I'm Glenn Richards, and this is Amplified, showcasing some amazing artists for your listening pleasure.

On this episode, we'll meet guitarist and songwriter Mike Baggetta on guitar, vocals, and various effects.

His varied background includes jazz, jazz rock, rock, and experimental music.

“Blurring the lines between composition and improvization” according to the Hartford Courant.

From 2022, here's the title track to “Everywhen We Go” from Mike Baggetta on Amplified.

♪♪Live the past♪ ♪Oh how I try♪ ♪Can’t recall♪ ♪You and I♪ ♪Little things Want them back♪ ♪Never knew♪ ♪How to unpack♪ ♪First and last♪ ♪Havin’ a ball♪ ♪Go by fast♪ ♪Then not at all♪ ♪Wasted time♪ ♪Never with you♪ ♪Now I don’t know What to do♪ ♪Come on tell me all the reasons why♪ ♪Why somebody lives and someone dies♪ ♪You know You’re my Holy Ghost♪ ♪Come on take my hand and help me see♪ ♪Cause I just want you back right here with me♪ ♪You know♪ ♪You’re my Holy Ghost♪ ♪See you♪ ♪In my eyes♪ ♪It’s getting dark♪ ♪All the time♪ ♪Your voice♪ ♪Please stay♪ ♪Memory♪ ♪Fade away♪ ♪Show me all the things that could have been♪ ♪With you by my side through thick and thin♪ ♪You know♪ ♪You’re my Holy Ghost♪ ♪Take another minute and hold me tight♪ ♪Cause I don’t wanna feel alone tonight♪ ♪You know♪ ♪You’re my Holy Ghost♪ ♪Now you see♪ ♪What’s for real♪ ♪Now you know♪ ♪How I feel♪ ♪Tell me how♪ ♪Yeah, tell me when♪ ♪When can I♪ ♪See you again♪ ♪Come on tell me all the reasons why♪ ♪Why somebody lives and someone dies♪ ♪You know♪ ♪You’re my Holy Ghost♪ ♪Come on take my hand and help me see♪ ♪Cause I just want you back right here with me♪ ♪You know♪ ♪You’re my Holy Ghost♪ ♪You show me all the things that could’ve been♪ ♪With you by my side through thick and thin♪ ♪You know♪ ♪You’re my Holy Ghost♪ ♪Take another minute and hold me tight♪ ♪Cause I don;t wanna feel alone tonight♪ ♪You know♪ ♪You’re my Holy Ghost♪♪ Thats “Holy Ghost” from Mike Baggetta on Amplified.

“Everywhen We Go” ahead of that.

That's the title of a, 2022 album that he recorded with, Jim Keltner, one of the greatest session drummers, recorded session drummers of all time.

And, the extraordinary bassist Mike Watt.

And, Mike is in a another power trio with Mike Watt called MSSV featuring, Stephen Hodges on, drums.

So Mike was pleasure to have you here.

Thanks for having me.

The pleasure is mine.

So, you're from New England originally, and you've lived in, Nashville, right?

You did some time there?

Well, one of the one of the cool things about moving around is a bunch is that after a while, nobody really knows where you live anymore.

So it's pretty easy to hide out, but, Yeah, I'm from Springfield, outside of Springfield, Massachusetts, a town called Agawam, Massachusetts.

Originally, I moved to New York City.

Fast forwarding a little bit, I on and off.

I moved to New York.

I lived there for about 15 years or so.

And then after that, I moved down to Knoxville, Tennessee, where I lived there for about six, 5 or 6 years.

And I met my wife there, Desola, who's an amazing veterinarian, and she got poached by the UF veterinary program.

And so that's why we live in Gainesville, Florida now.

That was my next question.

How did you end up in Gainesville?

Well, cool.

Well, we're glad to have you.

Happy to be here.

It's a cool.

It's a really cool little town.

I didn't know anybody when I moved here.

And, you know, when you move somewhere new, you're kind of a little can be worried if you don't know anybody, but the the, the artistic and musical scene here is.

