SAB - Tom Watson
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tom watson bio by tom watson - august, 2006
my first guitar was a christmas gift when i was five years old. it was red and yellow plastic with a battery powered, suction-cup amplifier. i played along to beatles records and emulated the sounds they made on paperback writer and revolution. the guitar was always the sound i connected with, even more so with the who, creedence clearwater and jimi hendrix. by the 70's i had moved from new york city to the beach in L.A. and i got a real electric guitar and small practice amp. i unscrewed the amp speaker and put foil between the speaker and grill to try to get the distorted sound i was searching for. as i got more into music and turned on to the bands my older brother was listening to i had my first true influence from prog and glam rock. i was struck mostly by the guitar playing of roxy music's phil manzanera and king crimson's robert fripp. the flood gates opened and just about everything came in. the more obscure musics like kraut rock and psychedelic along with electronic and jazz seemed to have equal effects on me. as i continued to play i found inspiration in the guitar playing of television, captain beefheart and neil young before stumbling across wire, gang of four and the fall. later on, the more conceptually based avant-pop music of the red krayola and others had a big influence on me.
in high school i played in a few different contexts. one with keyboardist (and future slovenly member) tim plowman as a duet, doing free-form prog type instrumental music. i also teamed up with rob holzman (future saccharine trust/slovenly drummer) who played pots and pans before he had an actual drumset. finally, i helped organize a "real" band with local pro surfer denis jarvis singing, rob holzman on drums and marc vidal (soon to become earl liberty of saccharine trust and circle jerks) on bass to play cover songs and originals at parties at the beach.
at some point during 1978 i met up with steve anderson and scott ziegler, two guys from my high school who were trying to start a punk band and needed a bass player. i said i'd give it a shot. with my childhood friend bruce losson on drums we became toxic shock. steve sang and scott played guitar and we wrote all our own songs which was cool with me. we hooked up with other bands that were beginning to play around at that time in our suburban beach towns like the desendents, the disposals and red cross and played punk rock parties until we got our first big break; we got to open for the minutemen and saccharine trust at capones in san pedro, a real show. from that point we got tacked onto other gigs in that area like the star theater and in east L.A. at the vex and began to play with bands from outside the beach cities. we got our second break when we were asked to record a song for the compilataion "keats rides a harley" that the urinals were putting together. it put us next to some cool bands of that time like the human hands, meat puppets and the gun club and helped to put us into a certain community of music.
after high school i went to holland for one year to study electronic music at the university of utrecht. it was an academic program in composition and the production and recording of electro-acoustic music and has had a big effect on the music i made from that point on. while i was there i had the chance to work with the minimal music composer richard lerman, and recorded my first record in one of his ensembles entitled "travelon gamelon" that was released on folkways records in 1981.
after returning to los angeles in 1982 i picked up where i left off in toxic shock. though, at this point our music began to expand and we decided to push the ideas beyond the simplistic punk that toxic shock did. i was also getting ichy to play the guitar again and so in a kind of spontaneous transition we added tim plowman on organ and synth and scott and i started switching off on guitar and the music got far more ambitious. we changed our name to slovenly peter and played some wierd shows in hollywood and finally after adding rob holzman on drums we became slovenly. this line up would last for ten years and record eight records.
early on slovenly found some kinship with the minutemen and played to a more receptive audience opening for them. they had just started new alliance records and asked us to do a record for it. we did two ep's and an lp in 1984-5 and continued with the gigs around town, sometimes playing with black flag. the next year we made the transition to sst records and did four lp's over the course of five years, playing shows and touring occasionally through the end of the 80's. after a few years with slovenly in san francisco, i returned to L.A. and played around in various bands and improv groups until i reformed with scott and rob as overpass. we did one record for new alliance and one on smells like records, as well as one song on a minutemen compilation, and toured twice though the u.s..
