mssv: aki tour 2023

Doors: 6pm

Advance tickets can only be purchased online-we do not sell advance tickets at the venue. Refunds are not available within 48 hours of the event. Tickets do not guarantee seating during shows at the Royal Room. 

We are now accepting reservations for diners! After purchasing tickets, please visit the Reservations page to book a table. Table reservations require advance tickets, and are only for guests who plan to dine at the Royal Room.  We do not take reservations over the phone.

Seating for non-diners is first come, first served. Please arrive early to guarantee a seat!

The Royal Room is All Ages until 10pm.

mssv

(Mike Baggetta + Stephen Hodges + Mike Watt)

Album Release Show:  "Human Reaction" (out Sept. 1 on BIG EGO Records)

No less an authority than Nels Cline, the high priest of art-rock guitarists, has called Mike Baggetta a “guitar poet.” That poetry, alternately gnarled and flowing, is on fine display in Main Steam Stop Valve, the second album by (and the decompressed namesake of) mssv, an experimental rock trio featuring Baggetta, the legendary punk bassist Mike Watt, and the versatile drummer Stephen Hodges.

The collaboration began when Watt, of The Minutemen fame, joined Baggetta and seasoned session drummer Jim Keltner to record an improvised jazz-rock album called Wall of Flowers, an eight-track romp from pastoral splendor to urban din and back again. When Keltner declined to tour, they brought in Hodges, whose credits as a player include Mavis Staples, Tom Waits, and David Lynch, not to mention Contemplating the Engine Room with Watt.

Solidified as mssv—some heretofore unimagined hybrid of a punky power trio and a dreamy experimental rock band—they released Main Steam Stop Valve, which blends industrial vigor and impressionistic languor into a lingering impression of “pressure, combustion, power, and hissing clouds of sonic poetry,” as Premier Guitar said. From the throttled surf guitar of “The Mystery Of” and the glimmering post-rock of “Every Growing Thing” to groovy, songful numbers like “Old Crow,” there’s no telling which way the band will turn at any given moment, a proposition that becomes a promise when they break down and reassemble these songs live, with an instinct for restraint and an openness to anarchy.
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“…vintage twang in service of Americana-meets exploratory Jazz-psych…”

-Rolling Stone

 

“The chemistry is palpable, the vibe is loose, and the songs are all worlds unto themselves.”

-Aquarium Drunkard

 

“...stealthy, mysterious music…”
-New York Times
"…full of subversive surprises, hellacious skronking, string-scraping and a general hornets’ nest of fuzz-toned dissonance.”
-Slate Magazine

 

“Mike Baggetta is a genre-blurring guitar hero…at the forefront of an army of guitar innovators”

-JazzTimes

Opening set by Alex Callenberger:

Portland, OR based guitarist, synth wizard and cinematic expressionist, Alex Callenberger creates soundscapes to dream and swim through. Calling on the powers of electric guitar, live looping, electronic and experimental instruments, he casts sonic spells that straddle and bind the genres of ambient, down-tempo, experimental, psych and folk-minimalism.