il sogno del marinaio (Mike Watt)

Tickets: $13, available 5/23 at 10:00am

from guitarist stefano pilia:
I met Mike Watt for the first time in 2005. He was touring italy with Raul Morales and Paul Roessler. i got very nice time in tour with them …my role was to be “the road manager” – actually not a real good one since i was often missing the right direction. I was really amazed by Mike curiosity and admiring the big respect and attention he was giving to everyone and everything he was meeting along the trip… a real gentleman i thought ..and a great Dante Alighieri connoiseur! I immediatly felt a strong sense of familiarity even if i did not know very much of him out of his music. i thought further than my admiration maybe there was some italian blood in common to explain my feeling but then i understood that more than everything else the reason was more into what music and playing means for us… a way to liberate the mind beyond any other categories.
From that italian time we kept in contact sharing moments of our lifes: photos, music, ideas, and all of our best wishes and respect has crossed the ocean in between…sealing a little by little… and so il Sogno del Marinaio did but now is not anymore just the two of us..now we are a trio!
My friend Andrea Belfi is joining us with his great drumming. A musician I really admire for his talent and his great musicality. We both growed with punk and rock and all the electroacustic sound world. In these years we often played togheter in many projects sharing and working on music and soundwork on the fringes of research and experimentation.
I feel very honoured to play with Mike and Andrea and very proud for il Sogno del Marinaio….big Respect to them.

from drummer andrea belfi:
My name’s Andrea. I’ve been playing drums since 1995. I started playing with hardcore/punk bands, then I moved to rock, electroacoustic music and so on. I’ve been playing with a rock’n’roll band called Rosolina Mar for seven years, and I’ve been playing as a soloist for almost 5 years.
I met Stefano in Florence, when we played together a bed box spring with bows in front of a hundred people, in a 40 centigrades hot room. I’ve seen Mike playing a few times, once together with a few other people and once with a few other thousands people. I’m honoured to play with a such skilled and experienced musician as Mike is, and with Stefano with his amazing guitar and bass sounds besides me again.
I’m ready to have fun, to play, to learn, to tavel, to talk, to create, to drink, to eat, to r’n’r, to take pictures, to listen to music, to sail for new routes, to record, to drive with, to etc. etc. etc. together with Il Sogno del Marinaio fellows!

from bassist mike watt:
I was born in portsmouth, virginia in 1957. my pop was a sailor in the u.s. navy. at ten I moved to san pedro, california and a few years later got into music through my best friend d. boon – his mother put me on bass. me and d. boon started the minutemen in 1980 were part of los angeles punk scene until he was killed in a van wreck in 1985. I continued to work my bass w/fIREHOSE up to 1994 and then went on to work on many solo projects and collaborations – I currently front two active trios, the secondmen and missingmen. I’ve also helped out as a sideman w/porno for pyros, j mascis + the fog and most recently iggy + the stooges – all on bass, which I continue to learn on. I believe everyone has something to teach me and therefore try to keep myself in challenging situations to further inspire that endeavor and my expression through music. more can info can be found at the website I maintain, mike watt’s hoot page.
il sogno del marinaio (“the sailor’s dream” in italian) is the name I picked for this collaboration w/musicians stefano pilia and andrea belfi and why did I pick it? first off, it’s in italian and this important cuz it’s the first time I collaborate w/artists from that land and also in their land (by the way, my ma’s people come from italy). I am the son of a sailor and so you now know a little about both my parents! my first time playing in italy was in 1983 and I’ve done lots of gigs since but never like this, collaborating w/her native sons. I am intrigued by the works of both stefano and andrea and am quite interested in sailing their seas of music and how they merge w/mine. I think I learn more about myself this way, that is my dream – and to do the best I can for them. I feel for me it’s a voyage back home in a trippy sense, a sailor’s dream of discovery through connections that baffle linear thinking… that is part of the magical ocean of music I dearly believe in.