Post-genre power trio mssv to play Silver City and Albuquerque

If you don’t know the bassist Mike Watt as the cofounder of the legendary West Coast punk bands Minutemen or fIREHOSE, or for playing with The Stooges for 10 years, you might know him from Fred Armisen’s “Old Punks” segment on John Mulaney’s 2024 series “Everybody’s in L.A.”

Watt, a founding figure of the early 1980s hardcore punk scene, doesn’t fully accept the “punk” label. He was equally influenced by jazz and funk, and his current post-genre power trio mssv, with Mike Baggetta and Stephen Hodges, defies all categorizations. But he still embraces the do-it-yourself ethos of West Coast punk as a way of life.

“I haven’t outgrown that,” Watt said.

“The main thing we were against was arena rock — that Nuremberg rally s---,” he said. “When I look back, punk wasn’t so much about a style. It was about being artistic and trying to keep it small and personal.”

Mssv keeps things as small and personal as can be. They don’t use booking agents, drivers or roadies. They’re literally just three guys in a van.

“I do all the driving, because I got a bad knee, so I can’t really schlep the gear,” Watt said.

The lead singer and composer, Baggetta, books all the gigs.

“We are a total DIY band, so it’s really fun to play more DIY local venues,” Baggetta said.

On Monday, March 17, mssv will come to Whiskey Creek Zócalo in Silver City. Then, on Tuesday, March 18, and Wednesday, March 19, they will play Guild Cinema in Albuquerque’s Nob Hill neighborhood.

“I always dug Albuquerque,” Watt said. “The first time I played Albuquerque (with Minutemen in 1984), it was someplace called Club Wreck or something. It was just a garage in somebody’s backyard.”

Their opening acts in Albuquerque this time include local poet Mark Weber both nights, plus A Hawk and a Hacksaw on Tuesday night and Eric Mingus on Wednesday night. The band said they’re always excited to support local talent wherever they go.

“We’ve gotten to work with Mark Weber out there before. He’s a great poet,” Baggetta said. “A Hawk and a Hacksaw is a great Albuquerque band, and Eric Mingus, who’s one of Charles Mingus’ kids, is an amazing musician in his own right.”

“Being able to help out and support smaller local run venues with a band that I consider to be a smaller local run band is really important to me,” Baggetta said. “These kind of places have to be around to foster communityand to introduce the next generation to the way things can be done without having to depend on corporate models.”

The band’s drummer, Hodges, has had a long and storied career of his own, performing with everyone from Tom Waits to Mavis Staples to Bo Diddley to the Smashing Pumpkins, and contributing to classic David Lynch and Wim Wenders soundtracks.

At 73, Hodges is the oldest member of the trio, but he still loves the adventure of hitting the road with Baggetta and Watt, playing obscure venues in remote places and crashing on people’s sofas.

“I know, it’s so ‘20-year-old’ in its way,” Hodges said. “But it’s the only way to actually pull off something like this, so we can bring home as much money as possible rather than spending it all on Airbnb’s or what-have-you.”

Mssv may be Baggetta’s baby, but when it comes to daily logistics, Hodges says Watt is their captain, and he runs a tight ship.

“Early in the morning, Watt is already in a comfortable chair with his laptop, writing, and he starts saying ‘60 minutes’, ‘47 minutes’, ‘15 minutes’ – like, get your a-- in that van or you’re gonna hear about it,” Hodges said.

Watt’s father was a machinist’s mate in the Navy, and for all of Watt’s rebellion in his youth, he never seems to have shed himself of his father’s military-style punctuality.

Mssv’s low-budget, by-their-bootstraps approach to touring has had some unintended consequences. For instance, Hodges said he had spent weeks putting together the perfect drum kit to go with Baggetta’s latest songs for this tour.

“Turns out, with the new van we have, none of that was gonna fit. So, I had to bring my Camco drums — an 18-inch bass drum and small toms,” Hodges said. “But it was the best thing that could’ve happened, because it’s so musical. With the dynamic range that we play, it’s much better to have a basic jazz drum set.”

Mssv has been experimenting a lot with dynamics — going from soft to loud and back again.

“It’s like there’s hell on earth, and then there’s a whisper, and then there’s hell on earth,” Hodges said. “There’s many songs where we do that.”

Those experiments developed partly out of necessity.

“On our last tour, we were still kind of loud, and Baggetta was like, ‘I don’t think I can sing the whole tour.’ And I go, ‘Hey, B.B. King turns his guitar all the way off when he sings sometimes.’ When he’s done, he turns his guitar volume back up, and it’s like a dragster at a race. You can hear the wattage. Everybody’s hair blows back, and they’re like, ‘Oh my God, what just happened?’ All he did was use dynamics.”

Baggetta, Hodges and Watt all coax extraordinary sounds out of their instruments. And Baggetta credits his teacher, the guitarist Ted Dunbar, for inspiring him to experiment.

“He used to always say, you bought the whole guitar, so you should play the whole thing. Get your money’s worth out of it. It was kind of a joke but kind of serious, so I started to think, yeah, what else can I do with it? Then I discovered different techniques like ‘prepared guitar,’ after John Cage’s prepared piano, and I put all kinds of things between the strings, like twist ties and chopsticks.”

Baggetta experiments with different vocal techniques, too, picking up bits and pieces from singers and poets as different as Kim Gordon, Jack Kerouac and Sly Stone.

“I’m not gonna limit myself to one kind of singing, the same way I’m not gonna limit myself on guitar,” Baggetta said.

If there’s one thing that unites Baggetta, Hodges and Watt, it’s their musical adventurousness.

“We say we’re post-genre, but what we are is just guys who listen to a lot of different music, whether it’s John Coltrane, Cuban conga, reggae, Brazilian or punk rock,” Hodges said.

The trio’s musical adventurousness is equalled only by their adventurousness as road warriors.

Hodges told a particularly harrowing story about flipping a van over in 2001 while en route to record an album at Tom Waits’ house. He managed to get to the session on time with an undamaged drum kit, but his driver’s side window was completely smashed.

“For a couple of months, I just drove around to gigs with a tarp over my window,” he said.

Fortunately, on the current tour, Watt is driving.

Post-genre power trio mssv to play Silver City and Albuquerque

20250314-venue-v14mssv

20250314-venue-v14mssv

20250314-venue-v14mssv

20250314-venue-v14mssv