The Minutemen in Vancouver: D. Boon, George Hurley, and Mike Watt, by bev davies, July 6, 1984, Waterfront Cabaret, not to be reused without permission.
1. Bev Davies shoots Saccharine Trust and the Minutemen in Vancouver
I began writing this thinking that Bev Davies had never photographed Saccharine Trust. We had talked about it, and I told her when they had opened for Black Flag (July 3rd, 1982). She didn't think she'd been there. I wrote a couple other contemporaries of hers -- Lynn, Don -- but nothing turned up. Who knows, I thought, Dave Jacklin might have some -- more on him a bit later -- but I didn't want to cold-call him, schmoozing for images ("Hi, Dave -- we don't really know each other BUT..."). I found a few people -- including a Jak -- who were involved in or went to Saccharine Trust's Victoria gig, a couple days prior, but with my recent feature about Bev in Montecristo talking about the magic of asking her if she has a photo of so-and-so in her archive, to discover that she does, I was hoping for a vivid illustration here. Sure, she had images of the Minutemen, also very cool... but we've seen some of those before! Saccharine Trust are a far harder band to find good images of, there was really only one chance (as far as I know) for her to have shot them, and... how cool would it be?
Guess what? Bev double checked her dates, dug back in her rolls of film, and here we go: NEVER BEFORE SEEN photos of Saccharine Trust in Vancouver, with Joaquin ("Jack") Brewer on vocals, Joe Baiza on guitar, Earl Liberty on bass -- you've seen him in the Circle Jerks lounge scene in Repo Man -- plus a drummer was probably Rob Holzman. Of course, Joe Baiza is playing Vancouver soon with Mike Watt of the Minutemen and improvising jazz drummer Chris Corsano. We'll get to that show presently, but trust me, interested parties will want to read all of what follows.
Saccharine Trust, July 3rd, 1982 at the West End Community Centre, by bev davies; not to be reused without permission
So first: who is this band? This is what Saccharine Trust sounded like in the early 1980s, if you're curious, back when they were one of the very first artists on the SST roster. That clip is from the year of what is still, I think, their best-known release, the 1981 SST EP Paganicons (copies of which can still sometimes turn up new, when boxes are discovered in a warehouse somewhere; I got a brand-new first pressing a couple months ago at the Full Bug in Duncan, whose proprietor, Matt, reports a sudden influx of vinyl rarities by bands whose name all began with S... I think I got some Screaming Trees out of that box, too, and apparently there were some Saint Vitus albums that surfaced...).
Truth is, I was always more partial to their second album, Surviving You, Always, from 1984, the cover of which is a photograph of a woman named Evelyn McHale in death, after having jumped from the Empire State building; a somewhat famous photograph, discussed here and a bit more below... Surviving You, Always is an ambitious, unusual, slightly deranged and utterly unique art-punk album, one of those rare records that still sounds wholly original and idiosyncratic forty years later; not even Saccharine Trust themselves ever sounded quite like this again (actually, did they ever release two albums that sounded the same?). Who was it that said it was like having "Jim and Jimi in the same band" -- Meltzer? Christgau? It's apt: you get tripped-out 60s-style visionary poetry rants from Brewer and guitar-centric sonic frenzies from Baiza equally rooted in punk and improvised music. "YHWH on Acid" -- the album's "deepest cut" -- sounds like Albert Ayler could step up to the plate at any minute and start skronkin' on ya. Or try, say, "Our Discovery" as a starting point -- it's got passion and drama but not quite the same intensity of spiel -- or if you want something punkier and tighter, "Craving the Centre" (beware: there is some mischief afoot by which that song is often mis-identified online, but that link is right. Some of Baiza's hookiest playing there!). Baiza sounds right at home on SST, like a graduate of the Greg Ginn school of guitar, in terms of freedom and fury, but I enjoy him much more than Ginn; and I mean, ferchrissake, his Allmusic bio is by Eugene Chadbourne, who calls him "one of the great guitarists to come out of the so-called punk rock scene of southern California."
From a Saccharine Trust SST press kit, from the collection of Phil Saintsbury; thanks, Phil!
The band would get jazzier and even a bit funkier over the next couple of albums -- try "Longing for Ether;" you'd never guess it's the same band, two years later, except maybe for Baiza's giddy, dense note-clusters. And then Baiza has other, still jazzier projects, like the Universal Congress Of or the Mecolodiacs...
That I'm aware of, Saccharine Trust only ever played Vancouver that one time, July 3rd, 1982, at the West End Community Centre, opening for Black Flag; that's the only Vancouver date listed on this tour history. Some variation of I, Braineater -- the newest incarnation of whom will be playing a Halloween show, note, more on which maybe later -- also shared the bill, and a band called The Wrecks, who I do not know. I found this gig poster on the above-linked site, too -- the same guy with the tour history (his name is Hector Kirkwood and he's collecting posters and memorabilia for the band, if you have any! Best I can figure, he's the only person keeping record of Saccharine Trust on the internet... when he sees Bev's photos he'll shit!).
Saccharine Trust also played Victoria, two days before, at the O.A.P. Hall, again with Black Flag but with the Subhumans headlining (which is fun to see: yay Subhumans!). The Neos were also on the bill. I lifted this poster from Hector's site, too:
And of course, Vancouver and Victoria bands played with Saccharine Trips on trips south -- I was letting Murray Acton know the other week that Joe Baiza of Saccharine Trust was coming to town, since Murray likes adventurous guitar stuff, when he told me about opening for them at a show, though I can't tell you offhand if Murray said it was with the Dayglo Abortions or the Sick Fucks/ Sic Phux or where it was. It might not be on Hector's list, as well.
("Hector's gonna shit again!")
