Mike Watt Archives - Kreative Kontrol

On July 16, 2016, Alan Vega died peacefully in his sleep at the age of 78. In a statement, Vega’s family said, “With profound sadness and a stillness that only news like this can bring, we regret to inform you that the great artist and creative force, Alan Vega has passed away. Alan was not only relentlessly creative, writing music and painting until the end, he was also startlingly unique. Along with Martin Rev, in the early 1970s, they formed the two person avant band known as Suicide. Almost immediately, their incredible and unclassifiable music went against every possible grain. Their confrontational live performances, light-years before ‘Punk Rock,’ are the stuff of legend. Their first, self-titled album is one of the single most challenging and noteworthy achievements in American music. Alan Vega was the quintessential artist on every imaginable level. His entire life was devoted to outputting what his vision commanded of him.” It was a fitting encapsulation of a man whose work and attitude influenced many of the most significant artists in underground and mainstream music, from every generation really. This episode features personal reflections and first and second hand anecdotes about Vega and Suicide by fans like Steve Albini of Shellac of North America, Jehnny Beth of Savages, Brendan Canty of Fugazi, Kid Millions of Oneida (a.k.a. John Colpitts of Man Forever), Robyn Phillips of Vallens, Priya Thomas, and Mike Watt of the Minutemen.

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Ame Henderson is a world-renowned Toronto-based dance artist and Jennifer Castle is a very compelling, gifted singer, songwriter, and musician who also calls Toronto home. Together they’ve created a new work for the Toronto Dance Theatre called Henderson/Castle Voyager, which explores continuous movement, as a state of being. Voyager performances take place Feb. 20-22 & Feb. 26-March 1 at 8 PM and Feb. 23 at 2 PM at the Winchester Street Theatre (80 Winchester St.). After a rehearsal at the Toronto Dance Theatre, Ame, Jennifer, and I discussed rehearsing versus practicing and Mike Watt, how practice differs within dance and music, the conception of the Voyager piece, how dancing is related to general thoughts and feelings about moving, how Jen is participating in this project by writing an hour-long song for the piece, playing piano, and singing the aforementioned song that never repeats itself from performance to performance, the art of stream of consciousness, talking about outer space, how Jen’s earnest, edited persona might be impacted by this unguarded, humourous method of writing, how improvisation in music and dance demonstrates how ridiculous, funny, and surprising the human body is, restraint and instantaneous decision-making, the way heightened awareness in practice impacts one’s daily life, the efficacy of grassroots movements and how this relates to success, what keeps a world-renowned artist like Ame working in Canada where she’s relatively underappreciated, how Toronto enables things to happen and yet is a difficult place to galvanize people around contemporary art, livelihood versus art-making, Canada’s financial support system for the arts compared to other places, learning to live in the moment, work versus jobs, Ame’s plans to remount a project called Relay in Europe and Jen’s plans to release a new record tentatively called Pink City, the song “Sliced Bread,” and more.