amps, I go down on me knees... ig gets done humping amps, gives me a back thump jumping down - yeah! "we are the motherfucking stooges" he hollers and then brings in "1969" and I get on board that train. the sun ain't that bad and neither is the heat though I've got the sweat coming for to soak this boiler suit. some "fuck/shit/fuck/shit" chant and then "tv eye" - I roll down the tone knob a little, I get a shake-the-body solo at the end when it's just the stooges playing together. ig tries hard to get cats up on stage for "real cool time" but it's tough for folks to do what he wants and get on up w/us but for "no fun" the dancer thing gets happening, alright - love it! I think my 'e' string was a little out of tune though, lo siento. steve mackay time: "1970," "mindroom," "fun house," "l.a. blues" (the andy bass don't mind being part of an amp fuck, yeah!) and "skull ring" before he goes to tambourine for "search and destroy" then back to sax for "my idea of fun" (ig on the turf working the folks hard - where is he? there he is! where again? there! my eyes scanning intensely) and then back to tambourine for "I got a right" - I've been going as hard as I can, both cuz of charley being here for me and cuz I wanna keep up w/ig but that ain't gonna happen, still I try anyway, he fires me up so... I'd follow him to pluto w/out the tiniest of doubt. we're off the stage and I start to run down the ramp (like an idiot) but tourboss henry asks me to hold on - we're back for "little electric chair" and when my solo comes up, ig goes "c'mon, mike!" and then hollers "get fried!" - and then goes way stage starboard and I try to follow him w/my eyes but the sidefill blocks him out... shit, I get distracted and though I stay in key, I clam the last couple of bars, aaarrrggghhh - have to laugh at my stupid self. you understand that watching him helps me keep focus and plus, I just love watching him sing his heart out and dance up a storm - they're ain't nothing like it. incredible. ok, we end the tune and we're done. I walk back and spend a little time in the soaking boilersuit w/go! team sam. we're next to this trippy 'puter driven musical string machine from the lemur people called a guitarbot that's doing all kinds of trippy tunes - has some pretty good one string bass lines going too, both me and sam go "damn" as we watch/listen to this thing. then we go w/charlie and laki to watch bobby dylan - my first time ever seeing him live but I know all his songs by heart up to and including "blood on the tracks" - he's really tripping w/the arrangements though, rephrasing the singing and using kind of a clipped spiel to his singing. he's dressed in what's kind of a mariachi outfit w/a flat brim gypsy-kind-of hat and he plays no guitar - only organ and sometimes a little harmonica. it's a trippy. charley's dancing to lots of it - I don't know the three or so new ones but I do know "rainy day woman," "stuck inside of memphis," "it ain't me babe," "highway 61," "ballad of a thin man" and "rolling stone" - even w/them tripped out. the weather now is perfect, like back home in cali. thank you, bob! I ask jamie-san his thoughts and he says the tunes have a life of their own but he can see bob being playing them for forty years might have something to bear on what he's doing. that's a analysis. miss kaori says it's "dadrock" - ha! I think bob can do anything he wants w/bob music but then I am a sentimental fool. sam says he dug it. I introduce charley to the go! team people... scotty-san comes on by, yeah! I introduce him and he gives this philosophy to my friends when they asked him how it was doing the gig w/his stuff just stole, scotty-san says "I came to play!" hell yeah, that's the drummerman I look up to! big hugs to my go! friends, they go back to england tomorrow. I sure love do them cats. looks like jamie is bringing home a plastic pink flamingo... hey, this baltimore - john waters' town - I gotta send him mister water's "pink flamingos" - amazing none of him or his band have seen it. so they don't know everything about the 70s, do they?! I talk a little bit w/matt ward and his music crew - all good people adn then I go back w/the crew and scotty to the intercontinental hotel in baltimore where they stayed last night and hose off (didn't do that in phily), then konk. monday morning, me and steve are leaving for dulles airport at nine bells and there's no free shovel - there is free coff in a machine in the room but man, that is some lame coff. mazui! me and steve chow subway sandwiches at the port, our gates right near each other but he's off for sfo and me, lax. big hugs for him. only five hour flight - I trade my aisle seat for a middle one in the back (lucky pierre!) cuz this man wishes to be w/his family, no prob and anyway I should be grateful - short flight and no customs! melinda gets me at back to my pedro town at five pm. notice taped above the mailbox: looks like my apartment is due to get a city inspection, back just in time! I go straight to the prac pad for missingmen tom and raul, we ain't played since april and we got three warped tour gigs at the end of the week - go go go! sunday, august 24, 2008 - london, england ready for a return to stooges touring which in turn is ready for a return to touring across the atlantic after some north american playing. the eleven days in between saw me and my missingmen playing three of the last four warped tour 2008 gigs and that was a blast! all were in cali (chula vista, mountain view and carson) and richard "fuckin'" bonney and peak were on board w/me, tom and raul for all of them (peak got lots of shots, some of them here). we played on the "old school stage" - something warped tourboss kevin (and old friend) set up for bands from so cal's earlier punk days to play for those getting into it now (the average age of most warped tour attendees is pretty young, like in the teens). it was great getting to share the stage w/cats from the old days I dig like lee (fear), pat+don+lorna plus new man shane (germs), stan+leonard (dickies), jack+mike+ron (tsol), mike (agent orange) and casey (d.i.) plus everyone else that made that stage run smooth and played their hearts out. I even got to bring raymond w/me for the last gig!  we're working on adapting a script to shakespeare's "richard II" for a film we wanna shoot, kind of a twist on the only play where the bard chose the man of action over the man of ideas - we're making it where the bass player-leader of a band is overthrown by the lead guitarist and thereby restoring the natural order of things. so good to play w/tom and raul again, first time since april. much MUCH respect to kevin for doing what he does w/the warped tour, so many bands get a shot at showing what they got. punk will be really alive if the folks having a hand in it keep pushing and tripping on what can be done, being whatever they make it to be and pushing over all the category-fences. friday my