I don't think Baiza has played here otherwise? I might be wrong there. But the Minutemen played here, also in a July, two years later, at the Waterfront, and Bev was at that show, too. A different photo of hers illustrates a Nardwuar interview with Mike Watt, here. Bev also shared this very purposive-looking Watt:
But here's the funny thing. I had originally planned to tell you about how a photo Bev took of that concert was one of the very first encounters I had with the Minutemen. (This introduction circles around not one but two mistakes of mine). At age 16, out in Maple Ridge, I had read about them once in an issue of The Rocket, where there was a review praising both their classic 2LP release, Double Nickels on the Dime -- released the very month of this show! I believe I had seen them mentioned once before, in a 1982 issue of Creem with Joan Jett on the cover, where someone had interviewed Morrissey griping about the tedium of touring, which attitude the Creemperson thought "sucks the hairy balls" (I believe that was the phrase) compared to the hard work on the road undertaken by bands like the Minutemen, blazing trails and igniting/ creating a fresh new scene in the early days of punk... I paraphrase as best I can, because really, the only phrase that remains verbatim in my brain is, "sucks the hairy balls." I didn't know who the Minutemen were at that point but they CLEARLY were cooler than the Smiths...
But -- SPEAKING OF BALLS -- the decisive factor in getting me into the band was a photo that ran in the August 1984 issue of Discorder, just after that gig took place. The thing that captured me here was the words written on D. Boon's t-shirt: Fight Using Your Balls.
Whatever else I may have heard about them, more than any single other early encounter, I am pretty sure it was trying to visualize the art of ball-fighting that got me into the Minutemen. I didn't have/ hadn't heard Double Nickels yet, so before I was poring over the lyrics to "Political Song for Michael Jackson to Sing" (which, while we are lingering in the genital region, we may note contains my #1 favourite usage of the word "dork" in all of popular culture), I was trying to figure out what the band exactly was hoping we would do with this commandment, or what it really meant: even on the hottest summer day, after a warm bath, my scrotum is not long enough for me to, like, swing it and clobber anyone, and even if it were, the resulting impact would make me the immediate loser of the fight, leaving me curled up whimpering in the corner. There is the sense, of course, of balls as "cojones," "huevos" -- the base of manly power -- so the phrase still has a macho swagger to it, but however tough it may sound, the reality of fighting using your balls is utterly self-defeating. It's like a Zen koan, a peace-slogan in disguise, affirming and sabotaging your manhood in a single imperative. "Use my balls? Fuck that!"
More than any other factor, it was this photo that set me on the path to Double Nickels, combined with that glowing Rocket review. And for about 40 years, I've thought it was taken by Bev:
Discorder cut-and-paste, original photo by David Jacklin
Before we get to who actually took the photo, a note about that image and caption: if I've got my nautical terminology right, Mike Watt just explained to me on Facebook that that's his writing on the left (relative to the viewer), while "Peoples' Victory in El Salvador," on the right, is Boon's. Quote Watt:
allan, that writing on his shirt on the starboard side is my writing, his writing on the port... we bof had something to say! by the way, I've tried golf only once and was really terrible (everything was grounders) and they spelled d boon's name wrong but I remember digging this gig much cuz the people of vancouver were most kind to us!
The funny thing about all this, though -- I am only just learning now, having tracked it down, flipping through the Discorder online archives, is that it's not a Bev Davies photo. It's taken by David Jacklin. Bev did take photos of the band at that gig, and I'm very happy to share a few with you, but the photo that set me to bugging her, the one that made such an impact on me, the one that I was hoping she would find so I could run a proper version of it here (not just a cut-and-paste from Discorder) was taken by Dave! Oops.
All these years, I was wrong.
But I was sure I'd seen a photo Bev took of D. Boon with the invitation to testicular violence clearly readable. I'd previously asked her for photos of Watt, but now it seemed to me, maybe Watt and Baiza and readers might like to see her image of the late, lamented original guitarist and singer of the Minutemen, too?
I wonder what D. is thinking about here?
Dennes Dale ("D.") Boon, RIP, by bev davies, July 6, 1984 at the Waterfront, Vancouver
By the by, if you've missed it, the documentary about the Minutemen is on Youtube, and it's really fun.
2. Mike Watt, George Hurley, Joe Baiza, and the Unknown Instructors
Flash forward to 2007. I'd only started writing about music a couple of years prior -- in particular, the Nerve Magazine. The Unknown Instructors had released their second album; they were an improvisatory rock group that featured Joe Baiza of Saccharine Trust on guitar and Mike Watt and George Hurley of the Minutemen on drums. That team had been yoked together by a poet named Dan McGuire, who recited poetry while Baiza, Watt, and Hurley (or the odd other guest) played (except for on their fourth album, from 2019, which I only just found out about, which has J. Mascis on guitar and Baiza contributing vocals, again with McGuire as leader; apparently the music on it is more composed, less of a jam-session). I interviewed Watt, Baiza and McGuire around that time; Watt was also just starting his touring with the Stooges, which also came into play. My favourite song on their second album -- "The End of the World" -- does not appear to be on Youtube, but it is on Spotify, if you use that service. Baiza's guitar is amazing on that cut...
So (again, with Watt and Baiza coming to Vancouver soon), here is my archival interview from this time -- the full version of a 2007 article that ended up in The Nerve Magazine.
Life Lessons from Unknown
Instructors
A chat with Mike Watt,
Joe Baiza, and Dan McGuire
By Allan MacInnis
“I’m in the big life
classroom and what I need is more homework” – Mike Watt, from his Stooges tour
diaries.
Unknown Instructors’ guitarist Joe Baiza and bassist Mike Watt
have a long history together. Even before the Minutemen formed, “I’d see him
around at the punk gigs, you know?” Watt relates in a booming, jocular voice
(he’d answered the phone “Watt!”). “The scene was so small, and there’s always
the same dude showin’ up, but you don’t really know him. And he’s from the next
town to us, called Wilmington, and he moves in below me and D. Boon – well, D.
Boon’s apartment, where me and D. Boon started the Minutemen. We started
writing the songs without amps, and we didn’t have a drummer, so we would stomp
on the deck the whole time. He thought it was these two insane guys living
upstairs! And it was me and D. Boon!” Watt laughs. “There wasn’t a lot of Latin
cats in the early scene, and he was very distinctive in his look and shit.
‘That’s the guy we seen at the gigs! That’s Joe Baiza!’ Yeah, punk was trippy
at first. What a coincidence that that would happen!”
