Yesterday, we received some very sad news from former Minutemen, current bass playing extraordinaire, Mike Watt. We had just purchased the excellent book, “Live at the Masque: Nightmare in Punk Alley”, a few weeks ago and were all nostalgic about L.A. hardcore and its glory days. I’m not sure it would have left the same imprint if The Masque and Brendan Mullen never existed — it would have certainly been different. Maybe The Go-Go’s wouldn’t have even existed and definitely no Germs. Red Hots? X? The Zeros? Circle Jerks? Black Flag? The Minutemen? SST? It goes on. Or even worse, it would have been different. Unimaginable. Sheesh. You will be missed. Better yet, thank you for living.

From Watt:

dear friends,

brendan mullen was always very kind to me… in the old days, always a kindness and interest. when the band before the minutemen made two cassettes of a prac (only recording of them), I gave one to brendan – he was only person to get cuz the other got kept in a drawer. ever since old days we’d have huge spiels together, lots. intelligent man.
helpful man. drummerman too. he’d call me w/ideas all the time… more recent was to make album… now there’s no time. fuck. he was great cat, great cat! big love always to him from mike watt. he touched many folks’ lives…