Mike Watt’s doing something, I guess. I don’t know what, I can hardly be bothered to find out. That guy’s always doing stuff, like being in the Minutemen years ago and then being in fIREHOSE years ago and then being in The Stooges for a while and recording a Kelly Clarkson song, I think? Not that I’ll ever check up on this stuff. I’m kind of the Mike Watt of not doing things, which means I’m kind of the Mike Watt of not being like Mike Watt.
Right now, Exclaim! (or somebody, who knows) is reporting that Watt is teaming up with Deerhoof guitarist John Dietrich, Silver Jews drummer Tim Barnes, and Tsigoti pianist Thollem McDonas to form some kind of group called The Hand to Man Band. Guess it’s probably a band. This new group of super guys has a debut called You Are Always On Our Minds coming out May 22 through Post-Consumer Records. The band’s members describe it as “psychotropic jazz to konked-out funk to skronked-out dirges to alien transmissions to plaintive nocturnal pleas,” but I’d probably describe it as, um, rock, maybe? Whatever. Listen to a track from it (“First Shallows”) below. As it turns out, the album was recorded in Austin back in 2010, but I guess they just couldn’t be bothered to release it until now. And now, they can’t even be bothered to release a full track list. Hey, these guys are more like me than I thought. I’m lazy.
• The Hand to Man Band: http://www.thollem.com/THTMB.html
• Post-Consumer Records: http://www.post-consumer.com
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