Joe Baiza reports that Watt was a driving force behind
Saccharine Trust’s first show, back in 1980. “We hadn’t played any gigs – we
were just rehearsing, rehearsing, practicing – all nervous, you know? And Mike
calls and says, ‘Hey, you guys want to play a party?’” (Baiza does a boisterous
and loud Watt impersonation.) “I go, ‘What, oh, no, no, we’re not – a party?’”
(Baiza exaggerates his own timidity by dropping his voice a notch, then returns
to Watt-boom:) “‘With the Minutemen – a backyard party with us!’ I said, ‘No,
no, no, no – we’re not ready. We’re not ready to play yet, I don’t think so,
Mike.’ ‘You’re not ready?!’ – and
then he started layin’ into me. ‘You’ll never
be ready! You guys are just scared!
You’ll never be able to play!’ – He
started giving me all kinds of crap, you know?” Baiza raises his voice to
Watt-level, indicating rising to the challenge: “‘Okay, then, we will play it! I’ll show you, Mike! I’ll
play the party then!’ ‘All right, I’ll put you down – next Saturday!’ or
something, ‘All right, see you later,’ and he hangs up. I go, ‘Fuck, we’re
gonna do a gig...’ It was good, he kinda pushed us into doing things.”
Though he doesn’t complain, Baiza’s had a fairly bad run of
luck. He had a hand busted when racists attacked him in Germany in 1997; more
recently, he broke his thumb on the job, and worse, has just discovered he has
carpal tunnel syndrome, which causes his hand to go numb when he plays. Unknown
Instructors vocalist and bandleader Dan McGuire reports hearing Baiza and Saccharine
vocalist Jack Brewer joking that they’re cursed. There’s some logic to that:
SST have discontinued most of the band’s back catalogue, and Greg Ginn won’t
re-issue their excellent second album, Surviving
You, Always (“he says it costs too much to manufacture it,” Baiza deadpans
– this in the age of the ultra-cheap CD). The band’s reunion recording, The Great One is Dead, recorded in 1999 for
the obscure German label Hazelwood, is in limbo and almost impossible to find [note: it is now online and even got a North American vinyl release: SEE THE END OF THIS SECTION],
as are most of Baiza’s other recordings with the Mecolodiacs and the Universal
Congress Of. Oh, and Saccharine’s vibe player, Richie Hass, is being treated
for cancer – though he’ll be playing live with them this summer. [Richie died the next year, in 2008]
I asked Watt – who produced various Saccharine projects and
played bass on their improvised SST release, Worldbroken, why he thought he and the Minutemen became so well
known, while equally inventive SST bands like Saccharine Trust are not. “I
think a lot of it had to do with circumstance,” he tells me. “My best friend
got killed, you know, and Saccharine didn’t have that. That’s a horrible way to
get known, y’know? So I know people are missin’ D. Boon, and I know when they
hear me play they hear some of D. Boon a little bit, because his playin’ went
so much on me. I don’t think I’m more deserving of it than Saccharine, hell no!
Those cats can fuckin’ blow, man!”
Watt agrees that the new Unknown Instructors album is a lot
stronger than their previous release, The
Way Things Work. “The first one is a little more apprehensive,” Watt
admits. “We’re totally afraid! You understand, me and Georgie” – Minutemen and
fIREHOSE drummer George Hurley, who signed on with Watt – “we’re from workin’
people, we don’t really come from musical traditions. It’s scary, but in order
to learn, you’ve got to put yourself in challenging situations. So even though
you’re going to shit a pecan log, do it!” He laughs. “The really interesting
shit is where (guest vocalist, Pere Ubu’s) David Thomas actually conducted us,
not just with words and poetry but with his hands. It was the greatest thing
ever, it was wild!”
With apologies to Smog Veil, the label that released both
Unknown Instructors albums, it is pretty difficult not to think of California’s
SST Records when listening to them. Not only are three key members (Baiza, Watt
and Hurley) from the SST roster, the new album, The Masters Voice, was recorded at Total Access, where many vintage
SST releases were recorded; it’s co-produced by SST fixture Joe Carducci; and
the disc features a vocal appearance and cover art – of a dog with its ears
perked up – by SST artist Raymond Pettibon (Greg Ginn’s kid brother – you knew
that, right?). Practically the only non-SST member is Ohio poet Dan McGuire, a
longtime Minutemen/ fIREHOSE/ Saccharine Trust fan and, at 39, the junior
member of the band. I asked him about the pooch on the cover.
“Actually, I think (Pettibon) drew that for the first album,
and we didn’t end up using it. He copped that from a line in a thing called ‘Creature Comforts’ about a large curious Doberman.” Pettibon came up with the caption
and the band, liking the invocation to attentive listening, used it for a
title. “My friend thinks (the lyric) says, ‘large curious doorman,’” McGuire
laughs. “I get that all the time. People are quotin’ shit back to me and it’s
better than what it was to begin with!”
McGuire is a bit perplexed by how often his recorded
recitations get associated with the Beats; he figures it’s an immediate leap
people make when they hear poetry and music combined, though he does riff off
Ginsberg’s “Howl” in “The End of the World” (which finds him “hallucinating
semen lithographs flashing in the tongue of cunts.”) “I don’t know what you
would call it – it’s not a homage, it’s not a parody, but I wanted to try and
take what he did and condense it and say, ‘I can say this in much shorter order.’
Like, Ginsberg is probably the only Beat poet I know very well at all. I’m into
a lot of different poets and different styles of poetry.” (The name of the band
is taken from Yeats’ “Gratitude to the Unknown Instructors.”)
The semen lithograph cut, “The End of the World,” is,
McGuire and I agree, the centerpiece of the album, largely due to Joe Baiza’s
blistering, overdriven guitar work. “That was the track I immediately grabbed,
I was like, ‘That’s the one,’” McGuire says. “That was the end of a frustrating
day, so what you hear is everybody just goin’ at it as hard as they can. It’s
kind of the atmosphere of what was goin’ down – we were having some trouble
with the engineer, George was late, all kinds of nightmarish shit happened that
day, and that was the end of the evening. So it’s basically everyone just going
berserk, which I personally like.”
Unfortunately, there are no plans for the Unknown
Instructors to tour. Watt tells me he would “love to” play live with them
again, “but there’s a lot of commitments to other people,” including, of
course, Iggy and the Stooges, with whom Watt is currently touring.
