mssv / Bana Haffar | Ars Nova Workshop
Menu Close Donate

mssv / Bana Haffar

April 2, 2020

Please join us for a performance by the explosive trio mssv (Main Steam Stop Valve) led by guitarist Mike Baggetta, teaming him with drummer Stephen Hodges and punk legend Mike Watt for a window-rattling obliteration of the walls between jazz and rock. This performance celebrates the release of  Live Flowers (Striped Light Records), which documents last year’s legendary Ars Nova-produced performance at Johnny Brenda’s. Bassist/former bassist Bana Haffer opens.

New York 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. In this raucous new 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 this trio creates together is utterly unclassifiable: calling it “post-genre-improv-jazz-rock” may come close, but that still doesn’t even begin to touch on the wild electric textures Baggetta’s guitar alone brings to the table.

“Guitar poet Mike Baggetta’s new recording with his potent trio veers daringly and compellingly from patient, elegiac freedom to searing, oozing sludge rock without the slightest hesitation or apology. One cannot resist its myriad charms. Cool!”
—Nels Cline (Wilco)

“Mike Baggetta makes stealthy, mysterious music … he’s trying to do something personal with collective improvisation without ever getting in the way of beauty.”
The New York Times

This band came together on a tour celebrating the release of Baggetta’s latest album, Wall of Flowers (Big Ego), which featured Watt and legendary drummer Jim Keltner. His last four albums as a leader have been released on the Fresh Sound New Talent label and have featured working bands including Jerome Harris, Billy Mintz, Jason Rigby, and others. Baggetta also co-leads the new music duo TIN/BAG with trumpeter Kris Tiner and has worked with a wide array of visionary musicians including Donny McCaslin, Darcy James Argue’s Secret Society, Tim Berne, Craig Taborn, Tyshawn Sorey, Psychic Temple, Jon Irabagon, David Wax Museum, Tom Harrell, and Ruth Brown, among many others.

Bana Haffar
Bana Haffar / Photo by Alex Kacha

A lifelong expatriate, Bana Haffar was born in Saudi Arabia in 1987 and spent much of her childhood in the GCC. Through her switch from 10 years of electric bass to modular synthesizers in 2014, Bana is attempting to dismantle years of institutional ‘conditioning’ in traditional systems of music theory and performance. She is interested in exploring sonic disintegration and coalescence into new forms and synthesized experiences. Haffar is also the co-founder of Modular on the Spot, a monthly outdoor synth happening that began on the Los Angeles river and has since spread nationally and globally.


Thursday, April 2
xxx8:00pm

Category

  • Performance

Program Info

$15 General Admission
21 & Over

Featuring

mssv

  • Mike Baggetta – guitar
  • Mike Watt – bass
  • Stephen Hodges – drums

Bana Haffar

Venue

RUBA Club
Philadelphia, PA

Sponsored by

This event is supported in part by MUSICA PRACTICA / ELETTRONICA VIVA & the University of Pennsylvania Department of Music.

Support for MUSICA PRACTICA / ELETTRONICA VIVA has been provided by The Sachs Program for Arts Innovation.