Mike Watt
Ballhog or Tugboat (Columbia)
by Chris Adams
The album cover indicates that this is a Mike Watt record, but if you check the list of guest artists, you’ll find that Ballhog or Tugboat (Columbia) is a virtual who’s-who of modern American rock. Evan Dando, Eddie Vedder, J. Mascis, Thurston Moore, Flea, and Henry Rollins all put in appearances, as do members of Nirvana, the Beastie Boys, the Screaming Trees, Soul Asylum, Bikini Kill, and The Germs.
Watt, formerly of Firehose and the legendary Minutemen, says that the album ain’t so much a team effort as a tag-team. It’s a “wrestling record… different people getting into the ring… and recording what happens.” I don’t know who wins, but it’s one hell of an entertaining fight – and it ain’t fake! Like all of Watt’s other projects, Ball-Hog careens effortlessly between a shitload of styles, nailing straight rock, funk, psycho space-jam freakouts, film-noir soundtrack stuff, and fuck, pretty much anything else you can think of.
“Against the ’70s” is an out-and-out punk rocker which rants, “Stadium minds with stadium lies gotta make you laugh/garbage vendors against true defenders of the craft/the kids of today should defend themselves against the ’70s.” The fact that spokesman for a generation, Eddie Vedder, sings this is both effective and ironic, considering that his band is the new Bachman Turner Overdrive. “Drove Up from Pedro” is a humorous, almost folky piece of autobiography that explains how Watt got involved with punk rock (dug a Germs show and freaked). In the tradition of the Minutemen’s “Intense Song for Michael Jackson to Sing,” Ball-hog features an enjoyable slice of Doorsy psychedelia called “Intense Song for Madonna to Sing.” Speaking of the Minutemen, “Song for Egor” sounds like ’em; Vince Meghrouni’s shouts of “Fuck yeah!” recalling the great, sorely missed D. Boon. Other highlights include a rockin’ cover of Sonic Youth’s “Tuff Gnarl,” and an abbreviated version of Funkadelic’s “Maggot Brain.”
The best thing about this record is that if, in ten years, you wanna remember what was happening in mid-’90s American rock, all you’ll have to do is toss this one on the stereo. Essential.
