S6E287 - Mike Watt 'Contemplating The Engine Room' with Mike Baggetta
Guitarist and Songwriter Mike Baggetta came across Mike Watt's 1997 punk rock opera 'Contemplating The Engine Room' at just the right time for him. Watt's expansive and highly personal song cycle that uses navy life as an extended metaphor for both...
Guitarist and Songwriter Mike Baggetta came across Mike Watt's 1997 punk rock opera 'Contemplating The Engine Room' at just the right time for him. Watt's expansive and highly personal song cycle that uses navy life as an extended metaphor for both his family history and his band, the Minutemen - created with guitarist Nels Cline and drummer Stephen Hodges - became a touchstone of sorts for Baggetta, opening his mind to the possibility of making highly original, authentic music independent of genre.
Songs featured in this episode: Pedro Bound! - Mike Watt (Live at Jillian's, Long Beach CA Feb 1998); Everywhen We Go - Mike Baggetta / Jim Keltner / Mike Watt; Boilin' Blazes - Mike Watt; Brave Captain - fIREHOSE; June 16th - Minutemen; Goodbye Pork Pie Hat - Jeff Beck; What's So Funny 'Bout Social Justice - mssv; In The Engine Room, Red Bluff - Mike Watt; Prove It - Television; The Bluejacket's Manual, Pedro Bound!, The Boilerman, Black Gang Coffee, The Boilerman (Live at Jillian's, Long Beach CA), Topsiders - Mike Watt; Reoccurring Dreams - Husker Du; Lake Of Fire - Nirvana (Meat Puppets cover, MTV Unplugged); Do You Want New Wave Or Do You Want The Truth - Minutemen; Scentless Apprentice - Nirvana; John Coltrane - Ogunde (Live); No One Says Old Man (To The Old Man) - Mike Watt; No One Says Old Man (To The Old Man) - mssv (Live); Fireman Hurley, Liberty Calls! - Mike Watt; What Means Solid Traveller - David Torn; In The Bunk Room/Navy Wife, Crossing The Equator, Breaking The Choke Hold, Wrapped Around The Screw, Shore Duty - Mike Watt; Hallucinating Reality - Dumbass Youth
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Mike Baggetta
unknown
“…vintage twang in service of Americana-meets exploratory Jazz-psych…”
-Rolling Stone
“Baggetta is a player of immense subtlety across all dimension, working with an impressive palette of tones … distilling Fripp’s loopscapes with hints of John Fahey.”
-The Wire, UK
“Mike Baggetta makes stealthy, mysterious music … he’s trying to do something personal with collective improvisation without ever getting in the way of beauty.”
-New York Times
“Think pressure, combustion, power, and hissing clouds of sonic poetry, and you're in the right pipeline.”
-Premier Guitar
“…a kind of post-Frisellian sonic explorer … with his wild whammy-bar articulations, ambient looping and rippling arpeggios … full of subversive surprises, hellacious skronking, string-scraping and a general hornets’ nest of fuzz-toned dissonance”
-Slate Magazine
“Mike Baggetta is a genre-blurring guitar hero … at the forefront of an army of guitar innovators”
-JazzTimes
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It has been said that MIKE BAGGETTA is “a guitarist of slippery proficiency” (New York Times), that his performances are “totally compelling” (Jazz Journal, UK) and that “his melodic sense is truly beautiful.” (JazzReview.com)
Mike’s singular and very personal musical style seeks to blur the lines between song and solo, while connecting a wide range of musical genres that influence him. The press says this approach is “…beguilingly atmospheric…” (Time Out New York) and that “Baggetta’s music is quietly transgressive… Even when he plays a lot of notes, his playin… Read More