sister melinda got me to the airport at eleven bells in the morning, not so early as usual and that's ok w/me cuz I can pack in doing more shit before I bail. I'm on united airways boeing 777 going straight to london heathrow from lax and w/me is a brand new flight case I just had built for the andy bass, I got it made in yellow to match both my clothes sack and my jacket... speaking of jackets - I found a third yellow one in my closet, my ma must've came to my pad and put it there to go along w/the other two she's gotten me - the yellow makes it safer for me on my bike when I'm pedaling in the morning, safe cuz maybe it's easier for oblivious ones driving cars to notice me so I don't get run over. so now there's three ways I am the yellow man! the flight arrives at eight am on saturday so I konked as much as I could for most of the ten hour flight. I only find out as we're landing that I'm sitting next to the current drummer of tom jones' live band, mister herman matthews - damn, another musician cat in the back of the plane! well, the row next to the last one. I hardly ever talk to anyone on the plane rides but I sure wish I would've w/this cat, I bet it would've been really interesting. fucking baka watt. I meet stooges saxman steve mackay after clearing immigration (not one question!) and customs and we get taken to the andaz 'tel in london's east end but I'm there for only as long as it takes my buddy jose to come and ride w/me back on the bus to his pad in the angel part of the islington burrough, not too far away, just north. jose + kyoko are really REALLy good people and so nice to me. jose cooks up handmade pizza while kyoko does tampura and italian style oil/vinegar lettuce, onions and tomatoes salad plus little bread things. such great chows from them - gracias arigato!! we go to the store and I see there's kind of generic labeled bourbon ("sainsbury" - a grocery chainstore) and wonder what's that like, is it outsourced or whatever cuz from what I know, bourbon's supposed to come from kentucky. I get it to see what it's like and it's not so good. not bad enough not to drink though. I spiel w/my friends 'till pretty late - yeah, they like to stay up late - so much different from me but I can try and do. gig day and I pop at like ten bells (really late for me) cuz of the four am konk. jose said I could borrow his bike so I grab that and start pedaling. all the sun yesterday is trade for gray skies today, sort of like a morning in so cal during the summer (yeah, that's true - they usually burn off around noon there though). so I don't get lost, I stay on what's called the upper road, a main one. this is england though so it will change it's name several times. there's also no fucking bike paths and this makes for some scary shit, whoa... and it ain't just cuz they drive on the other side of the road as we do. the road (even this "big" one) is still narrow and there's lots of buses (lots of them doubledecker ones) fanning me as they pass and fucking cab drivers that pull in front and just make things a pants shitter. I hug the curb and am very careful - I don't have the yellow coat on (baka watt) and plus no helmet. I do pedal for 'pert-near three hours though, even w/the seat jose has on this bike way too low (I think he needs a longer stem cuz this one's adjusted all the way out). I pass this pad called "the garage" - I played here ten years ago w/the joe baiza-bob lee version of the black gang - what a trip to stumble on this like that, huh? I get back and here's another great chow: pasta rotelli/penne w/bolognese-kind-of sauce and an italian-style salad - mmmmmm... oishii!!! such a great shovel for me each time! I have to get to the 'tel and meet the stooges guys so maybe we cut it kind of close? jose gets me back w/in a couple of minutes and no one's waiting for me so we're safe... I feel bad about voicing my stress to jose while we were in the tube but I just wanna be able to have the stooges guys always know they can count on me and I won't fuck things up for them - I think it's very important I feel that way, especially when I'm konking at a bud's pad and not in the 'tel w/them. it's a matter of trust and honor. jose says he understands and it's also pretty obvious I'm a fucking kook. man, yesterday I had a discussion w/him about deerhoof (a great band we both love) and going off on some tangent having to do w/how music's notated or whatever and I seemed like I was headcase, I have such poor skills at keeping the voice tone from getting out of hand - that kind of shit, shit that appears to be rage even if that's a hundred miles from it in my mind - like, "watt's really intent on this tiny little point and actually he really loves you" but by the look on jose's face, not much of that's getting conveyed - only the insanity buttons have been pushed inside of me. it's embarrassing and shameful. it's nutcase shit and someway somehow I wish I could be that stupid-ass behavior right out of me. jose is very patient and understanding, he's beautiful. big hugs, I'll see him after the gig - kyoko's coming too and so is go! team sam hopefully... don't know cuz he's coming from a gig they had in spain yesterday. I ride w/steve and scotty to go pick up ronnie - different 'tel for him (the dorkfester - I was there two years when the stooges did the reading festival, hurricane katrina was a the same time in our land) and then we head to the part of london south of the thames river (hardly ever in these parts) for this grassy area called clapham commons where get loaded in the park festival is being held - we're playing clean-up (going on last) - we hit it at 7:40 pm. tiny little dressing rooms, ig's gotta walk through ours to get to his but it's ok - at least close to the stage! I get naked and put on the boilersuit. hey, slouch is here, yeah! I see eugene from gogol bordello - great cat, great band... I did a spiel once w/him when I played a festival in budapest, something for radio there... he tells me he's living in rio now, busks on the street w/manu chao there, damn... yeah, fucking right on! eugene is an interesting cat, man, I could rap w/him long time but here comes eric w/the andy bass - I got a germs sticker pat smear gave me last week. slouch is here, alright, great cat. he gives condolences about losing the little bass but I understands that even though I loved her w/all my heart, she had to go. it's gig time. "fucking go!" ig tells while pointing at the stage from where we had just come up the stairs. watt runs out w/the andy bass, puts his eyeglasses on the drum riser (good low one, yeah!) and plugs into two svt-classic stacks. whoa, folks going all the way back when I look out but that's just for a sec cuz here's ronnie ringing in the chords to "loose" and scotty getting us underway after that. I'm using the position '3' setting on the varitone (gibson gimmick) which is a wiring where the bridge pickup is on as well as the neck picup