All you really need to know about Mike Watt’s new offering, The Secondman’s Middle Stand, is that it’s a nine-song concept album based on the time in 2000 when his perineum split open and about a quart of pus fell out. (For a firsthand account, go to hootpage.com.)

The illness clearly did a number on Watt. The back-cover photo is almost unrecognizable, with his face reduced to bony, lined gauntness almost hidden behind a bushy mustache. The four-year recovery took a toll on Watt’s already punk-rock voice, reducing it from a bellow to a rough howl, and Watt's own website diary details how hard it is for him to play his bass. Given his legendary tenacity and committment to doing his own thing, it figures that he would make an album about the time he almost died, and how it felt, no matter what it sounds like.

At least the album is organized well. Watt has split the nine songs into three sections, roughly, “illness,” “hospital” and “recovery.” Each starts with a state-of-Mike song which sets the scene, and the next two songs deal with what happened to him and how he felt about it. This clever framing device lends some structure and symmetry to an album that might otherwise be a mess.

Clever framing aside, I’m really hung up on what to think. On one hand, I am inclined to give a huge amount of credit to anyone tough enough to write about such a harrowing experience. On the other hand, the music isn’t very good. I think Watt is strongest when he gives his ideas time to bake, and the best songs on his solo albums have always been (for me) the ones that sound like he spent some time thinking about whether they need to be on wax at all. Given that Secondman was recorded in four days using just bass, drums and organ, and given the nature of the material, it seems to me that the big guy has (perversely and understandably) tried for catharsis by playing to his weaknesses.

Parts of the album are pretty great. “burstedman” rocks hard with distorted organ and bass, and the chorus of “puked to high heaven” stuck in my head for a whole weekend. “boilin’ blazes,” works well enough as a chorus advises Watt to “abandon all hope”, and there are some nice moments throughout, but on songs like the surgery stories “tied a reed ‘round my waist” and “beltsandedman,” and the recovery idyll “pluckin’ paddlin’ and peddlin’” Watt’s voice and lyrics add nothing to vague avant-indie-noise noodling. There is only so much you can do with songs about penis catheters and bed rest.

I don’t mean to savage a record that is so clearly a catharsis, especially since Mike Watt has kicked ass for thirty years with music that is challenging, difficult, and utterly unique, but this time around he has made an album that isn’t for anyone but himself and his most devoted fans. Let’s wait and see what he does when he feels like himself again.

(The Secondman's Middle Stand will be released on August 24, 2004, on Columbia/Red Ink.)