McGuire got
to see the new Stooges lineup in Detroit.
“It was absolutely mind blowing. I mean, I could not believe
it,” McGuire says. “You know, they let people crash the stage, and I was very
good about it. I let other people cause commotion and just slid up and went up
onstage, and I’ve never seen Mike happier anytime in my life. He was doin’
like, Broadway leg kicks and humpin’ his amp, he was doin’ all these moves and
shit, but he was smilin’ and he was singin’ the song to me. I’ve never seen him
so jacked up. And to see Iggy... I was like, ‘What in the fuck?’ There’s a
definition of genius, in this book by F. Scott Fitzgerald called The Crack Up, and he says that ‘genius
is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in your head at the same time,” and
what Iggy was doing was exactly that. I’m like, ‘This is incredible!’ - because
he was running around all unhinged, but you could tell, he was in total charge of everything that was
goin’ on. He could hear every note... I just couldn’t believe it. I was
prepared for it to be pretty cool, but I was stunned, it was so heavy. I’m
guessing I’d prefer to see them like that than I would back in the day when it
was a complete riot/ circus. I like seein’ it all tightly wound and put
together!”
[For the final, shorter version of this, which ran after having seen the Stooges with Watt, I added the sentence, "Note: Watt humped his amp in Seattle, too. It
was pretty cool."]
[Oh, and The Great One is Dead finally got released over here on vinyl and on bandcamp]
3. Mike Watt on the Stooges
Hey, want to read my Mike Watt interview, focusing on his time with the Stooges? It's already on my blog! I actually have an unpublished interview with Watt which I held back because I wanted to time it to the release of a different project of his, which to my knowledge has never come out... That conversation deals a lot with his work with Nels Cline, including discussion of the album Contemplating the Engine Room, a nautically-themed album inspired by Watt's father; somewhere Watt told me that Rickie Lee Jones was a big fan, which has always stuck out as a cool, weird detail... Try to visualize Rickie humming along to "Black Gang Coffee"... I wonder if Baiza has ever played this stuff with Watt live... that's Nels...
4. Previously unpublished, archival interview with Joe Baiza
Now around the time I was doing that interview, I was also writing for Razorcake, but I was actually kind of a difficult cat back then -- a big ego, lots of opinions, ambitions that I would Become an Important Music Journalist (yeah, right). Maybe I'd write a book! So I was a bit bitchy with the editor of that publication, especially when errors got added to pieces. I wrote a few things for them but I also bitched a lot and that relationship sizzled.
Which meant that one piece I'd planned for that publication, a talk with Joe Baiza, never saw print, save for the brief excerpts above. I've gone back to my box of tapes for this, dug out a cassette player, bought some double As, and... here you go, transcribed for the first time. I have simply stolen this image off the net somewhere. That's Baiza in front, circa 1985.
JUST TO REITERATE: This is an old interview, apropos of a different project, with little bearing on what you will hear at the Corsano/ Baiza/ Watt shows!!!!
AM: So how did Dan get in touch with you for the project with Unknown Instructors?
JB: I think he sent me an email, but I had met him once before when I was on tour with Mike Watt. I played for Mike for about a year when he had Contemplating the Engine Room, and then in Toledo, I met Dan there.
AM: Dan was friendly with Watt?
JB: Yeah, he knew Mike from fIREHOSE and Mike's many tours at that time.
AM: And he was also a Saccharine Trust fan? How did he approach you?
JB: He just proposed the idea and said that Mike was interested and George, if I would like to do it, and I thought, "Man, this would be great." Just an email explaining anything! It was his project in the beginning, he set the whole thing up.
AM: Had you read his poetry?
JB: No, I wasn't familiar with him, didn't even know he was a poet. The first time I met him in Toledo, I didn't know who he was, just some guy in the audience - some crazy guy! Heh.
AM: So Dan has said that when you were in studio, all his poetry was overdubs, so -- did you have any idea what he would be reciting?
JB: No no, not like that. We just created the music, tried different approaches to improvising. And both sessions were different. The first sessions were spontaneous, for me, from my perspective. It was a little more "free improvisation." And the second session we did was a little more crafted. But no, we created the music first and Dan went over it and decided what he wanted to use on what.
AM: So he had no input?
JB: Well, he leapt into the room once and awhile and yelled some things out:= "Let's do one of these!" Especially on the second session. The first one he'd come in and say some things, he'd propose something and we'd try it. Just some basic idea... some kind of mood he'd want. On the second session, he did some of that, and we had Joe Carducci in the studio, and he did some of that... and then David Thomas directed a few pieces that he was on, and we tried different approaches. Mike would just play, or George would just play. Sometimes I would start something -- not very often, though.
AM: I got that impression, particularly listening to the second recording, it sounded like that George and Mike had some definitive thing that they had worked out, working on a groove, and you were layering stuff over top of it? They established the pattern and you ran with it.
JB: Yeah, exactly. The first time was more of notes, improvising that way, but the second time there were more layers, sound textures. It wasn't as busy. We purposely made it that way so it wouldn't be too cluttered, trying that approach. Some things are pretty busy, but y'know... I left a lot of more space in there.
AM: It seems busier in a "rock" way.
JB: Yeah, it's purposely done that way. Dan wanted to add a little more "rock" flavour to it. I think you mentioned to me a particular song in there --
AM: "The End of the World?"
JB: Yeah. That was one of the things Dan sort of directed: "Just go for it!" We were playing a lot, playing for a couple of hours, then -- "One more time!" And just out of frustration, you blast one out. That might have been one of those pieces... that mood was in the room.
AM: It sounds like it was a pretty tense day, that some of you were butting heads with the engineer...
JB: Yeah, we recorded at Total Access, where a lot of SST things were done. Saccharine Trust's Surviving You Always was recorded there. To me that studio is just something from the past, you know? And we were looking for a studio; I think Mike and Dan had decided on a studio, but they somehow they didn't want to go with it. And then it was getting close, and Dan just chose Total Access. It was his decision. I think he just got the idea from the back of the SST Record.
AM: I'm not sure I know what you mean, "something from the past."
