mssv (mike baggetta + stephen hodges + mike watt)

Ars Nova Workshop presents the explosive trio mssv, teaming guitarist Mike Baggetta with drummer Stephen Hodges and punk legend Mike Watt, at Solar Myth on Saturday, October 14. Ava Mendoza opens.

Guitarist Mike Baggetta has it all, from swinging modern bop chops that flow like John Abercrombie to whammy bar pedal steel licks influenced by his first guitar hero, David Torn. No less an authority than Nels Cline, the high priest of art-rock guitarists, has called him a “guitar poet.” In this raucous trio he’s joined by drummer Stephen Hodges (Tom Waits, Mavis Staples, David Lynch) and Minutemen bassist Mike Watt, whose wide-ranging career also spans work with Iggy Pop and the Stooges and fIREHOSE. The music they create together is utterly unclassifiable; calling it post-genre-improv-jazz-rock may come close, but still doesn’t even begin to touch on the wild electric textures Baggetta’s guitar alone brings to the table. There’s no telling which way this heretofore unimagined hybrid of a punky power trio and a dreamy experimental rock 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.