JOE BAIZA 
is a self-taught guitarist who started playing in the 70’s, during
the Punk era 
grew up in Wilmington, in the harbor area of Los Angeles 
has been eating sound for breakfast since 1970
was fascinated by the beat movement even before he learned to play the
guitar 
reads news commentary of ‘geographically diverse, politically-savvy,
pro-democracy’ content on the BuzzFlash web
is, according to most reviews, an awesome guitar player
once said in an interview that playing music with no rules precludes
developing a career game plan
one of his favourite films is the naturalistic film noir crime classic
‘The Asphalt Jungle’ by John Huston
and another film classic he likes is ‘A Clockwork Orange’
by Stanley Kubrick
has a house full of images, books, LP’s and CD’s
sometimes finds nice gadgets at the Veenvop shop
started out punk as a guitarist with Saccharine Trust
his grandparents came from Mexico and settled in California
discovered another reading of US history, in ‘The People's History
of the United States’, than what he learned at school
was, like his father, supposed to go and work at an oil refinery in El
Segundo but started taking art classes as well
like his colleague Nels Cline, is happy when he listens to music because
that’s when he learns something
made flyers and covers for Saccharine Trust
loves the underground Zap comics of the ‘60’s
is always taking photographs when he’s on tour
co-founded Saccharine Trust with Jack Brewer in 1980 and played with
them for six years
became known, with Saccharine Trust, for his rock/avant-garde jazz sound
was
turned on to jazz by Charlie Parker
especially likes the music Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers did in
1960 and
also played for bands like Universal Congress, The Minutemen and Mike
Watt
founded
The Mecolodiacs with whom he made a record at Hazelwood studios in Germany was
helped out by the L.A. music community who organized a benefit concert
for him
after he was attacked by a group of people in Berlin and broke his hand
got
back with Jack Brewer in 1996 to re-form the band
recorded in a new album with Saccharine Trust 1999 at Hazelwood in Germany
likes
Serge Jacques’ photographs for the French pin-up magazine ‘Paris-Hollywood’
always
inspects the bookshelves in other peoples houses and as soon as he can,
leaves the conversation to others, takes out a book and sits down to
have a quiet read
likes Free Jazz, people like Eric Dolphy and Ornette Coleman, and late
Sixties rock
is interested in the music on the Darkfunk web
his
passions are, as far as I know, music and Annemiek
has listed Dostoevsky’s ‘The Idiot!’ as one of his
favourite books likes
to keep his private life private
Appears on Piero Scaruffi’s list, between Gary Lucas and Keith
Richards, as the 11th greatest rock guitarist of all times
Saccharine Trust was described in an L.A weekly in 1985 as possibly the
most daringly "outside" on the SST record label, which produced
groups such as the The Black Flag, The Minutemen, Husker Du, and The
Meat Puppets
recorded music with Saccharine Trust, according to some reviews, of unequalled
terror, beauty and expression
likes to drink vodka and orange
recently played with Money Mark in a fundraising concert for Arts in
Action, and thinks his new album ‘Change is Coming’ is great
drives an old beetle named Osco
played on ‘Our Band Could Be Your Life: A Tribute to D. Boon and
the Minutemen’ which was released as a limited edition CD in 1994 played
guitar and vocals on the Universal Congress Of CD, ‘Salty Black
Wind’
was born in January 1952
his face can evoke something enigmatic, like big old Indian carvings
of faces likes
the Kurosawa film ‘Yojimbo’ and resembles the actor Toshiro
Mifune, who plays the main character
has been one of Mike Watt’s oldest friends, since the early days
of Punk
toured with Mike Watt as a guitarist in his Punk opera "Contemplating
the Engine Room"
likes the ‘Freelancing’ and ‘Black Rock’ albums
by James Ulmer
works at Cooke’s Crating when not touring with one of his bands
has
a compact muscular body March 4, 2003 feels
like a fish in water, or better, like a lizard in the sand, when he’s
in the desert, with its dazzling sunlight, dryness and different coloured
rock formations likes
the Sixties Bossa Nova sound on the CD ‘Rain Forest’ by Walter
Wanderley is
listed among the 200 guitarist admired by Nels Cline his
house is slowly filling up with all the things he collects, leaving less
and less space to move around brought
together the creative anarchy of improvised music with the independent
attitude of the punk scene at a time when the two philosophies seemed
mutually exclusive is
not too organized outside his work and moves at his own speed when it
comes to doing all the practical things one has to do like dealing with
insurance and tax played
with Saccharine Trust recently at Mr T’s Bowl in L.A., on the occasion
of Mr T’s birthday. October 27, 2003 is
working with Saccharine Trust on the domestic version of the album “The
Great One is Dead.” from
time to time will go out with his male friends to Taylor’s Steakhouse,
a gathering they refer to as the ‘weenie roast’ is
tending more and more towards classic male clothes that are graphic and
colourful his
favourite vodka is Zubrovka likes
spicy food and sometimes talks to his Spanish pepper plants in order