JB: To me, those were different times. I remember recording Surviving You, Always. And when we would record for SST in the old days, you had a certain amount of time to do a record, so many hours; just record it, and then you're out of there. So it was kind of stressful. I think we had two or three sessions, but it was pretty rigorous. And I just recall being really tired and recording that album and just really struggling.
But that's the funny thing about SST and the way they worked back then, especially in that studio... because one funny thing that engineer told me was that the owner talked to him about "those SST guys": "Oh, they're from that time!" And the owner told a story about how SST had booked a block of time to record some Black Flag cuts or something, and then I guess the owner or his assistant walked in and everyone was just asleep! The engineer SPOT was asleep on the board and people were just sleeping on the floor or like, asleep, sitting in chairs, just sleeping in position, you know? (Laughs) And then he woke up SPOT and they went "Whoa, okay, let's get back to work" and everyone just shifts and gets back to it, y'know? They must have just dropped out of fatigue!
But I kind of remember that way of working. You're tired all the time. That's what Total Access reminded me of, working hard on that Surviving You, Always record. It was something from the past like that. I didn't think it was anything special, that studio; that was it -- SST had some kind of deal going with those people. But, I thought, "Total Access. We're bring the 80s back?" or something...
AM: It's appropriate, though, because The Master's Voice really reminds me of music from that time. That old October Faction/ Tom Troccoli's Dog/ Saccharine Trust kind of feeling. It brings back that time to me a lot. Does it do that with you, or...?
JB: Well, when you say October Faction and Tom Troccoli, that's a long time ago! I think we've gotten better at improvising since then.
AM: Well, yeah.
JB: That's when we started doing that kind of music, but now we've been doing it a long time, in many different ways, all of us... everyone's developed that kind of approach, you know. But... it was a nice room, but I did have trouble with the engineer, because I wanted to record it all in one room, with the drums in the same room as all of us, because it lent to improvising a little better! But the engineer wanted to change things around right from the gitgo; he wanted to separate the drums in another room, with headphones... and, I don't know, it's not what we were going to do. So we had some difficulty -- it went on from there but it's just boring to talk about that!
AM: In a way I'm grateful to him if he stressed you guys out enough that it produced "The End of the World," that's an amazing piece of music.
JB: I don't think it was really him, just the nature of playing for a long time: "Let's do another one! Let's do another one." We were working pretty hard in there, and it started late, too because George had arrived late... so we really had to kick ass, there, you know?
AM: Do you have a preference between the two Unknown Instructors albums?
JB: I like the second one!
AM: Me too. The first one lacks the punch; I think Watt said it was "apprehensive."
JB: It was sort of meandering. We were just sort of feeling our way. This seems a little more in the pocket. And for myself, I was more calm: I was trying to keep things uncluttered and create moods, as opposed to playing a bunch of notes. And occasionally Dan would suggest these rock things: let's have some overdrive here, make it really rock out. So I would just try that approach, which I don't normally do when I play, but I can do it.
AM: Is that because you spent so much of your last two years doing jazz related stuff? You seem to have devoted a lot of time to jazz.
JB: Yeah, I've focused on that a lot -- not just jazz, but all types of music. It's just my sound. I like a clean sound on a guitar. I'm really into the sound of a string being plucked, you know? So my approach to the guitar is more percussive. And I don't really use a lot of overdrive, although it's something I can try, I can do. But it wouldn't always be my choice to do that.
AM: What are your own favourite projects that you've been involved in, recording-wise.
JB: Recordings, let me think? There's a Universal Congress Of album called Eleventh Hour Shine On. I really like that album. And there are some Mecolodiacs records that no one has ever heard of, that's the bass player from Universal Congress Of [Ralph Gorodetsky] and the old drummer of Saccharine Trust, Tony Cicero,
And then we did another one with Wayne Griffin who is in Congress right now, that we recorded in Germany. Some of the stuff I do with Mecolodiacs is pretty cool.
AM: See, I haven't actually heard that. I have the This is Mecolodics thing you did with Universal Congress Of, which is a good album... although it sounds like the entire idea of Mecolodics was a bit of a joke at that point? [Note: not sure now why I was saying that: re-listening to some of the material, though, it reminds me of late-phase Coltrane, which is pretty cool and clearly no joke. It might have been mostly a reaction to the cover? Luckily Baiza didn't take umbrage...].
JB: Well, 'cos I was into Ornette Coleman and his whole "
Harmolodics" thing, which I didn't understand... but it was a joke someone came up with, we had some nicknames at work and I was "El Meco."
AM: El Meco? I don't understand.
JB: It was just a stupid thing we were doing at work. We were taking a little lunch break and there was a little hat shop around the corner, where you could put a name in front of the hat, and one of the guys was like, "Let's get some hats, and we all can put our name on there!" So they came up for themselves, so I was like, "I'll be El Meco." We were doing gang names, you know? And "meco" means "sperm" in some gang slang, or something, y'know, so I was like, The Sperm. Everyone thought it was disgusting, but most people didn't know what that word meant, so it was just sort of an in-joke: MECO, y'know? [Laughs]. But then one of my workmates, a week later, was like, "Hey Joe, if you like harmolodic music, and you're El Meco, I would think you play Mecolodics! Hahaaha!" I said, "Great, that's it, that's what I do? Mecolodics!"
AM: Does Ornette Coleman know any of this?
JB: I doubt it! (laughs). Mecolodics is a little offshoot of the jazz tree... I was coming up with my theory: harmolodics is one of the branches to come off the jazz tree, and there's a little scraggly twig that grows off, and that's called Mecolodics: it's kind of punk jazz, y'know? So that's what I called it. But the name just came along and was applied to what I was already trying out... I came from a punk rock background, and was fascinated by jazz music, but I wasn't a jazz musician, wasn't schooled in this way, but at some point I was like, "If I can figure out to play this rock music from nothin', why don't I do that with jazz, too?" So it was kind of a punk jazz approach. So I was learning Ornette Coleman songs and we'd have our fast, sloppy versions of them, y'know? And then we'd apply other kinds of music we liked, mixed it together, a hybrid of music with a punk attitude. So people think that punk rock was just power chords and fast eighth-note kind of thing, but I was like, "No, it can be anything, you can stretch that attitude to other kinds of music. So that's what I do now. I'm always researching music and trying to inspire myself to do something new and creative.