which has its choke applied (yeah, they had choke coils in these!). beer cans are flying up towards us - beer coming out of them as the hurdle so at least they ain't unopened ones (those are heavier) as we fly in to "down on the streets" (ig likes to run the set very tight) - jumping from my amps after them getting humped he gives me some hands around the throat w/me on my knees - cue to get up, watt. "1969" after telling the folks thanks for being here to see the "motherfucking stooges" and he means it, he's grateful and I share that too, much respect to the peeps. "I wanna be our dog" and a roll-it-up-we're-rolling-it-out "tv eye" - the moat was too wide for a "...dog" stage launch he got it out there w/the peeps and then asks them get out from there w/and up w/us for "real cool time" and "no fun" which is a little tough at first cuz of security goons but ig says on the mic he ain't shutting up 'till they relent and let dancers be dancers w/us on stage together and damn, cats from the sides too - there's eugene and his gogol dancers, fuck yeah, much respect! we finish and I give many young englishmen big hugs and lifts into the air. my boilersuit is soaked. econo band intros (ronnie as "the guitarist ron asheton" very cool) and "1970" plows out loud and very much driving, skidding out into "mindroom" but not before steve mackay comes and wails his sax w/us in the coda. fist in the air from watt for his intro, like w/ron and scotty-san too, much respect. "fun house" calls ig - I think I know it's coming now when he puts the mic into the stand but I take nothing for granted and have all my focus threaded on him like it was him having it on me. holy mackerel, it is smoking - whoa... "l.a. blues" blast out... (be in tune watt) then feedback intro'd "skull ring" - beer cans have been flying, yes but I ain't seen ig not dodge one and I ain't been threatened but anything close... "search and destroy" - yeah, here we go... this version, a stooges version - ronnie on guitar version. ig's been singing great all gig. he does it again w/"my idea of fun" and we close out using "I got a right" - two picks sitting on the riser for me and I get it going w/just a milisecond to go... of to the side and ig says "two songs!" - we go back out and do "little doll" and "little electric chair" - the two "little songs that are anything but - I love these tunes, love them all really but I'm loving these big time now. ig comes over to help propel me w/my bass solo w/some face time of his which is also big time - big time inspiring... THANK YOU, IG! thank you too to the sold crowd of london cats, what a great crowd to play for (except for the idiot who hit ronnie w/the can - funny thing, I saw ig catch one w/his hand near the very end, just like a third baseman snag a line drive!). the gig is done, damn - that seemed like it was five minutes, I get so caught up in the intenseness! we go to the little rooms and ronnie tells me he got it in the temple w/a half-full beer can in the first tune, just as "loose" - damn I didn't see that. he said it hurt but he just kept going - much respect to him. he played great, ig sang great, scotty was slammin', steve wailing - what a great fucking gig, wow. I see brace from the gossip outside the window - I go out to me him and there's beth from the band too - big hugs to you, sister! big hugs to you, brother (he's got "d. boon lives" written on the palm of his hand), wow. much respect! they gotta go, I gotta go - roadboss eric helps me w/his leash - there's sam, he made it! him, me, jose and kyoko take the tube back to their pad... so much good vibe makes it seem like we were just teleported even though there was some wander to find the station there in clapham. at their pad, me and sam spiel 'till at midnight another righteous chow cooked up by jose and kyoko is brought on - these cats are incredible! spanish-style tortilla (first time for sam), a pilaf (safron on the rice), italian-style salad (but w/shrimps in it), some handmade pizza slices (crust handmade too again!), olives and breads - wow, so fucking good. we chow, spiel, much happy much!!! 'till like four or five, damn - these cats have a different rhythm but I try to keep up... maybe though I konked first... again on the couch - I have to admit I'm scared of that music room upstairs for a place to find himself konked in. man, do I konk happy tonight, very happy - yatta!!! thursday, august 28, 2008 - berlin, germany the day after the last gig, monday was a day off for the stooges and had me experiencing one of my latest pops (as in "pop" I'm awake - not ig's last name) ever - like noon, incredible! this is cuz of konking like at five fucking bells or something... jose + kyoko have pop/konk rhythms much on the other side of mine. along w/sam, it was so happening for me to be w/them. I think about stuff for a bit as I look above the shutters jose put up in the windows last light to see a gray sky not too much different than an early morning pedro one (though ours turns to sunny one before noon) and for all that's said - a lot got said w/much of the wind being bagged by yours truly, I realized it's paralleled w/what's 'pert-ear an equal part that ain't said, truly. I trip on that. we're all aware w/out acknowledging it, surely. this though is not lameness but rather yet another way these friends are so beautiful to me and truly care, so soft and gentle w/the frail and clumsy stumbles of the jijii viejo tonto baka gaijin, you know? I fucked up w/diary writing... the first bike riding for me was today and not yesterday - yeah, I day after the gig and I get this shit screwed up! I couldn't find the kagi/llaves and couldn't get the bike out the hatch w/out the fear of not getting back in so yesterday I started number two in john burdett's three books (so far) on arhat thai cop sonchai jitpleecheep called "bangkok tattoo" (finishing number one "bangkok 8" last leg) and it was today monday, what they call a "bank holiday" here was when I pedaled. everything I wrote about that pedal was right, it was just wrong fucking day (did I tell about eating a sausage and egg across from the local government building called the "worker's cafe" though?). I get back and chimp diary 'til sam, then jose + kyoko get up like at four pm (how do young people do this?!!) to rustle up heap big righteous chow for us like grilled corn on the cob, some cream and seafood mixture on eggplat slices, eggplants scooped out and filled w/their innards and shrooms and cheese, linguini w/peas, tomato/mozzarella/cucumber slices salad - all very much righteously handmade chow to be shoveled by me w/intense feeling, oh man. very grateful mike-san, very grateful. this was another midnight affair (like w/the pop/konk thing, another event w/much contrast to watt life) and followed a jam upstairs in THAT ROOM w/sam on guitar, jose on some kind of early 90s synth made by roland that he very much covets - says it's rare and has a