Mike Watt

Mike Watt’s origin story goes something like this: D Boon jumps on him from a tree (a case of mistaken identity), he gets bit by rock bug, they found Cali art punk outsider legends the Minutemen. Watt has been the wave since the 80s: a drummer’s bassist, one who refuses to be buried under a wall of buzzing wailing “pick me” guitars but instead lets his commanding off-kilter jazz funk laced concoctions dance to the surface. In whichever of the many musical projects he’s gone on to through the years, he’s more than held down his end of the bewitching rhythm section pact, to our benefit.

Minutemen’s third record Double Nickels on the Dime registers one reporter’s opinion: “what can be romantic to Mike Watt/he’s only a skeleton/his body is a series of points/no height, length or width.” So when Bifocal Media offered me a project illustrating a Mike Watt T-shirt, I asked myself: how can a person with no common bodily constraints be contained to the page? As well, do I dare tread where mostly only the wicked artist Raymond Pettibon has gone before? The answer is absolutely…with my black ink pen and plain white paper, the artist version of ‘we jam econo’. We draw econo!

Aging up punk while aiming to get out of this life semi-unscathed means continuing to create music that you love, just now with wiry gray hair and maybe in flip flops, as opposed to sayyy…repping product endorsement in butter commercials. So please enjoy a new bathrobed Mike Watt tee as romantic as the very first azure sky of a brand new tour with great friends on whatever coasts you personally fucks with. – peppermint raygun

LIMITED TO 500. Printed on Canvas soft spun cotton tees. Ladies’ sizes run small.