AM: How do jazz audiences down there respond? It's my impression that jazz audiences are kind of hard to please, hard to reach. Are they receptive?
JB: Well, y'know, we really don't play to jazz audiences, we play to people who listen to all types of music. And we're kind of a good band for that kind of ear, because if you have someone who is into rock music, and they like interesting music, and they're like, "Uh, I kinda like jazz but I don't know," and then they hear us: Wow! I mean, now I'm Joe Baiza's Congress Of, and the way I have it arranged, it's made for the initial listener, or someone who wants something exciting. I have structured the music in that way. I keep the solos real short and the arrangements tight, so it's like the Ramones version of playing jazz. The songs are like four minutes or something -- ba-ba-ba-ba-ba, that's it, then pow! Onto the next one, or a slow one or something.
I mean, I dunno, jazz audiences... sometimes we'll play a venue where there are some people who are familiar with jazz, and they're sort of charmed by it, I guess; they laugh or think that's funny. But most people appreciate it, because we never really play to a strictly jazz audience, unless we were touring with Universal Congress Of in Europe, in the old days. There were some dates where we did open up for some heavyweights, you know?
AM: Like who?
JB: I'm trying to remember. They'd have these festivals, and there'd be these well-known jazz musicians on the bill, and we were some opening act or something. People were a little bit puzzled by that. We had some fans in Germany who liked us, but I guess in those situations most people were a little puzzled by what we were trying to do.
AM: I've interviewed Nels Cline, and it sounds like he's had to struggle with the jazz/ rock thing, not knowing where he fits in, wanting to be credible in both worlds. It sounds like it's not something that causes you a lot of grief.
JB: Not really, I just do what I do and I'm not worried about it. I'm not trying to put a label on it. I'll say "punk jazz," I'll give it that label, instead of Mecolodics, because if I say "Mecolodics" when someone says, "What kind of music do you play?" they don't know what I'm talking about! But if I say, "Kind of a punk jazz music," at least they get an idea. But Nels has got more of a hold on the jazz world than I do. When I first heard Nels, he came across as a very serious musician, and I think I'd seen him play with a quartet way back, and he was acoustic. And then later on
with Julius Hemphill, "There's that Nels Cline guy again!" And I'd see him around here and there with different things. But the first time I'd seen him in an edgier context was when he had a trio, that he used to have when he did New Music Mondays, and it was a night at another club, and I was doing a free improvised thing, just myself on a guitar, kind of a noise thing; but I kind of made it theatrical -- I had some friends who set up a little card table and a lamp next to me, so they're playing cards and drinking whiskey and ignoring me. It was kind of a funny thing. And then Nels Cline comes on, and it's the first time I'd heard him with an edgier group: "Wow it's almost like rock music." I was kind of excited -- "Wow, great, you know?" So that's when I first saw that. [
Just guessing from the time of this interview, but I'm thinking this might have been from the Destroy All Nels Cline period? I don't think Nels was in Wilco yet].
But I guess I don't worry about where I fit, because I can't fit in, anyways. I really don't fit in; it's kind of a problem for me...
AM: Well... if we could descend into darker waters... [there is some laughter and incomprehensible muttering here]. Dan McGuire was saying that he heard you and Jack Brewer at a Festival in England saying that Saccharine Trust was cursed?
JB: Oh yeah.
AM: You've had some of the worst luck I've heard of.
JB: Yeah, it's true!
AM: And you're still playing? Saccharine Trust still exist!
JB: Well I didn't say Saccharine Trust are cursed, but Jack Brewer and I are cursed. And whoever's closely involved with us will certainly be cursed as well. I don't know what it is -- we worked hard, and we tried to do something different, but it wasn't always successful. And sometimes it was, but things just didn't work out. I'm just so used to that now, it doesn't faze me anymore! (Laughs). I mean that's been the history of Saccharine, I guess: I mean, we'd have a gig, and we did some good gigs, I guess -- but we'd have a big gig where it's going to be a nice breakthrough, and something goes wrong, and we can't do the gig, or... When I first met Jack, we both have this kind of psychic... thing over us, I don't know how to describe it. But "cursed" is kind of funny. I am kind of half-joking about that, but...
AM: You got one of your hands really busted up in Europe, right?
JB: Yeah, one of my hands was hit with a baseball bat.
AM: Why? Who?
JB: It was some fascist guys in East Germany. I'll tell the story again -- I've told it quite a few times, but this was maybe the mid-90s, and I was staying at a friend's flat in Treptow, which is in the Eastern part of Germany, just east of Kreuzberg. And of course there was no wall anymore, so a lot of the people from Kreuzberg moved into Treptow, because there are these really cheap flats. Things were really still trying to develop after the wall came down, so they'd get these cheap apartments. And a drummer friend of mine lived there, the original drummer for Universal Congress Of; he'd moved to Germany, and lived there, so whenever I came into Germany and did tours, I wanted to hang out in Berlin, and he'd allow me to stay at his flat. He'd go off to his girlfriend's or something, so I had the place to myself. But one night I was going out to see someone, and it was kind of late, about midnight, and I'm walking down the street to the U-Bahn (German rapid transit), and there were these really wide sidewalks. It was this really old street, a wide street with big trees. And it's dark, no one's out there. And I had a beer in my hand, because I was drinking a beer inside the apartment. I guess you're allowed -- you can walk around with a beer in Germany, I guess; I just thought, "I'll finish this beer on the way to the U-Bahn." But I'm walking, and I see these three silhouettes coming towards me down the sidewalk, and they're walking in a line, one to the right, one to the left, one in the centre, towards me, but they're spread out a bit; they're not walking together talking. They seem to be on some kind of mission, you know?
AM: Right.
