It's still a bit of a marvel that Mike Watt, master of the "thunder stick" (that is, bass) who, with his Minutemen mates, drummer George Hurley and guitarist and vocalist D. Boon, refined the art of "jamming econo" (i.e., creating maximum musical effect with minimal trappings), worked for about fifteen years with the major label Columbia. It began in the early Nineties with fIREHOSE, the brilliant trio including Hurley and guitarist and vocalist Ed Crawford, and continued with Watt's solo career, including three albums, the first of which is the remarkable Ball-Hog or Tug Boat? which was released in 1995. That album had a staggering list of guest performers, from Iggy Pop to Eddie Vedder, Dave Grohl and Krist Novoselic, the Kirkwood brothers, Petra and Rachel Haden, Thurston Moore and Lee Ranaldo, Nels Cline, Henry Rollins, Flea, Bernie Worrell, and, most memorably, Kathleen Hanna with a hilarious diatribe on the phone about sexism in music.
In April and May of that year, Watt, who was on the road a ton for years, embarked on a tour, with this great recording done at the Metro Theater in Chicago on 6 May. The band included Grohl on drums and guitar, Vedder and Pat Smear on guitar and vocals, and William Goldsmith also on drums, and they tear through 16 tracks, most from the album, though a new Vedder song "Habit", a Blue Oyster Cult cover with "The Red and the Black," and the great Minutemen tune "Political Song for Michael Jackson to Sing" are also on the set list. Vedder and Pearl Jam were massively popular and Grohl soon would achieve great success with The Foo Fighters after the tragic end of Nirvana, so there was probably a significant draw through them, but everyone plays together really solidly and truly "jams econo." This is a great live disc from one of the true unsung heroes of whatever it is people want to call "rock 'n roll".
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