special case for it even... he gets it to make loops so it kind of replaces a drummer. another late late konk after a few marx brothers movies - jose + kyoko really dig marx brothers and have seen their films tons and tons of times but I find out cuz of them both having english not as mother tongues and then being in england and learning it here instead of u.s. (of course the marx brother's form of english), lots of the humor of the puns is lost on them so I can help give ideas about that. ain't that a trip?! man, I can tell they've had years of experience watching these cats but yeah, the slang and the 30s u.s. culture and stuff like yiddish and immigrants coming into the u.s. - actually, this puts an angle on the marx brothers that I always was aware of but now give it some more mindtime as I relate what I think I can to my friends. the whiskey is along for the ride too - bourbon gone so scotch and then tequila to take up the slack. I can't remember which film I konked in. tuesday night is when we taped a thing for sky tv (and I found out later for the u.s. the independent film channel) called "live from the basement w/nigel godrich" and that morning I popped at like eleven am - am I changing or just adapting to the shortstay w/my friends? it has to be cuz of the late konks, has to be. I get on the bike again, same kind of sky for morning but damn, the traff is twice as heavy, twice as scary! I figure it must be cuz yesterday was a holiday, huh? fuck! no yellow jacket or orange helmet either, like I got in my pedro town. somehow I get back safe after a couple of hours of rolling the dice aboard jose's bicycle - a u.s. cat from a band called bluetip recognizes me as I'm about to get onto liverpool road and we talk for a bit - what a trip... I remember playing w/them but not sure where - salt lake city maybe? (thank you, bryant!) aahhh, my fucking memory... nice cat though. back to the pad, go to work on the 'puter while my three friends appear one by one from the incredible ability to konk way into daytime. kyoko washed my boilersuit - usually the only time it gets a machine was is when I bring it home from the last gig of a tour leg - and it's ready for me for tonight and tv. sam comes w/me and jose to the underground cuz he's going back to his brighton town, I hug him big time and say I can't wait 'till I see him again cuz that's how I truly feel. only a couple more go! team gigs for him (I wonder what he thought hearing jose practicing their tunes on bass each day? jose helped them out for three gigs miming the bass cuz jamie-san got sick bad... maybe jose's trying to be ready to REALLY do bass if it happens again? sorry jose but I hope jamie-san never gets that sick again) and then he's gonna work on his 100 pets and samethings (him and dj scotchegg shige) projs before getting to me and his cuz band... one more hug for him and then bye bye sam, safe seas... jose gets me back to the 'tel where scotty and steve are, he gives me his "oyster card" to use to get back when the tv show taping's done. we bail for this studio called the hospital (waiting a half hour though cuz the driver didn't realize who we were, parked right in front of us - of course we couldn't blame him!) and that 70s band sparks is being taped as we go to the green room. ig says it's gonna be like a free prac but of course I'm in the boilersuit like it's a gig and you know what, in a way it is like a gig. we're using amps provided for us, me w/a very cool 60s ampeg b-15n portaflex but at sixty watts, maybe not nearly enough to let me be heard or let scotty hear? ronnie's got a marshall halfstack and the monitors just barely have enough ig but hey, you "work the room" - right? no prob. right before we go on, steve macdonald comes by for a hug and some spiel - he can't stay cuz of a commitment but wanted to say hi - it's been a while since I've seen steve last, he's now playing bass in sparks, wow... I remember first seeing on bass for red kross, maybe he was twelve? no shit, his voice was miles away from changing yet. good to see steve again. ig just calls out the songs, "little doll" first but there was no set list and I can't remember exactly. I do remember being told by the producer lady astrid (nice lady) that they were gonna use like six songs - I think we did like twelve... I know we did "end of christianity" (sounded good but I blew a little clam) and "little electric chair" where I really fucking clammed the bass solo so god damn big time, aaaarrrgggghhh. I stayed in key but lost all the fucking phrasing, don't know why, damn, don't know why. I had so much regret and bad feelings for myself but didn't let it get on to my guys (I did let them know though, right after) and luckily it was the second to the last tune we did. there was a stool for ig to sit on and at first he had his shirt on but then things got wilder and he was soon dancing and singing so great. it was a great performance by ig I think and he led us well, the band did great consider things - man, did scotty have to hold back just so he could hear his brother and at first steve mackay had no sax at all 'till ig made sure that got going... we did pretty good working our machines how we could but ig I think made everything way more happening w/much charisma and w/an intense sense but also a trippy spirit of having some fun, you know? man, I just wish I wouldn't clammed that solo - I fucking don't know what happened... ig did yell out "bass solo" which I never heard before and you think that's what through me? what a fucking lame thing to blame that on so I won't but for the life of me... maybe I should've had that mi-gu button on - I had realized I spaced and forgot to have it on - I did last gig... I'm so superstitious - of course my john coltrane button was on... aahhh, I try to let it go. I go back w/the guys to the 'tel and then take the two subways to jose + kyoko's - hey, I did it and didn't space even w/my mind on that fucking clamming... I get back and tell my friends and tell them no drinking for me tonight. I kvetch, inside, I kvetch. even w/the great company of jose + kyoko, inside I kvetch. I can't change the past and yet I kvetch. somehow I konk though and there's relief though I had the trippiest dream about perry and janes addiction playing... they're doing a gig at either a drag race or a tractor pull and I'm watching from the side when per comes up to me and holds his fist in the air - it's seem to look the size of off-road truck tire and looks all armored like a night from the old days... I put up my fist too and then it turns like that also, I look per in the face w/a huge questioning look, like "what the fuck?" and he nods some like as to say, "yep, what the fuck?" it was a way trippy yume. wedesday I pop at six and a half bells - back to wattstyle popping and hose off one more time here. the blue bottle soap is out (am so used to bar soap, bottled kind is trippy fo me) so I use this kind