JB: It was like something out of A Clockwork Orange or something. I could see them coming towards me, and -- "uh-oh, that looks kind of funny." And I thought, see, if I cross the street and then they cross the street, that means real trouble; they might chase after me. I decided I'm just going to pretend there's nothing going on, I'm just going to walk right past them. And when I got to them, the center guy jumped in front of me and started yelling at me in German. And he had some sort of baseball cap under his arm, and he whipped it out; it had some sort of symbol on it, on the front. He was hiding the baseball cap -- he wasn't wearing it, it was just under his arm. It was like his credentials or something; he shoved it in my face. Not IN my face, but right in front of my eyes: he didn't really touch me, though. He was going like this and yelling in German. It sounded like he was saying, "You know who I am? You know what this means? You know who we are?" It sounded like he was saying something like that. And all of a sudden, I realized, "Oh shit, it's these Nazi guys." And they're dressed like guys going out to the disco or something; they're not looking like guys with big boots on or anything. And then I had a backpack and that beer in my hand and I said, "Don't fuck with me!" I thought I'd tell him something like that -- "I've got something in my bag, I'll pull it out." And then he just froze, just looked at me, and didn't do anything. And then the guys on the sides start coming around the side of me, like surrounding me, and I looked over and saw one guy take a baseball bat out from under his trenchcoat. I could see a shadow of it: "Uh-oh." And I looked over at the main guy real quick, and before I knew it, the bat swung and hit my hand that was holding the beer bottle. He was pretty good with the bat! Fast, accurate. I didn't expect he would do it that quickly. I looked at him, looked at the other guy, and WHUP! That was it, my arm was flying behind my back with the impact. Everything went blank, and the next thing I knew I was running really fast down the sidewalk; my legs thought before my mind did. And I was running really fast. I can run really fast; I was running a lot back then. They tried to chase me a little bit, but they couldn't, they gave up. I started walking. I looked back at them and yelled at them, and they were yelling at me. I thought, "Man, that's kind of crazy."
And then I was heading towards the U-Bahn, as I walked up the steps, I saw something on my hand, and I looked down and there was a welt on the back of my hand the size of half a tennis ball. With all the adrenaline, I hadn't even realized I'd gotten hit. And then I realized, "Oh, man, they hit my hand." Finally I went to the hospital, and my hand was broken. That was the end of that.
AM: How long did that put you out of commission as a musician?
JB: Oh, a few months, yeah... a few months. But all the bones were broken. The scary thing was, what were they planning to do? If I didn't have that beer bottle in my hand, would they have struck me in the head. What would they have done if I wasn't holding the bottle? It might have been my head.
AM: Were you holding the bottle like a weapon?
JB: I was holding it like you hold a bottle of beer! I didn't even think I could the beer bottle as a weapon. It was just in my hand. And I think the guy with the bat thought, "He could use that as a weapon, so let me go for that first." So he went for my hand. That's how it went. If I was holding it, I don't know what he would have done; that's the scary part. Would they have fucked me up?
AM: Was this like, a racist hate crime, or a random stranger attack, or...?
JB: It was certainly racist. And hatred. It's random as well, because I think they were looking for someone. Someone who was not white and German, someone who was not like them. Even a white person would get attacked if they were looking freaky or something; I think the youth at the time over in East Germany, in East Berlin, were kind of disappointed with how things went after the wall came down, so if they didn't have a job or something, they were pissed off, and they think, "These damn Turks," or Cubans or Vietnamese or whoever was doing the grunt work over there... they may have thought I was somebody like that. Although I did tell them "I speak English," and that didn't stop them. I think they were just out to beat someone up. And I talked to people in those days who lived in the area and they said, "Yeah, you have to watch out for that, they travel around like that and try to find someone." Usually they don't bother you if it's one-on-one; they seem to be more afraid. Because I used to see them before, too, by themselves; they'd give me a dirty look. But they wouldn't do anything -- they wouldn't do anything unless there was more than one of them. Then they would go for you.
AM: Sorry to make you tell that story once again. But... stop me if this gets too depressing, but you also recently busted your thumb, didn't you?
JB: Oh, yeah! That's just a work injury.
AM: What sort of work do you do?
JB: I work for a company that handles fine art. We go around town and install it and de-install it and move it around. And we pack it for shipping and storage; they build crates for paintings and sculptures and pick them up at the museums and galleries, pick them up at collectors' homes... that's something that just happened at work! I can't remember how I did that!
AM: Your hands work fine now, you have full use of both!
JB (laughing): Well, now I have carpal tunnel syndrome! My hand goes numb when I play -- I have a problem with my left hand. I don't know what I'm going to do about that yet. I think it's a work-related thing.
AM: Derek Bailey figured out how to play...
JB: Really, did he have carpal tunnel?
AM: He had carpal tunnel syndrome. In fact, one of his last albums for Tzadik was called
Carpal Tunnel, and he developed this technique so he could play around it...
JB: When did he get carpal tunnel?
AM: You know, I don't know the full story, just know that he had it towards the end -- I think it was a fairly late development, the last five years of his life.
JB: Oh yeah. It's crazy, you know: I don't know what brought it on. My boss says it's guitar playing, but I don't know, I'm not using my hand like this eight hours a day on the guitar! But it's a bit of a problem. I guess an operation is an option, but I don't know if I'm going to do that. I just try to avoid things that make my hand go numb. But if it continues, it can get worse, that's the deal, so at some point I have to do something.
AM: Right, right.
JB: But then I don't have time! If they cut my hand open, then I'm laid up again for I-don't-know-how-many-months, you know? And I've got a lot of things I'm working on, I don't want to put them on hold.
AM: It's like you should see a naturopath or something, see if there's a less intrusive option.
JB: That's kind of the method I would like to try.
AM: Okay, well, more bad luck:
The Great One is Dead, the most recent Saccharine Trust album, is completely out of print and unavailable [
again, note; it is now back in print and can be gotten through bandcamp]. What happened with that?
JB: Well, it's available in Europe!
AM: I don't know, Hazelwood (the label) never answered my emails. And it's not available new through Amazon Germany.
JB: Maybe Hazelwood is having some problems? I've heard some rumours. I've tried to contact the head guy at Hazelwood, sent him an email, but I never got a response. I'm not sure what's going on.
AM: The only was I could get it, there was one copy used on Amazon Germany. I ended up paying forty bucks to get it.
JB: Well, here's the deal, I am the one who has the rights to the album here in the United States, so if I can find someone I can license it to, they can put it out here. No one has approached me, and I haven't approached anyone. Which is crazy: it was recorded in 1999, and it's something we all want to do, but we've never done it. Someday maybe I'll get it together and release it here in the US. But that's funny: I thought Hazelwood was still issuing that.
