If the excitement of seeing Dinosaur Jr. reformed, rehearsed, and rapacious isn’t enough to sell you on the project, get this: all the footage was directed and patched together by none other than Dave Markey, director of such amazing films as The Year Punk Broke, The Reinactors, and my perennial favorite, Rap Damage (In Seearch of the Hip Hop Rabbit).

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Mike Watt somehow knew that Thundercat was coming. When he said people thought the Minutemen were Martians from planet Jazz, well … that is pretty much exactly what we get with Thundercat’s The Golden Age of Apocalypse, made by a kid who played bass for Stanley Clarke and Suicidal Tendencies both. Thundercat speaks now about the sublime and the ridiculous, but not in that order. This interview by Chris Ziegler.

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Four albums and 26 years later, there are songs on dos y dos that still hold the late-night feel of someone reading you a story, a story that comes from a safe place but may not always have a happy ending. Mostly instrumental, these songs feel somber yet warm, like an old dog being petted. And when Roessler does sing, her broken, flat, whispery voice sounds both motherly and like a warning …

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Mike Watt rediscovered nature some time ago riding a bicycle around San Pedro. He’s full of facts about birds—knowledge he relishes like a librarian. Watt recently released Hyphenated-Man, an existential opera and surreal expression of Watt’s head broken into 30 mirror pieces, each piece inhabited by a creature from a Hieronymus Bosch painting: 30 evil beings that reside in a man’s mind, rather than reality. This interview by Daiana Feuer.

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There were spaces in the Hyphenated-Man opera libretto we just received from Mike Watt. But we think a secret magic enlightenment appears when you slap it all together stream o’ consciousness style, like playing heavy metal backwards. But this is forwards. This is forwards to the transcendence of your mind, that is. Hyphenated-Man can be [...]

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Jandek, the representative of Corwood Industries, is performing in the Southern California megaregion (population 28.5 million) for the first time since he started releasing sociopathic music some 32 long and scary years ago. Despite his record-store culture, outsider-musician cult status, he has rarely played shows, choosing to communicate with the world through his infamous Corwood [...]

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Las Chicas del Bombón, is 25 minutes of ’60s surf-inspired garage punk jams that ride the line between the charm of Beach Blanket Bingo and the soundtrack that might accompany Link Wray surfing on a coffin. Bombón’s members manage to escape the cliché of the cute all-girl neo-doo-wop trios we’ve seen so much of lately by seriously knowing how to rip on their instruments without masking them in a bunch of fuzz.

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carolyn pennypacker riggs illustration for 2009 LA RECORD Mike Watt interview Mike Watt is set to complete his third opera. Here is the message transmission exactly as we received it: mike watt (minutemen, fIREHOSE, solo artist, Stooges’ bassist, missingmen and secondmen leader) sez: “I’m finishing my third opera (“hyphenated-man”) w/bass brother tony maimone at studio [...]

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When he began to play, looking like a drunk, face glazed with sweat and mouth askew, it took a while to reconcile the image of Mike Watt with what was happening with his hands and face and body. Much like when you see something shocking on the street—like people having sex or a grizzly car accident—there’s a lag time between the sensory and intellectual registration of what’s going on.

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Dan, maybe the Coltrane one’s too old, even though it’s got the only complete live version? If so, please substitute w/ Petra Haden’s “Petra Haden Sings: The Who Sell Out,” ok?

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