that says "leather" - or is it "lather" maybe? I don't have my glasses on (of course, I'm in the shower!) but it gets up on me all thick and yellow... there's only dribble from the shower head so it's kind of hard to get this off - fuck it, I'm going to germany w/some "leather" then. jose takes me by bus one more time and we have to say bye. I already gave kyoko the hugest hug, her giving me some special japan paper inside a kind of wallet-purse trip that on one side has what she calls "strong man" (it's ukiyo-e) and the other is "not so strong man" (I suggest "weak man") and also a small towel w/her land's letters on it, beautiful. big hug for jose and bye for now, so much gratitude to him for the kindness of him + kyoko plus sam too, dear dear friends. I wonder how in the world I deserve such beautiful people in my life, they are so generous and patient w/me. and such righteous chows too! I owe them tons and tons. on to heathrow airport and brand new terminal five, whoa, so much different that the other beat up ones. an hour and half in an airbus 319 on british airways to tegel airport in northwest berlin, a kind of small airport (immigration, baggage and customs right there at the gate!) and w/in a halfhour we're at ritz-carlton in the potzdammer platz part in the town's center, monuments to the berlin wall right near. very soon I get a phonecall from j mascis' brother-in-law phili cuz he's coming w/toni of crippled dick to take me to the kurzburg part not to far away cuz they each want some spiel filmed of me - phili for a j mascis/dinosaur documentary and toni for one on mark stewart/the pop group. I spend about an hour each on this - I don't know if there would even be a mintuemen band w/out the pop group cuz that band had such an influence on d. boon and me, I can't tell you how much. that band was total mindblow for me. and w/j mascis, I man I always dug on the guitar and then getting to learn from him by being in his band, I owe him a bunch too so the spiel is easy to flow w/cuz it's most sensical (to me) why I have huge debt to both these cats. then mark stewart comes into where we're shooting (phili's office) and whoa, that's a trip! first time I've seen him since first time ever meeting him three years ago at a festival me and my secondmen were on the same bill w/him and his mafia band. right down the road a little bit is a chow pad and I have some ray - as in stingray but man, is it tough to chow w/so many bone-like things laid out 'pert-near like a fan, hmm... don't know about it really but the stuff I could pick away was pretty chowable and I could dig it. what I really dig though is getting to spiel w/mark for like six hours, what an interesting and amazing cat - crimony! man, I kept thinking "d. boon, I wish you were here to help me ask the things we would always wonder about, man you would ask good things and not be spacing like me sometimes" but even still, w/my embarrassing awkwardness, I am so glad I got to be here w/him, so grateful to toni for making this happen. pretty unbelievable night to me and I'm on a cloud when they drive my back to the the 'tel - man, did I laugh my ass off! and think much too! that's what mark's good at, laughing and thinking, what an amazing cat. I pop on gig day at seven bells. no free trough at this fancy pad so I soak and then read "bangkok tattoo" 'till the subway sandwich pad opens at ten and get a tuna footlong w/pickels, olives, jalapenos, onions, salt+pepper and mustard w/a small sack of chips. it's raining but not real hard, sure hope it clears for the gig cuz though it's in an old fort, it's a round fort (citadel) and the stage is outside, in its courtyard. I chimp the last gig's doings and then back to reading 'till shove off at seven and a half. just before bailing though, I got a reply from a kind of freaked-out email I sent miss yuka, asking her what she does when she's clammed. she wrote back: > anti-stupid smarts, much wisdom. yesterday I heard the spandau prison is or rather was near where we're playing. rudolf hesse was held there 'till he allegedly hung himself and then they tore it down. this gig is part of the berlin citadel music festival and it's a twenty minute ride from the 'tel to the venue. we got an hour to go. ig comes in to talk about the tv show we taped tuesday. I tell him I clammed my bass solo. I'm trying not obsess on it (thank you, miss yuka) but getting that off my chest to ig helps some - I am determined to do it right tonight. I get naked and boilersuit it up. jino de lunch is on before us, I played w/these guys on the same bill as a fIREHOSE show maybe seventeen years ago, whoa. it's been four years since the stooges have last played germany - I remember the last gig we did in berlin was at the columbiahalle. I pace much, luckily the hallways inside this citadel are pretty emptry where we are and there's 'pert-near only us so I do a bunch for laps inside a small circuit, passing from the two curtained areas that make up our dressing "room" and an empty one. finally time, 9:10 pm and ig leads us out to the back stage-port of the stage. "y'all ready?" yep "fuckin' go!" and I run out to plug in, "loose" "starting soon right after I do. I put my glasses on the riser. here we go ad the bass sound is piddly. I can imagine knobman rik having a hard time cuz of the noise restrictions imposed - 105 db. I discount the way it sounds - try not to hung up about it and just try to give a good to feel to whatever might be coming forth. still getting use to doing that tune on pretty much just the 'a' string - I'll get it. more familiar w/working "down on the street" but when you're this low it's hard to know how to play consistent and not-jump from where you are, too loud on the stage and then you're playing to lite and that's weak too. iggy tells the folks they are important to us, says it w/no irony and means it. "1969" next, we mean that too - boilersuit starting to sweat up. helperman jos gets more of my bass in the monitors, thank you much. "I wanna be your dog" follows and ig launches forth once ronnie fires up his leadå. damn, it's intense to see him do this, amazing! alright. then "tv eye" - some "fuck/shit/fuck/shit" chanting to start it off. it gets folks crazy - I get crazy! something must've come up on stage I didn't notice cuz there's slippery shit right by my port foot and w/my fucked up knees I'm afraid of slipping so I ask jos to throw me a towel but he wipes it himself. whoa, my glass on the deck (I always put them by the tuners on the drum riser), glasses now crunched - whoops! oh well... dance time now - "real cool time" now... ig has some trouble getting cats onstage cuz some security people are being stupid 'till roadboss eric educates them and one cat gets up - man, I'm glad cuz I thought for sure he was gonna be beat and pummeled. he's by himself for a bit 'till maybe ten more guys get up and then that's it... no girls though ig did holler "let her