Experimental rock masters mssv touch down in Ramsgate on Friday 30th May!
The band consists of Mike Baggetta, Stephen Hodges and Mike Watt. Three truly outstanding musicians. When Mike Watt played RMH for the first time – back in 2015 with CUZ – he expressed: “I think I’m gonna make ramsgate a regular tour stop for me, yes!”. And here we are!
“…vintage twang in service of Americana-meets exploratory Jazz-psych…” – Rolling Stone
The band, composed of guitarist Mike Baggetta, Stephen Hodges on drums and Mike Watt on bass, creates music that is a heretofore unimagined hybrid of a punk power-trio and a dreamy experimental rock band, though they prefer the term ‘post-genre’.
Their latest full-length album ‘Human Reaction’ finds the oddly memorable hooks of their noir-tinged adventure music with a lot more vocals from the Main Steam Stop Valve leader Baggetta, adding more personality than ever before, alongside his bandmates, Hodges and watt, who also share in the vocal duties throughout the album.
Baggetta has had the pleasure to work all over the world with a wide range of visionary musicians across many generations including David Torn, Jim Keltner, Nels Cline, Psychic Temple, Jeff Coffin, Henry Kaiser, Petra Haden, Rev. Fred Lane, Darcy James Argue’s Secret Society, Joseph C. Philips’ Numinous with Imani Uzuri, Viktor Krauss, Jerome Harris, David Wax Museum, Jon Irabagon, Eivind Opsvik and Ruth Brown among many others.
Even though Baggetta wrote all the songs specifically for these bandmates to play, there’s no telling which way the band will turn at any given moment, a proposition that becomes a promise when they break down and reassemble these songs live, with an instinct for restraint and an openness to anarchy.
“Mike Baggetta makes stealthy, mysterious music … he’s trying to do something personal with collective improvisation without ever getting in the way of beauty” – New York Times
“Baggetta is a player of immense subtlety across all dimension, working with an impressive palette of tones … distilling Fripp’s loopscapes with hints of John Fahey” – The Wire