I've explained it to other people that it has no business being the size that it is compared to the size of the town.

And, just the coolness factor of everybody I've met here in Gainesville to everybody has been really cool and welcoming.

It's been pretty outsized since the 60s.

Yeah.

As I've come to learn.

Yeah, I feel like I was totally ignorant about everything that had happened here.

Well, besides from Tom petty, of course.

Yeah.

Or Mike Campbell, as I like to think of it.

Yeah.

But I mean, you know, two members of the Eagles, I mean, it's crazy, right?

Right.

Allman brothers down the road, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Florida's a crazy, amazing music place.

Yeah, it really is so, you say you live here, but you're on the road a lot.

I have been, yeah.

My band, MSSV, Main Steam Stop Valve.

We just put out our fourth album on the Big Ego label called See You Through.

And we've kind of been on the road a bunch every time a record comes out since, well, we formed in 2019 when I was still living in Knoxville.

We did a coast to coast tour to support the first record that me and Watt did with Jim Keltner called “Wall of Flowers”.

And, I asked Stephen to play drums on that And halfway through the tour, basically the short version was, oh, would you guys want to actually start a band where I could write music for you three specific guys?

And they were into it.

And so that started MSSV.

And, you know, there was a couple of years off because of, something happened.

Yeah, there's some like virus thing- -I forget what it was.

But, anyways, we got back on the road in 2022, and, every time a record would come out, we do like a U.S tour of about 50 or 60 shows in a row.

And then, it's been kind of going like that.

Last year we went to Europe, we went to the UK and Ireland for an extra 20 shows after recording this album, after the US tour also.

So yeah, between that and various other projects, I've started playing solo a lot more, which is why I'm here alone today.

I figured it's the more opportunities I get to make myself uncomfortable, the more comfortable it'll feel eventually.

And, yeah, I've been lucky enough to play with a lot of really amazing musicians, and I get to travel a lot, and so fingers crossed they can keep doing it.

Yeah.

What?

So your influences, I mean, you you, got turned on to jazz by a Jeff Beck cover, right?

Yeah.

My dad plays guitar, and he had a lot of great records around the house growing up.

And, you know, when you're young, you don't really know the difference.

You just.

You just know what your little world is.

But yeah, he had you know, he had Wes Montgomery records.

He had Jim Hall records.

He had Chet Atkins records.

You know, there was always good music playing on the radio.

And he had a Jeff Beck record called “Wired”, and, I took to that record pretty, pretty early on.

I just love the expressiveness of the guitar playing.

Of course.

From from Beck on that record.

But he also does a song called “Good Bye, Pork Pie Hat”, which is a Charles Mingus song with Charles Mingus, of course, one of the greatest bases and composers in jazz.

But to me, at around like 11 or 12 or 13 or whenever I discovered that, I thought it was really strange that there were all these songs on the record that he didn't write like it's a Jeff Beck record, but like, almost none of these songs are by Jeff Beck.

What's up with that?

And so I started investigating, like who the people who wrote the songs were, and that led me to get a Charles Mingus record.

And and that kind of ignited a lifelong love of improvised music that I did the same thing with my my parents, actually, my brother's library.

Oh, cool.

Yeah, the Beatles White Album and Simon and Garfunkel, Sound of Silence and Jefferson Airplane.

After Bathing at Baxter's.

That one didn't speak to me.

The Simon and Garfunkel spoke to me.

The Beatles spoke the loudest.

-Sure.

You know, and the same thing I would like find names on Beatle records.

Like, who's this?

Barry?

You know, who's who's Penniman?

Yeah.

And then I would, you know, who's Holly?

I'd go and research.

And that's how I discovered, you know- -That was the great thing about album covers.

On the back, you could find all these links to things that helped make the music that you already knew you like the music on the record.

Who are all these other people?

And you could go find their records and you kind of go down the rabbit hole like that, and you could make make your choices based on information of what you already knew was going into the music you liked, you know.

So I thought it was I kind of missed that.

There's not that album specific information like that's like readily available with streaming and all that stuff.

