dos bio - january, 2003 (written by both mike watt and kira) the beginnings of dos (pronounced like the word "dose" but it's actually the spanish word for "two") go back to the fall of 1985, while the minutemen were still actually a group. it was to be watt's first ever side project. black flag had earlier that year (in may) been on tour and had the minutemen open up for about a week. kira was black flag's bassist at the time and was asked by mike watt (minutemen bassist) if she would be interested in jamming in a two-bass-only situation. they had also played together once before this tour in an one-off project called "minuteflag" where both black flag and the minutemen recorded some pieces togheter as one big seven member band one evening while black flag was working on "loose nut" and it was later released on sst records. in around october, kira and watt started to do improvised jams with each other, some of which they recorded to a four-track. then d. boon died on december 22, 1985. watt was devastated. in kira's words: "dos was initially formed after d. boon died. it was important to keep mike playing in my eyes so we started jamming two bass stuff and forming songs from the jams we had done. we liked the idea of having no other intruments in the band because we both see the bass as a lead instrument as much as any other instrument and why have drums or guitar get in our way?" a few months later, kira and black flag parted ways and she moved to new haven, connecticut where watt would send her tapes of songs he wrote and she would do the same with him. this trading of four-track tapes through the mail led to kira coming to california to record the first dos record at radio tokyo in september, 1986 with owner ethan james at the controls. it was released later that year on watt's own label, new alliance records (which he started in 1980 with d. boon). many of the songs on this record went on to be used with some modification in firehose and other watt projects. this would be true for much dos material that watt would first write for kira and the band. the first dos live gig was in the september of 1986 at raji's in hollywood, ca opening for greg ginn's band gone, the same week they recorded the first album. 1989 saw the release of "numero dos," again on new alliance records and again with ehtan james. this was a six song 12" e.p. later, both the first record ("dos") and "numero dos" would be combined to make one cd, "uno con dos" (nar cd 061). lots of dos gigs at this time consisted of kira flying out to meet watt while he was on tour with firehose and open for them during a stretch of four or five dates. there was even a small dos-only tour of holland and belgium. a 7" single for thurston moore's ecstatic peace label in 1991 ("the bob lawton ep") was followed by their most current release in 1994, for the third time with ethan james but at his hollywood version of radio tokyo, "justamente tres," a seventeen song cd on kill rock stars (krs-256). right now, they are working on a new full-length cd to be released some time this year. dos songs have come from jams, from lyrics given to them, are covers of great female vocalists they admire, the songs come from other bands they have played in, are written together, are written with one writing both bass lines, just about any way a song can come about, they have. they think of dos as very punk rock, as there are no other bands anything like it. also because they pay no heed to genres or fads, and don't care if people can't get the weirdness of their thing. dos plays from two to twenty gigs a year depending on schedules and whether people are asking them to play. the christmas benefit for the toberman house in san pedro at sacred grounds has become a yearly tradition.dos members' musical backgrounds: kira (born in 1961, new haven, connecticut, us) started on piano at age six. she switched to bass at fourteen playing six to ten hours a day in order to be able to play in bands sooner. she chose bass because her borther paul needed a bass player for his prog-rock band arc squared. by the time she was ready (a year later) the band no longer existed, but bass was in her heart forever. the decision to play right-handed (she is left-handed) she now considers a mistake. when she started she thought that all the hard stuff was in the fretting... it wasn't until she played with a drummer that she realized that plucking was the hard part. she still believes that the bass made so much sense to her because she is left-handed and on piano the bass lines were always the ones she appreciated (being played with the left hand of course). her first bands were in the early hollywood punk scene in the 70s. at one time she ran the practice rooms at the masque in exchange for practice time for her bands. she was in waxx (with her brother paul), the visitors (with spaz attack singing), the mommymen (geza x's band), the monsters (w/ the weirdos' nicky beat), sexsick (her own band with michelle bell), twisted roots (her brother paul roessler's band) and finally black flag, where she recorded seven records (three studio, two live, and two instrumental) and toured very extensively with them for two years, from 1983 to 1985 (at the same time she was working on and earned a bachelor's degree at ucla). the only other band in the list to record was twisted roots which recorded a single. when she moved to connecticut (after ucla) her nephews were quite young and she worried that they would forget all about her. she started to record bedtime stories and jam music w/two basses overdubbed onto the stories. she sent them these tapes and they listened to them when they went to sleep for years. the stories would grow more sophisticated as the boys grew older. the final story tape was a collection of edgar allen poe stories. some of these two bass songs from the bedtime story collection would end up as dos songs. when she returned to california where she began working full time - first with computer programming and currently with movie/televison dialog and foley editing, music for her became a fervent hobby. dos has been her main band over these many years. she did record an album with a los angeles band called approximation in the fall of 2000 to help a guitar player friend who didn't have a bass player at the time. mike watt (born in 1957, portsmouth, virigina, usa) started playing music with d. boon at age 13, copying songs off of ccr, the who, t-rex and blue oyster cult records in the bedroom with both of them on guitar. d. boon's mother margie thought watt should play bass but it took a couple of years for watt to realize that the bass wasn't a guitar with just the four lower strings but actually a guitar-like instrument that had bigger versions of those four lower strings tuned an octave down. they would hash out ideas of what they thought were versions of the above mentioned bands' songs along with d. boon's brother, joe on drums. it was difficult for watt to discern what exactly the bass was doing on most records. except for people like john entwistle