Mike Baggetta and mssv Rely on Staying Connected at Multiple Levels

When I catch up with Knoxville-residing guitarist Mike Baggetta, noted improviser and leader of mssv (that’s short for “main steam stop valve”), he’s on the road, 28 days into a 61-day tour with some 58 shows on the docket. When Baggetta, drum maestro Stephen Hodges (whose extensive résumé includes recording projects with Tom Waits, Jonathan Richman and Mavis Staples) and bass hero Mike Watt pull into The Blue Room on Friday, it will be show No. 50 in the marvelously routed marathon of a self-booked itinerary. Both the trek and the album it follows — September’s Human Reaction, a prime slab of improv-forged art punk — harken back to the DIY days of yore while blasting their way into the future.

“Some of the towns we played, Watt’s never even played before,” Baggetta tells the Scene. Along with his bandmates in groups like Minutemen and Firehose and their various associates, Watt pioneered the hard-touring DIY aesthetic, building the foundation of the national indie network that we know today. The fact that the group found territory that Watt hasn’t covered is a bit awe-inspiring, and it has other benefits too. 

“It’s kind of cool to check out new places, and then also see old friends and try out new stuff,” says Baggetta. “Musically, it pays off for us, because the way that I’ve always run this band is that when we have a tour, a record comes. So we play the music from the record, and then in the middle of the set we do a bunch of brand-new music — and we’ll do maybe half new music one night, half new music the other night, and we’ll flip-flop. So that way, right at the end of that tour, we can record the next album.” 

This performance-composition formula leads to explosive results. Even the most subdued moments on Human Reaction bristle with telekinetic interchange. These three musicians, each a master of his instrument, anticipate and prod, rein it in and let it free. They push each bar and movement back and forth in an ever-moving audio sculpture. 

The process is as important as the end product, splayed open in front of the audience onstage every night. The trio creates a Debordian détournement of our concepts of rock and improvisation. From the frazzled, nervy tape-trader punk of opener “Say What You Gotta Say” to the pastoral synthesis and distant drum rolls of closer “In This Moment,” Human Reaction finds three incredible musicians actively sharing space to make an enveloping musical experience.

“The best practice is playing in front of people,” Baggetta says. “That really gets music to a place that you can’t get it to any other way. The music evolves every night in ways that it’s not going to do in a practice room, and we’re all on board with that here in this band. And it’s really fun. I’m really lucky that these guys treat my music as if it’s their own music. … The main challenge is making sure that we’re in the moment onstage — we have eye contact, we have ear contact, and we’re there for each other if something goes wrong.”

All that ear contact creates an undeniable oddball swing that gives pieces like “Junk Haiku” a woozy, Raymond Scott demo-tape feel and “Baby Ghost (From the 1900s)” a ghoulish Carnival of Souls vibe. Human Reaction is a work of propulsion and movement, and it begs the audience to see what happens next. 

“We laugh a lot. We have a good time. I think living, like, a normal kind of road life is pretty fun for the most part. It’s conversation and learning and trying to stay in touch with people. I like that it kind of pares down what’s really important in your life.”