Even back in 1984, when D. Boon first sang those lyrics from Watt's "One Reporter's Opinion" on Double Nickels on the Dime, it sounded like an inside joke. By then it was already evident that Watt was one of punk rock's biggest and most self-reflective romantics. From Minutemen classics like "Tour Spiel" and the monumental "History Lesson - Part II", straight on through the fIREHOSE years and his busy but erratic solo career, there's been little about his working class hometown San Pedro, flannel, piss bottles, or jamming econo that our beloved bass-wielding Ulysses hasn't found romantic.
All that nearly came to an end in 2000, when Watt suffered a burst abscess in his perineum, an affliction even more gruesome than it sounds. This horrendous episode very nearly rendered the world Watt-less, but he has since thankfully recovered, and now offers a not-entirely-unromantic account of this brush with death on his self-described punk opera, Secondman's Middle Stand.
Watt has never been one to crib pages from someone else's rulebook, but Middle Stand is an idiosyncratic work even by his standards. Constructed loosely on Dante's Divine Comedy, the album bases three songs apiece on his illness ("Inferno"), treatment ("Purgatorio") and recovery ("Paradiso"). The instrumental line-up is kept light and lean, with Watt on vocals and "thud staff," the busy limbs of Jerry Trebotic on drums, Pete Mazich on organ and frequent background vocals from Petra Haden.
It's that organ that's going to prove most nettlesome to punk-bred listeners, as it's difficult to disassociate Mazich's ornate, proggy Hammond B3 stylizations from just the sort of pompous arena rock that prompted punk's invention in the first place. But once you convince yourself that Mazich is not, in fact, about to break into Kansas' "Point of No Return", you should be able to appreciate the broad array of textures that the instrument brings to Watt's preferred power trio format.
With his trusty thunderbroom functioning as his Virgil, Watt doesn't flinch as he begins his tour of the underworld. "Abandon all hope!" command the background singers on the opener "Boiling Blazes" while the drums and organ roil nauseously. "No!" Watt screams back defiantly. "I'm going to make it through this hellride."
Things do get awfully hellish in the early going, and Watt spares us few gory details on tracks like the surprisingly peppy, "Puked to High Heaven", the self-explanatory "Pissbags and Tubings", and the driving, Deep Purplish "Bursted Man" which finds Watt trapped inside an infernal fever dream. "I see that thermometer in your mouth/ It looks more like a fuse/ Send that mercury to the top/ Split the glass and splatter his bulkhead!" Yikes.
Throughout the album, Watt delivers his most emotive vocal performance on record, sounding at times like a cross between a diabolical Gregg Allman and the muttering derelict who nobody wants to sit next to on the bus. Unfortunately his frenzied delivery, rapid-fire lyrics and the live-in-the-studio production quality often have his vocals getting trampled under the hooves of the marauding bass and organ. But his bass work is as powerful and nonchalantly virtuosic as ever, with his omnivorous playing style serving as both propulsive rhythmic force and melodic color-bearer.
And it'd take a hard heart indeed to not smile when Watt, after enduring all his myriad hardships, triumphantly sails into "The Angel's Gate", the celebratory track that introduces the "Paradiso" section. ("The Angel's Gate" is also the name of the harbor at San Pedro.) When you hear him describe the simple, never-to-be-taken-for-granted pleasures of being able to resume bicycling, kayaking and music-making on "Pluckin', Pedalin', Paddlin'", you'll hear a man who has withstood a brutal ordeal with his boundless romanticism intact. And though this album requires its listeners to go through some arduous passages, you'll find yourself hoping to hear this Secondman making new stands for a long time to come.