up" to some guys acting like goons and not being educated. "no fun" up next and the dancing continues, good fun! "1970" after band intros, whoa - kind of rough liftoff but we get up and in and out w/steve joining us - whoa, soaked w/sweat now but "I feel alright!" tune up while ig and the asheton's do "mindroom" 'till ig hollers "fun house" and moving away from my svt-classics (are they on?) reveal a tiny intro from me on the andy bass... man, what a great take on this tune - smokin' and cookin' w/some good and funky gravy! love it - ouch! "l.a. blues" blew up! blam! "in tune, watt?" here comes "skull ring" - yeah, I'm in tune... the train is chug-chug-chuggin'... right into "search and destroy" - wham, whump, whoa - "my idea of fun" - steve back on the sax - he's on tambourine for the last tune but back again for our finisher "I got a right" but there's no pick, aaaahhhh - I just make my index finger real straight and stiff and use that like a pick to get the dig-diga-diggity-dig-adig-dig syncopation. we're off... for a couple of minutes but not finished... ig brings us back for "trollin'" which is mean mean groovin' and then "little doll" which I'm diggin' too - shit, I forgot to mention I blew a clam, it was the last note of "I got a right" and it was a c# over the final e (in e-minor too, baka watt!) but it was only for a moment, just in time to see ronnie laugh but in "little electric chair" I nail the bass solo, all sixteen bars... man, did I focus too and ig helped me out - "mike watt!" we finish w/"I'm fried" but no, we are not finished - watt, get back up the stairs - ig tells the great folks we've gotten to play for "we know only more song and that's 'double dog!'" yeah, propulsive - that's how I'm feeling about it, we lay it out. whew, done now but I could've played for an hour more, lovin' it! did get eighty minutes in though... maybe more drenched than the venice, italy gig? I don't know but soon I gotta get out of this boilersuit and into civie clothes. I go from the backstage to find mark stewart and toni - for his documentary mark wants to thank ig and ask him some things. it's really important for me to help him w/this and I'm really glad ig helps me out here and lets it happen. I meet larry mullen, a cat who drummed w/ig for eight years, what a really nice man, really nice. he knows k's brother paul roessler too, wow - small world! geza x also. so grateful I am for ig talking w/mark. damn, I didn't phili though... I did see texas terri - she lives here now... like mark does part-time. man, what a happening gig, "I feel alright!" intense to hear mark tell me he liked me w/the stooges, especially when I "shagged" the amp - shagged? it wasn't loud enough, right? tried to get it that way... does shag mean get loud, does it mean to get hollerin'? the drive back is a short one w/no traff or plug and soon I'm on the deck of that fancy pad and konked after I drink the one beer I brought back. oh, I found some "mr. tom" tiny candy bars for mister tom, ain't that a trip? gotta send them to when I get back to pedro. saturday, august 30, 2008 - konstanz, germany friday and I pop from deck to find sun w/gray blankie to make like calit morning - baka watt forgot curtain closing before konking and sun-sensitive to keeping konk even w/it blankied how it is so quick I am no longer be-decked but soon hosed off at out the hatch to get north on eberstrasse to fill the digicamera w/what I can before shove-off time at eleven bells. before making a port on strasse des 17 juni (named to commemorate the 1953 uprising of east berliners) in the tiergarten there's a memorial to murdered gay people and across the street the memorial to the murdered jews of europe and where I make the turn, the bradenburg gate - where the "berlin wall" divided the city in the last cold war (maybe a new one now w/the fight russia and georgia just had?) - I examine up close the soviet war memorial for the first time after so many times playing this town and just having some looks... through the trees in the back and there's the rebuilt reichstag as I loop back and see memorials on a fence for shot people who tried to get over the wall. forever heavy all this, I take it personal and feelings fill me up, tears well up... I walk through the gate, see "memorial the kennedys" then walk through all through the maze of the murdered jews memorial and use working the camera a focus to keep from falling apart - not cuz of this being german so much as realized potential of even me if I ever stooped low enough to lose respect for humanity in the name of anything. it is me who orders myself so humbled and let go of such fucked-up insensitivity if I let it creep up and tear holes in my heart. if I'm to make such self-important judgements, let it be something like that? or be ridiculous to be sane - what way to be appropriate? for appearance? sacred act of choice at the subway sandwich pad again before I return to the potsdamer platz w/a digicamera full, a head full - again I chose a tuna footlong w/pickels, olives, jalapenos, onions, salt+pepper and mustard w/a small sack of chips. I am sentimental but I will not be hate instrument, I aspire to be ironic kafka work! just cuz I chimp these thoughts, I should not shirk at admitting how trite they might appear for others cuz of such inadequate whatever it takes to make it proper - objectively (obviously), subjectively (self-apparent) - I think about the crutch I used to help put a cork in the recrimination/regret/guilt/handwringing machine cranking away in my head the night after clamming that bass solo for the tv taping in london... I think about why I'm chimping that now and why wasn't it where other thoughts were concerning that "day in the life of a bass player on tour" and what and why some thoughts are attempted to be scrawled while others willed out of the record? after getting back from that tv taping and before yet another righteous chow from jose + kyoko, I was asked by jose to teach him the bass for a song I wrote him called "paddlin' in my jinbei" in my pedro town a couple weeks before, me sending him a mp3 of it in a email w/clicktrack on one side and bass on the other, all he had to go on (he had asked for us to try and collaborate on something musical). ha! watt re-learning his own song and struggling a bit - what a dumbfuck! funny too, jose using video - of course probably to see where my fingers were on kyoko's thunderbird but at the same time, what a harvesting of watt's own self-soil! I think it was good for me. also, it got my mind off of falling short for the stooges - not that I deserved that but by listening to them and re-learning this tune (so appropriate: the metaphor of being able to do what I love in the form of paddling only cuz there's enough tears from me to make that happen, make a sea of them), I had to truly communicate w/them and get out of my head and over to them the form of the entire piece, the motifs w/in