AM: Well, I mean, maybe.
JB: What happened when you contacted Hazelwood?
AM: Nothing. I tried to order two copies. I didn't get a response.
JB: Yeah, I didn't get a response either, but it's hard to know what's going on... I'll check that out.
AM: How did that get set up? Do you have a big fanbase in Germany, then?
JB: Universal Congress Of did. We went over there in 1989. It all started with an interview for
Spex Magazine, this German magazine. People really respected the magazine, it had a big voice. And we were doing one of those music seminars in New York. I forget which one it was, but it was a big SST night at CBGBs. And Universal Congress Of played, and a number of other SST groups, and there was this woman walking around interviewing certain groups. And then she interviewed us, and we kind of went into our little joke mode, because most of the people who interviewed us didn't understand anything about what we were doing, so we just started making up our jokes, and she was kind of taking them literally. And then we realized, she actually understood what we were doing, so we had a serious interview with her, talking about music and all this, and... fine, all right. So they did a piece on SST, and they did a piece on certain SST groups, and Universal Congress Of was one of them. So that created some interest over in Germany.
So in 1989, through the help of someone, I contacted a booking agent. I forget who it was. The booking agent says, "Yeah, I can book you some shows, sure! Sure!" We said, "Great, let's try it, what the heck." We went over there in 1989, and we didn't know what would happen; we thought maybe it would be like that one gig we did in Huntsville, Alabama, where there were fifteen people in the audience. But our first gig, we walk in the room, and it's just jam-packed with people, and everyone's staring at us: a full house, and we did the show -- it was a great show, and everyone had a good time. We thought, "That's strange, that was cool." So our second show, we thought, "that was just a weird thing that happened for our first show," but our second show was the same way, and the third, and the fourth. All the shows were like that! So there was an interest in the group like that. And at that time, I think a lot of the music fans there were interested in independent, underground music in the United States. This was before the "alternative" thing started happening. So they were the first people I'd seen who were really aware of and interested in that kind of music. And they knew a lot about it, too! They knew surprisingly a lot; I don't know how they found out their information, but they knew more about groups than I would know. But that's what happened, anyway; we started going there and playing every year for about four or five years. We did really well.
AM: Is there is more in print there than there is over here?
JB: It's the same story, I was on a label called Enemy, but I don't know if he's still putting stuff out. It's been a long time since I've been over there, but now I have different groups: Saccharine Trust, of course, and Congress Of, and I have this group called
Puttanesca... like the pasta sauce?
AM: Isn't puta like a protestitute?
JB: Yeah, it's a prostitute's mixture of elements, or something like that.
AM: I see.
JB: That has a female singer. It's kind of abstract lounge music. And then I've got a cover group called the Cardovas who do all Meters songs. And then there's just one-offs I play.
AM: Things like Unknown Instructors.
JB: Unknown Instructors, right. See, that's kind of what I'm doing now: I'm doing music! And if I can go to Europe, that's great.
AM: Right! So, the SST stuff, that's all out of print now?
JB: I don't know. That's another deal, these record label guys, what are they doing, I don't know?! (Laughs). I'm so busy with my life, I don't go back and say, "Well, what's going on."
AM: I just think that it's a shame: Surviving You, Always was the first Saccharine Trust that I heard and it's got a really warm spot in my heart. It sunk deep. And it's never been out on CD...
JB: Greg refuses to put it out!
AM: Why?
JB: He says it costs too much to manufacture it! His exact words. I mean... what kind of reasoning is that, but that's what he told me: "I'm not going to sell enough to cover my costs for manufacturing."
AM: It's a CD! How much does it cost? They're really cheap!
JB: Ask him! (Laughs). I mean... I'm not a businessman, but all these label guys, they're all really slippery, and they've all got their agenda. What they're up to, I don't know. For me, it's hard to deal with that kind of stuff, because it's so annoying. Something needs to be done, but it's hard to deal with.
AM: You just want to play the music.
JB: Yeah, exactly!
[NOTE: That's all I can do right now, but there may be more added to this next week (there's about 20 more minutes on the tape, but *I'm* gonna get carpal tunnel if I keep hammering at this -- and other duties call. Meantime, the tour is happening NOW, up the west coast. See you at the Vancouver show, at the very least! More on which below...]
5. Corsano/ Baiza/ Watt Trio
Now here's the thing: the band member at this upcoming Vancouver show that I think actually is most significant to how the evening will sound is drummer Chris Corsano. I've never interviewed him, never seen him, though I have an album he's on with Wally Shoup and Nels Cline, which is one blistering session of flat-out free jazz, worthy of its title, Immolation/ Immersion, especially if you're being immolated in, say, molten lava. From what I hear of the album with Corsano, Baiza and Watt, it's closer in spirit to Corsano's normal wheelhouse than it is to that of Watt or Baiza -- both of whom can get jazzy, but who are primarily known as rock musicians.
So this is going to be an unusual tour to catch. There will (I presume) be neither Minutemen or Saccharine Trust songs. I doubt anyone will sing at all -- I'd almost be disappointed if they did; I'd certainly be surprised. This will (probably) be an all-improvised set; it will also probably COOK. It may be a wee challenge to see any of these shows if you've left it this long: The Hero's Welcome show is sold out online, and only a few tickets will be available at the door. There are shows in Victoria and Nanaimo, as well, which also appear to be sold out. The Nanaimo gig is at the Vault and booked by Jeremy of Shearing Pinx, Crotch, and Earthball, who, with Izzy of those bands, runs a very fun store upstairs. The Vault is a cool space, full of character and charm, and the store, Wyrd Wealth, is packed with fun items, including the single largest collection of Harry Crews books I've seen at a bookstore in the lower mainland, a hot sauce rack, new and used vinyl, and... lots more. (I wonder what Mike Watt thinks of Harry Crews? He's probably the best-read rocker I've spoken with,,,).
Welcome back to Vancouver, Chris Corsano, Joe Baiza, Mike Watt! May your tour be delightful and fruitful. See you at Hero's Welcome and maybe one of the other shows as well?
More info here.
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