I mean, there's other cool things about it, don't get me wrong.

But yeah, making it easy to find other stuff to listen to is cool.

Well, you know, there's that, that, that, doodle doodle Google Google thing.

Yeah.

I'll take your word for it.

That helps sometimes if you can trust the results.

All right.

Well, let's let's, we'll talk some more in a little bit, but let's let's hear some more music.

Tell us about this next one.

“House of Dreams” -Yeah.

This next song, is actually kind of the name of a new band, too, which is also, with my buddy Mike Watt on bass and another drummer named John Herndon, playing drums.

A lot of people probably know him from the band Tortoise.

He's an amazing drummer and improviser and visual artist and electronic musician and just cool, general cool guy.

And so me and Mike are doing a West Coast tour with, John as the new band Casa Sueno, from the middle of September to the middle of October.

And it's a real West Coast tour.

We're going from Mexico all the way up to Canada and the US in between and back and forth.

And there'll be a seven inch record that comes out in advance of that, I think either August or September on Nomad Eel Records.

And this song, “House of Dreams”, is one side of that seven inch.

So I'm just going to play a version just, alone here by myself today.

All right.

Here's, Mike Baggetta on Amplified.

♪Languidly♪ ♪In the house of dream I see♪ ♪All surrounding me♪ ♪Like a memory♪ ♪All night long♪ ♪I let out your name in song♪ ♪So it lingers on♪ ♪Taking me along♪ ♪In a dream♪ ♪Nothing seems♪ ♪Like it seems♪ ♪And these days♪ ♪Everyone here looks the same♪ ♪And they act so tame♪ ♪When they feel the pain♪ ♪In a dream♪ ♪Nothing seems♪ ♪Like it seems♪ ♪Neon lit♪ ♪As the morning cools my sweat♪ ♪In this house I sit♪ ♪All alone with it♪♪ ♪♪Once♪ ♪Once again♪ ♪Here♪ ♪Here my friend♪ ♪Look♪ ♪Look to see♪ ♪You♪ ♪You with me♪ ♪Tell me again♪ ♪Tell me again♪ ♪Yeah tell me again♪ ♪Tell me again♪ ♪Hurt♪ ♪Hurt with me♪ ♪I♪ ♪I can't see♪ ♪Yeah, let♪ ♪Oh, let it out♪ ♪With♪ ♪No more doubt♪ ♪Oh tell me again♪ ♪Yeah tell me again♪ ♪Oh, again and again♪ ♪Yeah tell me again♪ ♪Oh, cause I want to know♪ ♪Yeah where did you go♪ ♪Oh I want to know♪ ♪Oh where did you go♪ ♪Break♪ ♪Break your heart♪ ♪Stop♪ ♪Yeah stop and start♪ ♪Trust♪ ♪Trust in you♪ ♪It’s what♪ ♪What I do♪ ♪Oh tell me again♪ ♪Tell me again♪ ♪Oh tell me again♪ ♪Yeah tell me again♪ ♪Oh, tell me again♪ ♪Yeah tell me again♪ ♪Oh tell me again♪ ♪Yeah again and again♪ ♪Oh cause I wanna know♪ ♪Where do we go♪ ♪Yeah I wanna know♪ ♪Tell me where do we go♪ ♪Yeah I wanna know♪ ♪Oh where did you go♪ ♪Yeah I wanna know♪ ♪Oh where did you go♪♪ That’s “Tell Me Again” from Mike Baggetta Amplified.

“House of Dreams” ahead of that.

So Mike, is your website, mikebaggetta.com the best place for people to find out more about you and find out where you're going to be appearing and?

I think it is, but there's also Instagram and Facebook and all the other various accouterments that people have today.

MSSV also has a website, main steam stop valve.com.

That's what the MSSV stands for.

Main Steam Stop Valve.

Where does that come from?

That actually comes from a line in the movie version of the book of The Sand Pebbles starring Steve McQueen.

It's it's, I don't want to give any spoilers away.

It's actually a great it's an amazing book, a great movie.

