watt: well, I'm still laid up from the illness/surgery I just went through (twelve weeks now, check http://bbs.sonymusic.com/showpost.pl?Board=watt&Number=1026 for details) and am getting my fingers strong again for bass. I didn't play for nine weeks. I haven't gone that long w/out wrestling that machine since I started as a young teenager w/ d. boon! it's a slow go but I'm going at it day by day. I'm also writing and working on songs for my next record, "the secondman's middle stand" which I hope to make this summer. it'll have pete mazich on organ and barrett martin on drums. a record about watt in the moment - last record (my punk opera "contemplating the engine room") was about the past, this one will be about the present - watt and where he is right now.

watt: nope, still got the 1990 ford e-250 econoline I bought new almost ten years ago. I call her "the boat" and love her. I wrote a song for her for the new record.

watt: working on a new _dos_ record for next winter release. this is my longest running band, me and kira have been doing it for more than fifteen years. I really love that band, it has a close connection to my heart and taps into a creative part of me that I don't express in my other endeavors. w/dos (spanish for the number 'two') there is no hiding, just two basses. also on tap, the madonnabes_ are doing a track for a compilation called "unlike a virgin" (beluga records). it'll probably be "burnin' up" or "bedtime story," we'll see. of course, I dig playing w/ perk in both _banyan_ (along w/ nels cline most the time) and _hell-ride_, a band w/ myself, perk, and peter distefano (from _porno for pyros_) where we do mainly coltrane-inspired jam-out versions of stooges songs (love that new box set of every track recorded during the "funhouse" sessions). we'll do some banyan and hell-ride gigs in may if I'm strong enough. we do these gigs when all of us have down time from our tours, usually in the winter and summer. mainly, we play around where we all live, the los angeles area. for more info on my side projects, check the hoot page (http://hootpage.com) out. I need these things to keep my life full of bass in all its flavors. it's a trippy life, being a bass cat. speaking of banyan, that small tour in january (utah/wyoming) almost killed me. I played every gig in an intense fever and almost died each set, white as a ghost. that was a real tough mission for watt. just didn't want to let perk down, I love the man too much. It was neat though, throwing some heavy jams at the folks. just wish I could've enjoyed it more.

watt: the "industry" has a lot of levels to it. I make most my living doing tours, playing clubs. living in pedro (the harbor of los angeles) is about thirty miles south of hollywood so I'm close enough to get there if I have to but it's not so in my face where I'm swimming in it. kind of in my own thermos bottle. I learned how to do punk rock many years ago and dug it. I never felt I had to change the way I do things - it worked then, it works now. had to do it that way then cuz everyone hated punk and you were in a small minority that did it cuz you loved it. now I do it that way cuz I choose to. to me, punk isn't a style of music, for example like fast guitar and a colored hairdo. everyone who plays is in charge of their own style. w/ punk, it's more of a state of mind or the way you think and do things, like jamming econo.

if I could've done things different, I would've made more minutemen records cuz I didn't know we had such little time left. everything else about the music I've been involved w/ has been ok w/ no regrets. I try my hardest and if either I fall or get thrown down, I get back up and keep going. it's the way it's gotta be w/ me. I have nothing to lose and owe everything to the man who gave me the great gift of playing, d. boon. when folks ask me what kind of bassist I am, I always say I'm d. boon's bass player. it's something I keep close to my spirit and it keeps me going.

watt: I see myself only as good as my last gig or tune played and try to keep things in perspective. I'm trying to be in the moment but at the same time keep conscious the fact that by folks having an open mind and letting me have a chance to give them what I got, I surely am a lucky man. a lot of it, for me, comes from being from that early punk scene where your peers really added to the whole and you felt lucky to be part of such a happening. there would've been no "double nickels on the dime" w/out a husker du, no "cut" w/out a black flag, no "west germany" w/out the meat puppets. it was like we were on one big boat and each crew had their own compartment. all of us bobbin' out in that sea of mersh. everyone trying to figure out their own sound. out of respect, no one copied anyone. it was like you didn't need to replace an old word w/a new one, you just added on (and added to it), making your vocabulary bigger. that's what I'm trying to do: make my vocabulary bigger. that's what I was trying to do w/ the wrestling record, "ball-hog or tugboat."

watt: well, things come in cycles. "cycles, cycles - life comes in cycles. old is new, no I ain't no psycho" (thanks chuck d.). it's funny seeing folks go through the trips. the new cats coming up and finding out about it, hopefully re-inventing for themselves so it'll make sense and not just be nostalgia or sentimentalism. there's lots the "veteranos" can learn by watching the young cats, when they're vital, they take chances that maybe the older folks are afraid to take. possibly, they can bring in a new perspective about a real old topic: making music interesting and having a mind-blowing impact. We thought it was great you could put out your own records and never wanted to take that feeling for granted and just put out some filler. we wanted to kick up some serious dust w/ each thing we did. it was important to us then and still important to me now. that's why I'm so intense about all this and don't want to rest on any kind of laurels or perceived legend status. this is what makes sense to me, why I'm still playing.

watt: j is very good people and as of lately become pretty spiritual too. he's an incredible guitarist and knows how to telepath music as a feeling. I wanted to work w/j cuz I was so interested in him. he's got a perspective on playing I was tripping on and really got me going, kind of in an untangible way. he's smart too and fun to talk with. younger than me, he was a big sst fan and kind was tripping on me too. it was mutual. he just did a cd he named "j mascis and the fog" and is figuring out a way to release it. Maybe the internet.

I see george all the time. he lives a few blocks from me here in pedro and plays w/ the _red krayola_, mayo thompson's band that's been around since the 60s. me, george and d. boon were huge krayola fans and it's neat george gets to play w/ that group. edward now lives in north carolina and has started a band of his own called _grand national_ w/ jon wurster (from superchunk) on drums. he took a break and was helping out the cats in _southern culture on the skids_ but is getting the g.n. proj back again. he called me about a month ago.

watt: I've always wanted to work my bass like I was riding a skateboard, taking risks and almost letting the thing fly right out my hands. when you fuck up on a skateboard you go down and cannot talk your way out of it. you gotta get up, dust yourself off and get back riding. I like that immediate reality of that situation and want to extend it over to working my bass. make it breathe, huff and puff! I also want to use it to nurture and support the cats I'm playing with. you know, like how a skateboard can be wild but it can also get you where you're going. I ask a lot of the bass but feel I got to constantly challenge it to make it come alive. the big strings on the bass and the wrangling of it w/two bare hands make it a very physical machine to begin with. I always felt intuned w/the skaters, the real kind, from the streets and in the pools. I'm 42 now so you gotta realize when I was a kid, skateboards had red chalk wheels and you couldn't go out into the streets. urathane wheels came out after I grew up (well, older anyway) and also blown-out knees put the ixnay on my actually skating. I had to do it via the bass. as for skatedboarding getting mersh (commercial), same thing happens w/music, no difference. lots of posers but always some committed cats who can't be lamed out w/logos or cliches or shit like that. Good skating is like good music: taking shit into your own hands and making the most of what you got. letting your freak flag fly as a great man once said (jimi hendrix).

watt: getting well and playing hard! plus I want make a good record and play my best at gigs. this would be enough for one watt, god willing.