through working in and around L.A. art galleries in the early 90's i was able to cross paths with one of my heros, the red krayola's mayo thompson. on the first night we met i had the gall to ask if he would produce the 2nd overpass record "manhattan (beach)". he agreed, and from there i began to record and perform in the newly regrouped version of the red krayola. this started in 1993 and has continued relatively consistently to the present. we have recorded about ten records together for drag city records and have toured together about that many times as well. the band has had several member variations including jim o'rourke, john mcentire, david grubbs, george hurley and albert oehlen, but i have remained a regular within it since my first involvement. at present it has become a major part of my musical output.*
in between red krayola records and tours i recorded a solo project entitled "country and watson". it was recorded and produced with jim o'rourke and mayo thompson and includes guest guitar by bob mothersbaugh. it was originally released in 2000 on leiterwagon records (germany), but has been made available domesticaly on theologian records.
in the beginning of 2000 i was asked by longtime friend and local bass legend mike watt to play in a group he wanted to tour with doing some favorite cover tunes and older originals of his as a sort of retrospective and homage to the music that had inspired us. this was called mike watt and the pair of pliers and included vince meghrouni on drums. we had a couple wailing tours but never officially recorded anything. a year or so later it was repeated with a change of tunes and a different drummer, jerry trebotic, called mike watt and the jom and terry show. this group toured extensibly but also never recorded. the missingmen with raul on drums will be the third colaboration between watt and i.
in 1999 i formed my own group, the best of all, with erik bluhm, sandy yang and heather cantrell. we started out playing my songs from the "country and watson" record and have since developed new group written tunes. we play local gigs in the L.A. area and we have recorded one full length cd of music but have yet to finalize it's release.
*the current line up of the red krayola is: mayo thompson, stephen prina, john mcentire, noel kuppersmith, charlie abel and myself, and sometimes includes david grubbs, allen ravenstine, sandy yang and elisa randazzo. in 2006 we have been performing shows in support of our latest release "introduction" on drag city records. our new ep "red gold" will come out this fall (2006), and we will be returning to japan for our fourth tour there this october. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.
my first guitar was a christmas gift when i was five years old. it was red and yellow plastic with a battery powered, suction-cup amplifier. i played along to beatles records and emulated the sounds they made on paperback writer and revolution. the guitar was always the sound i connected with, even more so with the who, creedence clearwater and jimi hendrix. by the 70's i had moved from new york city to the beach in L.A. and i got a real electric guitar and small practice amp. i unscrewed the amp speaker and put foil between the speaker and grill to try to get the distorted sound i was searching for. as i got more into music and turned on to the bands my older brother was listening to i had my first true influence from prog and glam rock. i was struck mostly by the guitar playing of roxy music's phil manzanera and king crimson's robert fripp. the flood gates opened and just about everything came in. the more obscure musics like kraut rock and psychedelic along with electronic and jazz seemed to have equal effects on me. as i continued to play i found inspiration in the guitar playing of television, captain beefheart and neil young before stumbling across wire, gang of four and the fall. later on, the more conceptually based avant-pop music of the red krayola and others had a big influence on me.
in high school i played in a few different contexts. one with keyboardist (and future slovenly member) tim plowman as a duet, doing free-form prog type instrumental music. i also teamed up with rob holzman (future saccharine trust/slovenly drummer) who played pots and pans before he had an actual drumset. finally, i helped organize a "real" band with local pro surfer denis jarvis singing, rob holzman on drums and marc vidal (soon to become earl liberty of saccharine trust and circle jerks) on bass to play cover songs and originals at parties at the beach.
at some point during 1978 i met up with steve anderson and scott ziegler, two guys from my high school who were trying to start a punk band and needed a bass player. i said i'd give it a shot. with my childhood friend bruce losson on drums we became toxic shock. steve sang and scott played guitar and we wrote all our own songs which was cool with me. we hooked up with other bands that were beginning to play around at that time in our suburban beach towns like the desendents, the disposals and red cross and played punk rock parties until we got our first big break; we got to open for the minutemen and saccharine trust at capones in san pedro, a real show. from that point we got tacked onto other gigs in that area like the star theater and in east L.A. at the vex and began to play with bands from outside the beach cities. we got our second break when we were asked to record a song for the compilataion "keats rides a harley" that the urinals were putting together. it put us next to some cool bands of that time like the human hands, meat puppets and the gun club and helped to put us into a certain community of music.