it, the rhythms (three-four) and the phrasing (couplets, deviating and resolving)... it felt good to realize myself so ridiculous and appreciate so much them both being so kind and generous. they were actually the teachers, I find this happening so many times and it's ok, in fact righteous. whoa, that was a tangent. yes, the embarrassing tour spiel chimped by mike watt - so be it. there's some parts of "berliner mauer" outside the fancy 'tel not too far where I'm told not to sit on the deck by a semi-hidden hatch after checking out. they said it was for my safety cuz it was in front another hatch but like an asshole I took it a little personally I think... I wish now I could apologize now somehow for not making eye contact w/these 'tel-workers, actually I just wanted a bench or somewhere to be - I didn't feel I fit it that lobby. aaahh, it was ridiculous of me but only a few minutes worth (this time!). we all drive together back to the tegel airport and fly an hour and half to zurich - yeah, that's in switzerland and the next gig is another german one but it's right over the border so I guess that's why we're going there. it's a lufthansa bobardier crj 700 jet - I keep noting this airplane type shit, huh? let me note this too. tegel has a small "international" gate and there's a duty free shop where I find beers for only 3.90 euro (about $4.83) for four so I get two of those but I guess the rule is they gotta be in a clear plastic sack and so they're laid out flat w/one row four on top of the other and I'm carrying this like it was kind of a suitcase 'pert-near and it's fucking goofy and my stupid shit obviously self-evidident but maybe consider some the econo thinking I had about it - ronnie acknowledged it (not to embarrass him) later when he told me one beer at this park hyatt zurich 'tel we're in ONE beer cost nine euros (and that was a shorty, these were tall boys). of course they weren't cold but I got ice at the 'tel and put it in the sink of the head had them cool off - sharing half of them w/brother steve. as the sun was going down I hoof to the zurichzee and the weather is beautiful and for me cali-like, no humid, no hot, no cold - golden sun rays filter across romantic (to my eyes) sea w/lots of swans to come near while I chow the wurst and brot (and of course mustard - either gotta be tart or spiced... or both!), ducks too. I talk w/them w/out moving my mouth (its busy chewing) or making a sound ('cept for chow chomping) and worry aloud (!) about fouling people's thinking w/my own cuz I swear this is not what I wanna do w/these diaries, I swear. I konk in two shifts, having to read burdett's "bangkok tattoo" book a bunch in between them to help re-passout... gig day and yes, once again in the land of the free shovel - there's trough to be experienced downstairs and I have eggs fried over medium - a man asked me if that's what I wanted even though there was stuff on tables, like the yogurt I had w/some muselii and pears, a small roll stuffed w/salami and swiss (!) cheese. the burdett book is consuming me so I go read that and chimp diary 'till time for us to bail for the gig. including the border crossing (borderlady kind/polite to us, danke), it's about an eighty minute ride to the north side of the bodensee (also called lake constance), where the rhine comes from the alps and then starts its way to the sea, one of the longest rivers in europe. right after the border we crossed the rhine but where this rock am see festival (whoa, the website list me as "michael watt - bass" only my ma usually calls me michael watt!) is being held - at the bodenseestadion makes it hard to see the lake cuz how it's situated but still, the weather is very happening and there's like twenty thousand mostly young people making up the audience. the guys were afraid of sun-in-the-eyes but I think it'll be late enough for sunset coming on to prevent that (just a guess). we're here w/more than a ninety minutes before we go on (7:40 pm start time) so I shovel some of what they got here in the chowtent (for watt it's more genki before than after w/chow and playing) which is some lamb, gnocci (w/shrimps)and eggplant/caulliflower - I like! bad religion is before us and greg hetson comes by to say hi to me, been a while since I seen him. we were both in a band a few years ago called punk rock kareoke and that was a trip having young people get their chance at being a singer w/a band playing behind them and not a machine. I'm in the boilersuit now and doing stretches - not cuz I'm pretending to be a jock but just to try and head off cramps. the time finally creeps by and it's gigtime. eric arrives w/the andy bass and leads us down - handshakes w/the headliners die arzte ("the doctors" maybe?) on the way, they tell us it's an honor to play w/us, kind words - to meet up w/ig and head for the stage... bottom of the back stairs - ig asks if we're ready and w/the answering headbobs, points and hollers "go!" and so go I do... I run and plug the bass in and of course knock of the arm of my glasses eric had fixed w/superglue after the last gig in berlin, fuck - don't worry now, just get ready to go... the asheton brothers have "loose" up and running so I jump on and we're off. ig is wild, ig is leaping and spinning, singing and running back from one side of the stage to the other, whoa! it's that thrill I get when this trip sets off... "down on the street" right away after - two stacks of old style svt bass riggs ain't got much push so I signal chris for more in the monitors, there - that's good - thank you, chris! "1969" third, yes twentythree-skiddoo-times-three (my thought to get focused) and hoping for good tuning cuz I ain't checked yet (train keeps a rollin'!) and it's the same for "I wanna be your dog" - damn, it looked like ig was gonna make the leap but the moat is a wide one and we are up pretty high. water bottles, almost all of them at least half-filled, have been flying up on the stage from the crowd - in fact ig caught one right away w/one hand and he said "you'll have to better than that, swiss punk" - whoops, we're in germany... but there must be some swiss here cuz the border's so close and anyway he always said "deutschland" after that. some lighters come flying up and sun glasses, all easily to dodge but I do get hit in the right biceps w/a snuff container - bigger than a halfdollar piece but smaller than a puck and about a half inch thick. later I found out it was empty (I put it in my pocket after the tune) and hell, it didn't hurt but I think that's one of the first times I've ever been hit by something on stage in five years and five months of the stooges. I've been hit over the years by all kinds of stuff in other bands - believe me, ALL KINDS of stuff. no pause for telling that though here... "tv eye" next and ig's swinging the mic wide in the chug part - man, he lets out some length w/the cable! some good stagepounds w/the mic stand too - whoa. again, no "dirt" - it's on the set like always but I can't remember when's the last time we played that... there must be a good reason for cutting it though, I always trust ig cuz his thinking is sound and makes good decisions - he knows how a set flows good and man, is he working it hard for these young people in germany today. he doesn't call for dancers in "real cool time" which is very rare but he's imploring the audience to feel, to feel something... "no fun" next and some cat comes in from the side and sings the first verse w/ig right in front of me - for a moment I'm feeling like the gig's been reduced to three folks - not cuz I'm important anything but I just happen there, right in back of these too souls face to face and singing stooges! ig's digging it. a girl does make her way up and dances w/us - ig telling security to "let her up!" but it was her own motivation, much respect! she dances over and kisses me - that's different. band intros, "1970" - blam! steve comes out, big sax sounds join us - toot! hoot! steve intro! "mindroom" psychedelic. "fun house" tough tough beats! wow, is it crazy but "l.a. blues" a little crazier? yeah, fuck the amps, watt! ok, I will. poor andy bass? no! poor amps? maybe... then "skull ring" bass amp sounding like no bottom - low end feedback coming on though - I put my hand on scotty's floor tom head and feel it vibrate. I think scotty's drum fill is feeding back into the floor tom mic but then I'm just the dumbfuck on bass so please know that's just an uneducated guess. I do know that last gig the kick drum had a mute on the front head - like in the old jazz days - and it's got it on again. I put my hand on that head and feel no vibrations... oh well, still we search for this prob but not now cuz "search and destroy" is next, our best version of yet, I think, real punched up and strong. turns out this is it - ig calls off stage but soon we're back for one more. he's worked so hard this gig - I mean, he works hard every single fucking show but here it seem to go for not as much payback from the folks... there's little eddies of tiny pits throughout the crowd but also a strain of a certain "dohh" also - I'd say there's part of the crowd like how I'd describe something as in so cal we'd a kroq crowd that listens to the band-of-the-week playing the same generic sound all the other bands-of-the-week sort have had and maybe... well, I don't know what to really cuz I don't wanna get down anyone but man, is iggy working it hard up here for everyone - holy shit! he asks what's wrong w/the front row people, "are you waiting for the jonas brothers?!" I don't know who they are but the stooges are on stage now and damn, there ain't nothing to be waiting for, I think! that's just my opinion. I'm all the way behind ig though and would follow this man through any hell or crazy shit cuz he gets me lit and I can't help it, just can't help it. we finish w/our "little electric chair" (ig explained at the tv taping this was from an andy warhol piece) and I nail the bass solo good, ig right there w/me and helping out. I have much vigor w/the focus regarding that now days, believe me! thank you, ig! we come off and I'm soaked, the boilersuit all the way sweated out - big surprise. the sun wasn't in our eyes it was too low and it was sweaty but really nice cali-like weather but I just had to rip it up inside and get into it cuz stooges music gives me choice and I will tell you w/no exaggeration at all that I truly love it. I don't care what anybody thinks and I never have cared what anybody thinks cuz that's how I deep down feel. the other guys chow (I already chowed - before gig like I like it) and scotty fixes my glasses using white tape he uses for his fingers to fight off blisters, thank you so much scotty-san. steve said it was good gig for him - "no tightness in the chest or dizzy spells, no hoping the gig will end quick cuz I don't know if I can hang on feeling..." what! ronnie, scotty and me are kind trip out on this, like damn, steve, we don't want you feeling like that ever! oh man. we want a strong and healthy stevie-san, we love him. I did see him dancing tonight when he was playing, it was great to see that. deep prayers for steve. soon we bail, the ride home taking only fifty minutes w/the swiss borderman being very kind and letting us through easy, soon I'm on the fancy pad deck on the fifth floor naked, blankied and konked quick. whew. tuesday, september 2, 2008 - rotterdam, netherlands sunday: when I do pop eight and a half in morning, I trip on the weirdest dream I had - I'm actually afraid to recount it cuz of the visit by someone in it I can't believe did. it was in the second part of my konk cuz yeah, I was out 'pert-near immediately but then popped like three hours later and found only reading burdett's "bangkok tattoo" could get my mind tuckered enough to get asunder again - it wasn't the body cuz that was plenty tired but it was the mind. it took many chapters but finally I was mercy blessed into sleepytown but I figure even konked my mind was wailing cuz I went it one of those kind of dreams where you think you're awake, you very much do and are just guessing you might konked and even hoping for that as things get more and more weird, pushing you into near desperation and praying your heart out it's only a dream. it was like this on me cuz of not what usually shakes me up, like violence and/or pesecution but rather confusion. I mean all those kind of dreams are confusing but it the confusion that made me mindblown on levels even further than the disorienting ones. it happens to me in waking reality too, like right after an experience I find myself forgetting or at least not sure of memory being so reliable, it being distorted by wrong remembering - this can be like only seconds after it occurs. it happened last time like that to me in baltimore, just before shoving off after playing the v-festival earlier, after seeing bobby dylan. it was after charley plymell had left. it was before I last talked w/matt ward and members of that band (her and him I think they were called) he was w/who were very cool people but like half or some part my mind was w/them and what wasn't w/them was wondering and trying to ponder what had just happened before I stumbled on them (it was like among rows of tour busses) and this is how it was for me alone in that fancy pad room, in the head and hosing off, the water coming down on my head - me wishing it could be powerful enough to force some kind of comprehension on a meaning... fuck, I got to hankering maybe it'd be happening to somehow fall back into that dream and be more "aware" or whatever and be more together about me might having some kind of understanding. it was a visit and interaction unlike the woken-up world has yet to find me in - I'm talking about the few visits I've had like this when not konked (konked ones even fewer!), the dynamic so much different: me being a li |
