This came out in 2004 – or at least that’s when I got it. Here’s what I said about it back then (with some minor editing):
Only Mike Watt.
Only Watt — former Minuteman and fIREHOSE bassist, current Stooge and eternal DIY-punk icon — would write a rock opera about how he nearly died from a burst perineal abscess in 2000.
Only Watt would think nothing of revealing the graphic details of his harrowing illness, treatment and slow recovery in frank first-person narratives like Puked to High Heaven, Burstedman, Pissbags and Tubing and The Angels Gate.
Only Watt would make the whole thing sort of an allegory to Dante’s Divine Comedy.
Only Watt would set the whole bizarre affair to a series of free-wheeling jazz-rock progressions performed by a trio featuring just organ, drums and his virtuoso bass plucking, strumming and yanking.
Only Watt would sing it in a ruggedly bluesy bluster that reminds you of David Clayton-Thomas.
Most importantly, only Mike Watt could actually pull off such an artfully audacious move, using his disarming honesty and stellar musicianship to turn what could easily have been just one of the weirdest records of the year into one of the most weirdly compelling.
And that’s why he’s the one and only Watt.
