updated Mike Watt album & tour info, a new Iggy Pop album

by Andrew Frisicano

Mike Watt and Iggy Pop @ Terminal 5 (more by Lori Baily)

As previously reported, Mike Watt is heading out on the road with The Missingmen to debut songs off his third studio album Ten and Tweny Don’t Make Fifty, which the band will record May 5th on a three-day break in Brooklyn. The touring line-up is “Tom Watson on guitar, Raul Morales on drums and Watt on bass and spiel.”

The band comes to Maxwell’s in Hoboken on May 7th (tickets still on sale) and the Mercury Lounge on May 8th (tickets on sale).

Also Mike…

[Watt’s] upcoming recording plans include…a separate project to be done with “the black gang” (Nels Cline from Wilco and Bob BLee), about what he calls “my autumn.” Much of his time in recent years had been occupied touring and recording with the reformed Iggy & The Stooges; sadly Stooges guitarist Ron Asheton died of natural causes late last year.

Iggy Pop is preparing a new album of his own. Called Préliminaires, the Hal Cragin produced record will come out June 2nd on Astralwerks. Iggy Pop describes its sound as “dangerously near jazz” – and from the clip showcased in the video below, the album sounds more Tom Waits than the Stooges.

On Préliminaires…Iggy sings the standard “Les Feuilles Mortes (Autumn Leaves),” originally covered by the likes of Yves Montand and Edith Piaf, while the New Orleans-influenced “King of the Dogs” — with a jazz arrangement featuring trumpet, trombone and clarinet — tells the story of a dog named Fox who explains “how cool it is to be a dog, and how much it beats human life.” There’s also a version of Antonio Carlos Jobim’s bossa nova standard “How Insensitive (Insensatez).”

“At one point, I just got sick of listening to idiot thugs with guitars banging out crappy music. I’ve started listening to a lot of New Orleans-era, Louis Armstrong, Jelly Roll Morton type of jazz. And I’ve always loved quieter ballads as well,” says Iggy. “There are some guitars on the album. Only one song is vaguely raucous; three have jazz-like instrumentation.”

The album’s songs were inspired by Michel Houellebecq‘s 2005 novel The Possibility of an Island. To get a little window on what the source material is about (besides clones, cults, lots of sex), in a New Yorker review of the book, titled “90% Hateful,” John Updike writes, “The usual Houellebecq hero…presents himself in one of two guises: a desolate loner consumed by boredom and apathy, or a galvanized male porn star. In neither role does he ask for, nor does he receive, much sympathy.” Already sounds kinda like an Iggy Pop song…

Check out the full press release with a video of Iggy Pop explaining the album plus a snippet of “King of the Dogs” – with jazzy instrumentation, and all Mike Watt + the Missingmen tour dates, below…

Iggy Pop – New album Preliminaires (trailer)

Iggy Pop, the Godfather of Punk, takes on the language of romance and gets “dangerously near jazz” on his new album, Préliminaires, to be released in the U.S. on EMI Music’s Astralwerks label on June 2. Produced by Hal Cragin, Préliminaires, which means “foreplay” in French, is score music inspired by Michel Houellebecq’s 2005 novel The Possibility of an Island.

The book “is about death, sex, the end of the human race, and some other pretty funny stuff,” says Iggy in a video statement explaining his motivations. “I read the book with intense pleasure when it came out and, in my mind, I created music that would have been the music that I would hear in my soul when I read it.”

Later on Iggy was approached to write several songs for a film documentary about Houellebecq’s life and his attempt to direct a film of his own book. “The project grew and grew and I found the emotions from my reading transforming themselves into music,” Iggy explains. “I wrote less and less for the movie and started writing an alternative score to the novel.”

On Préliminaires, which eventually took on a life of its own beyond the film project, Iggy sings the standard “Les Feuilles Mortes (Autumn Leaves),” originally covered by the likes of Yves Montand and Edith Piaf, while the New Orleans-influenced “King of the Dogs”–with a jazz arrangement featuring trumpet, trombone and clarinet–tells the story of a dog named Fox who explains “how cool it is to be a dog, and how much it beats human life.” There’s also a version of Antonio Carlos Jobim’s bossa nova standard “How Insensitive (Insensatez).”

“At one point, I just got sick of listening to idiot thugs with guitars banging out crappy music. I’ve started listening to a lot of New Orleans-era, Louis Armstrong, Jelly Roll Morton type of jazz. And I’ve always loved quieter ballads as well,” says Iggy. “There are some guitars on the album. Only one song is vaguely raucous; three have jazz-like instrumentation.”

The album was recorded in Woodstock and in Miami, where Iggy first sketched out the songs in his small cabin on the river on his old wooden guitar.

“Like Daniel, the book’s protagonist, I too have grown weary of a career as an entertainer and I wish for a new life,” he says. “I, too, have spent desolate hours in the future world of the Spanish Coast. The concluding chapters about Daniel and his small faithful dog wandering doomed through a ruined earth to the desiccated sea were the most empathetic and believable predictions of the future that I’ve encountered.”

The visuals for the album package are being created by French/Iranian graphic novelist and award-winning film director Marjane Satrapi, who first met Iggy when she asked him to do the voice for one of the characters in her Oscar-nominated animated feature Persepolis in 2007.

The track listing for Préliminaires is as follows:

1. Les Feuilles Mortes
2. I Want To Go To The Beach
3. King Of The Dogs
4. Je Sais Que Tu Sais
5. Spanish Coast
6. Nice To Be Dead
7. How Insensitive
8. Party Time
9. He’s Dead/She’s Alive
10. A Machine For Loving
11. She’s A Business
12. Les Feuilles Mortes (Marc’s Theme)

Mike Watt + the Missingmen – “prac’n the 3rd opera” 2009 Tour Dates
fri, april 17: tucson, az – plush
sat, april 18: albuquerque, nm – launchpad
mon, april 20: dallas, tx – granada theater
tue, april 21: houston, tx – rudyard’s
wed, april 22: baton rouge, la – spanish moon
thu, april 23: tallahassee, fl – the moon *
fri, april 24: jacksonville beach, fl – freebird live *
sat, april 25: charleston, sc – the music farm *
sun, april 26: asheville, sc – the orange peel *
mon, april 27: carrboro, nc – cat’s cradle *
wed, april 29: charlotte, nc – neighborhood theatre *
thu, april 30: richmond, va – the national *
fri, may 1: lancaster, pa – chameleon club *
sat, may 2: baltimore, md – ottobar *
sun, may 3 to tue, may 5: record watt’s third opera in brooklyn, ny
wed, may 6: cambridge, ma – t.t. the bear’s
thu, may 7: hoboken, nj – maxwell’s
fri, may 8: new york, ny – the mercury lounge
sat, may 9: philadelphia, pa – north star bar
sun, may 10: pittsburgh, pa – club
mon, may 11: cleveland heights, oh – grog shop
tue, may 12: detroit, mi – shelter
wed, may 13: holland, mi – park theatre
thu, may 14: chicago, il – schubas tavern
fri, may 15: minneapolis, mn – 7th street entry
sat, may 16: omaha, ne – the waiting room
mon, may 18: denver, co – larimer lounge
tue, may 19: salt lake city, ut –
wed, may 20: boise, az – neurolux
thu, may 21: portland, or – doug fir lounge
fri, may 22: seattle, wa – crocodile cafe
sat, may 23: bellingham, wa – the nightlight
sun, may 24: george, wa – sasquatch! music festival
* w/ Dinosaur Jr