and jack bruce, it was very difficult for him to hear what the bass was doing. there was this amazing local guitarist named roy mendez-lopez who helped both d. boon and watt immensely, showing them lots of things and inspiring them to develop a musical philosophy they would adhere to for the rest of their lives. he was very instrumental in their musical evolution. at fifteen, watt got his first "real" bass (as opposed to a guitar with only four strings strung on it), one made by kay that looked like a gibson eb-3. d. boon and him soon were in a hometown band (they lived in san pedro, ca - located in the harbor of los angeles) called the bright orange band during the summer between ninth and tenth grades. this band copied songs from records and never wrote any of their own. neither did the next one they joined at nineteen, drummer marc weiswasser's band startstruck. inspired by seeing punk gigs in hollywood, d. boon and watt started the reactionaries with drummer george hurley and singer martin tamburovich in 1978. this was the first band they actually started writing songs for. their first gig was opening for black flag at the teen post in san pedro in early 1979. by the fall of that year however, d. boon broke the band up but soon him and watt started the minutemen in january of 1980. a month later, after writing the first songs for the band, they enlisted frank tonche on drums. after two gigs, tonche left and they recruited george hurley for drums - he'd just quit hollywood new wave band, hey taxi! after playing with them since the reactionaries. with just three weeks of practice, the minutemen recorded their first record, a 7" ep called "paranoid time" for sst records in july of 1980. they started playing as many gigs as they could, with black flag and with others anywhere within the punk scene which was changing to hardcore with the influx of younger people from the suburbs. they started to tour nationally too and recorded many records for sst, "the punch line," "what makes a man start fires," "buzz or howl under the influence of heat," "double nickels on the dime," "project: mersh" and "three-way tie (for last)." the minutemen came to an abrupt end when d. boon died. during that time, watt had switched between using a pick and using his fingers about half-way though. he wrote many songs for the minutemen, around two-thirds of it and about half of the lyrics. this period is the probably the most influential of all in regards to his bass playing and song writing, it's where he actually put ideas into practice and made them work with his essential friend and partner, d. boon. with d. boon gone, watt went into a heavy depression. kira left for her first job at yale. his friends in sonic youth got him to record again, a project called ciccone youth (interpreting madonna music) and their own album, "evol." still, there was much sadness for watt - this is where dos helped enormously. sending tapes to kira, watt began writing songs again. in the late spring of 1986, a young man from ohio named edward crawford found watt's number in the phone book and came to california shortly after calling him. watt started firehose with him and brought back on board george hurley. lots of the songs on the first album, "ragin' full-on" that watt wrote were actually dos songs he wrote for kira with lyrics added. later that winter, dos recorded their first record. firehose began playing and touring where the minutemen left off (kira flying out to do four or five gigs each tour in a different region of the u.s.), recording two more records for sst, "if'n" and "fromohio" before signing with columbia records in 1991 to make "flyin' the flannel." they toured at least twice and year, mostly three and recorded two more records "live totem pole ep" and "mr. machinery operator" before disbanding in january of 1994. during that time, kira and watt married in 1987 and dos recorded "numero dos" for new alliance records (by then bought by greg ginn and made part of sst records) in 1989. they made "the bob lawton ep" (actually a 7" single with two songs) for thurston moore's ecstatic peace label in 1992 and divorced the same year firehose ended. however, dos continued despite the personal separation and recorded "justamente tres" for kill rock stars during this time. dos gigs became fewer and fewer though with watt embarking on a solo career after releasing "ball-hog or tugboat" in 1995 for columbia that contained almost fifty people helping watt out to form a band for each song on it. he did a tour with ed vedder and dave grohl as band members and then did two tours with his mike watt and the crew of the flying saucer band, which had nels cline, vince meghrouni and michael preussner. he then went to help out porno for pyros for a couple of tours and recorded two songs for their "good gods urge" album. watt started the madonnabes, a band that interpreted madonna music to keep him in practice since he had no active band since firehose. in 1997, he recorded his tribute to the minutemen, "contemplating the engine room," which he called a "punk rock opera" for columbia with nels cline and steve hodges. he toured that album for fourteen months with his band, the black gang which included in different versions, cline, hodges, joe baiza and bob lee. he then made a band called in 1999 called mike watt and the pair of pliers with tom watson and vince meghrouni and toured with them while helping out locally with stephen perkins' project banyan. he recorded two records with perkins as banyan, entirely on the first album and just w/just four of the songs on the second one. li'l pit was a band watt created with thalia ferreira to explore playing on the acoustic upright bass. the band featured perkins also along w/leo chelyapov on violin and realeased a single on kill rock stars in 1998. george hurley joined watt, petra haden and perkins for the track "sidemousin' the bong" on the "hempilation 2" benefit compilation in 1999. watt then became very ill and almost died from an infection of the perenium in early 2000. he survived and went on to help j masics with his band the fog and did three tours with him in the u.s., canada, japan, australia and europe. watt then started a band with madonnabe drummer jerry trebotic and pair of plier tom watson called the jom and terry show and toured the u.s. and canada with them. he's been in five bands that play material from the first two stooges records, including one actually involving ron and scott asheton of the stooges. in 2002, watt started the secondmen with trebotic on drums and madonnabe pete mazich on organ and toured with them that spring. this is the band watt is recording his next record, "the secondman's middle stand" with in the winter of 2003. his next tour (his 50th) is with them the following spring. as for dos, work has started on their fourth record, using a studio watt has created with pro tools and a mac in his apartment called thunderpants.
Minutemen - Double Nickels On The Dime (1984) [1989].rar
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