Mike Watt: On an Off Bass [Softcover, Signed]

One of the most respected and greatly loved figures in American popular culture, Watt is a protean figure who’s done collaborative projects with everyone from Sonic Youth and Iggy Pop, to Eddie Vedder and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. He contributed bass and/or vocals to more than fifty albums by various artists, was a founding member of ten bands, and is host of the internet radio program, The Watt from Pedro Show.

A longtime resident of San Pedro, Watt began photographing the Port of Los Angeles in 2002. Often shot while he was kayaking or biking, Watt’s images offer a vibrant portrait of a working harbor seemingly untouched by time. Comprising 25 digital ink-jet prints chosen from a selection of 1,300 images – which represent a fraction of Watt’s archive -- Eye-Gifts from Pedro shows us the cable and steel that structure the Port, the rust and salt that encrust every surface, coastal wildlife, and sunrises that arrive with explosions of blazing color. Central to all of Watt’s work is the ever-changing ocean, which moves from waves that come in like locomotives then dissolve into lacy patterns of foam, to surfaces so still they mirror the sky.

"An unusual and beautiful photographic memoir.” —New Yorker Magazine

“[Watt] has a keen eye for capturing unexpected disruptions within seemingly normal, even mundane situations. . . Loss is prevalent throughout ON AND OFF BASS but it is undercut with hope; there is always the sustaining reservoir of inspiration — from Boon, from music, from San Pedro itself — to dip back into. It’s the same reservoir that John Coltrane described in a 1966 interview with Nat Hentoff: ‘There is never any end. There are always new sounds to imagine, new feelings to get at.’” —LA Review of Books

112 pages, Softcover, 10.25 x 8.25 inches, 2012

ISBN 9780983581307

Signed by Watt.