after high school i went to holland for one year to study electronic music at the university of utrecht. it was an academic program in composition and the production and recording of electro-acoustic music and has had a big effect on the music i made from that point on. while i was there i had the chance to work with the minimal music composer richard lerman, and recorded my first record in one of his ensembles entitled "travelon gamelon" that was released on folkways records in 1981.
after returning to los angeles in 1982 i picked up where i left off in toxic shock. though, at this point our music began to expand and we decided to push the ideas beyond the simplistic punk that toxic shock did. i was also getting ichy to play the guitar again and so in a kind of spontaneous transition we added tim plowman on organ and synth and scott and i started switching off on guitar and the music got far more ambitious. we changed our name to slovenly peter and played some wierd shows in hollywood and finally after adding rob holzman on drums we became slovenly. this line up would last for ten years and record eight records.
early on slovenly found some kinship with the minutemen and played to a more receptive audience opening for them. they had just started new alliance records and asked us to do a record for it. we did two ep's and an lp in 1984-5 and continued with the gigs around town, sometimes playing with black flag. the next year we made the transition to sst records and did four lp's over the course of five years, playing shows and touring occasionally through the end of the 80's. after a few years with slovenly in san francisco, i returned to L.A. and played around in various bands and improv groups until i reformed with scott and rob as overpass. we did one record for new alliance and one on smells like records, as well as one song on a minutemen compilation, and toured twice though the u.s..
through working in and around L.A. art galleries in the early 90's i was able to cross paths with one of my heros, the red krayola's mayo thompson. on the first night we met i had the gall to ask if he would produce the 2nd overpass record "manhattan (beach)". he agreed, and from there i began to record and perform in the newly regrouped version of the red krayola. this started in 1993 and has continued relatively consistently to the present. we have recorded about ten records together for drag city records and have toured together about that many times as well. the band has had several member variations including jim o'rourke, john mcentire, david grubbs, george hurley and albert oehlen, but i have remained a regular within it since my first involvement. at present it has become a major part of my musical output.*
in between red krayola records and tours i recorded a solo project entitled "country and watson". it was recorded and produced with jim o'rourke and mayo thompson and includes guest guitar by bob mothersbaugh. it was originally released in 2000 on leiterwagon records (germany), but has been made available domesticaly on theologian records.
in the beginning of 2000 i was asked by longtime friend and local bass legend mike watt to play in a group he wanted to tour with doing some favorite cover tunes and older originals of his as a sort of retrospective and homage to the music that had inspired us. this was called mike watt and the pair of pliers and included vince meghrouni on drums. we had a couple wailing tours but never officially recorded anything. a year or so later it was repeated with a change of tunes and a different drummer, jerry trebotic, called mike watt and the jom and terry show. this group toured extensibly but also never recorded. the missingmen with raul on drums will be the third colaboration between watt and i.
in 1999 i formed my own group, the best of all, with erik bluhm, sandy yang and heather cantrell. we started out playing my songs from the "country and watson" record and have since developed new group written tunes. we play local gigs in the L.A. area and we have recorded one full length cd of music but have yet to finalize it's release.
*the current line up of the red krayola is: mayo thompson, stephen prina, john mcentire, noel kuppersmith, charlie abel and myself, and sometimes includes david grubbs, allen ravenstine, sandy yang and elisa randazzo. in 2006 we have been performing shows in support of our latest release "introduction" on drag city records. our new ep "red gold" will come out this fall (2006), and we will be returning to japan for our fourth tour there this october. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.