And it's the story that helped inspired, Watt’s first punk rock opera called Contemplating the Engine Room, which, if you don't know, that album, I also highly recommend that.

And that album features Stephen Hodges on drums and our buddy Nels Cline on guitar.

And that album actually was like, it's like one of my top three touchstone albums that really, like, flipped my head around in my ear, around.

When I was in college, a friend of mine gave me a copy, and, I kind of realized, like, oh, you can be inspired by all different types of music, and there is a way to make a music that's individual to yourself, but also informed by all kinds of different genres without having to, you know, put on the costume of like, you know, I am this or I am only that.

You can be all the things that make you up as a human and still find your own voice and still find, a place to kind of, plant your flag with that.

So that was a big deal.

And actually, one of the reasons that I asked Hodges if he would play drums on that first tour, and we turned it into a band.

And so it was kind of fitting that, Watt came up with the name for the band that also takes some inspiration from The Sand Pebbles.

So there's a thread kind of running through everything.

Yeah.

That's great.

What?

So what are some of the other inspirations?

Musical inspirations that you've got?

Oh, man.

There's there's so many.

There's so many I don't even.

Let's pick one like rock inspiration, one jazz liberation and one punk inspiration.

I yeah, I actually stopped prescribing to any of those genre terms.

But what I would like to do is give you three things I've been listening to a lot lately.

One of them is, Neil Young's 1971 Live at Massey Hall concert in Toronto.

Amazing, amazing.

A second one is Alice Coltrane's album, Universal Consciousness.

I've been listening to that album for a long time, and taking a lot of inspiration from sort of like the idea of drones and music and, a nondenominational spirituality and, you know, a progressive sort of social ideas through music, from from her songs and her work.

And I actually I'm also reading the new biography on her, that just came out.

That's also really awesome.

So if you want to learn more about Alice Coltrane, I can highly recommend that.

And, boy, let's see, the last thing, oh, the album I just got in the mail yesterday is my friend David Torn's new album.

I'm spacing on the title has a really long title.

It's like something like, “now I imagine myself in a place not the same” It's close.

If it's not that exactly, it's close.

It's on Kou Records.

K-O-U Records.

David Torn and it's a beautiful, beautiful looking album and an amazing sounding record.

So those are three off the top of my head, Alright- -But that question's tough because it can go on all night, you know?

I know.

Yeah.

And it changes from- -And it's changes.

Yeah.

And it changes for sure.

Yeah.

Cool.

Well, let's, hear one more.

This one is, from, originally by your, quartet, The Mike Baggetta Quartet, in 2008- -Way back.

Way back.

Yep.

And, then again on, the aforementioned 2019.

Wall of Flowers with Jim Keltner and, Mike Watt.

That had to be amazing.

Jim Keltner.

Wow.

It was totally amazing.

Actually, that album, the Wall of Flowers album, the three of us had never met each other before we did that session, and we only had one day to to see if we could make a record in the studio.

My friend Chris Schlarb put it together, he made the stars align, and one day in June, we all went to Long Beach and I met Jim and Jim White and I met Watt, and, yeah, we just kind of hit it off and had a lot of fun.

And, I learned a lot from both of those guys.

I'm still stunned that they agreed to do it.

And then and then that they agreed to do it a second time.

So I'm very thankful to have gotten the chance to, to hang with them.

All right, well, here's Mike Baggetta with “Hospital Song” on Amplified.

That's “Hospital Song” from Mike Baggetta.

Learn more about Amplified and check out past episodes at wuft.org/amplified Mike Baggetta thank you so much for performing and chatting Thanks for having me.

Real pleasure.

I listen to you on the morning.

The morning radio all the time.

And I remember when I met you, our friend Russell Mofsky introduced us at a show and you said hi.

And I said, man, where do I know that voice from?

Yeaj, Russell, a good mutual acquaintance.

We got to get him on here with, Gold Dust Lounge.

He's great.

He's great.

Or King Friday or Quit.

He's got so many great bands.

He's super creative.

All right, Mike, thank you for performing for us.

Thank you all for checking us out.

We'll see you next time.