to
encourage them to carry fruits has
an uncontrollable urge to collect things and
likes to keep people’s voices and weird messages on his voicemail, as a
result of which one often can’t leave any message at all because the mailbox
is full formed
a jazz quartet ‘Joe Baiza Congress Of’ whose music walks a thin line
between experimental free from and groove carefully balancing between the improvised
and the arranged his
jazz quartet can be seen on a variety of stages from the Knitting Factory to
the little restaurant ‘El Salvador 2000’ on Sunset boulevard is
very critical of America and Americans and doesn’t
October 3, 2004 did a long interview with a music magazine from Australia called ‘Perfect Sound Forever’, which has a list of his favourite music his album ‘Sparkling Fresh’, which he did with the band Universal Congress Of, is a unique testament to the vitality of alternative jazz rock sometimes listens to the very strange and detailed conspiracy stories of Dave Emory, which you can find in the archives on the WFMU radio station website often has a lot of fun with Annemiek, walking their new dog Browse in Griffith Park and watching him running and cutting capers his albums with Saccharine Trust, Paganicons (1981) and Surviving You (1984) attempted the boldest fusion of hardcore and jazz has just started to build his own personal website where you’ll soon be able to find information on his shows, music, arts and more worked on a project called ‘Puttanesca’ alongside Weba Garretson played at All Tomorrow's Parties UK 2004 festival with Sacharine Trust also played at the Spitz in London when he was in the UK for the All Tomorrow's Parties UK 2004 festival recently started to run again, almost ever day, after years of doing very little sports his new personal website will be designed by Mad Idea looks up his favourite cool TV theme songs on the ‘Melaman’ website played with The Sherpas in July at Tax Lounge on Sunset Boulevard hurt his arm when he tried to hit a toy clown with a shillelagh has had a fascination with maps and landmarks since his early childhood and very much likes the members.cox website , where one can find photographs of Los Angeles highways finds interesting photographs of outer space on the net, which almost resemble paintings when you enlarge them is looking forward to coming to Europe in October 2004 and meeting up with old friends in Berlin, Amsterdam and Brussels
What I know or imagine
From
Joe's website
About Joe on the web
Frame of reference
www.earpollution.com/vol2/aug00/
profiles/mikewatt/mikewatt3.htm
There's a lot of cats playing! And I'll say this as a compliment to age:
Some guys as they get older, they pull off shit like what Bob Lee did
[learning a difficult album in a short span of time]. Joe Baiza and a
lot of these other guys are self-taught--they learned their craft and
got into it because of punk.
http://motion.state51.co.uk/reviews/448.html
The guitar trio is surely one of the great inventions of the late 20thC,
and here there are echoes of Hendrix, Cream, Tony Williams Lifetime, Gateway,
but most closely, Frisell's trios with Joe Lovano and Paul Motian, and
Joey Baron and Kermit Driscoll; and the great Universal Congress Of (I
know UCO were a quartet, but imagine the Joe Baiza solos and we're pretty
close. Whatever happened to Baiza? Awesome player).
www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=
amg&sql=B6267gjlrj6iv
€and especially Saccharine Trust gleefully tossed in chunks of '70s progressive
rock, avant-garde jazz, and funky kicks and pops into a stew already percolating
with heavy(ish) metal riffing, shouted vocals, and extreme volume. Not
all of the boundary-pushing that Saccharine Trust did was good (in fact,
some of it is downright awful), but when they kept their tendency toward
grandiose self-indulgence in check, they were a pretty formidable proposition,
especially live, and recorded at least one indispensable record, 1986's
We Became Snakes.
www.erinncunningham.com/minutemen/1982.html
www.enemy.com/Bands/emy_117.html
www.enemy.com/discography.html
www.endlessla.com/july/072096_spaceland/
www.westnet.com/consumable/
1996/07.11/news.html
NEWS: > Joe Baiza, guitarist for The Mecolodiacs, Universal Congress Of
& the seminal SST Records band Saccharine Trust, was recently attacked
in Berline while on tour in early June by several individuals who broke
his right hand with a baseball bat. A benefit has been organized on his
behalf in Silverlake, Calif. on Saturday, July 20 at Spaceland. The lineup
of performers includes nearly 15 acts, including Mike Watt, Vida, Bazooka
and others.
www.endlessla.com/faces/july/face_070997.html
About a year ago legendary L.A. guitar wizard Joe Baiza was shanghaied,
out of commission, SNAFU... Seems that after a show that his group The
Mecolodiacs were playing in Berlin, some local lowlife chickenshits broke
his right hand with a baseball bat, rendering him unable to play for months.
www.trust-zine.de/archiv/intervie/saccrine.html
Ein wenig spØter erzØhlte mir dann Joe Baiza, es sei ein neues Album mit
Saccharine Trust ge-plant. Und 1999 kamen sie tatsØchlich - zum ersten
Mal - nach Deutschland, um bei Hazelwood in Frankfurt/Main besagtes Album
aufzunehmen. Beste DrØhte dorthin gab es eh schon, weil Baiza bei Hazelwood
mit den UCO-Nachfolgern Mecolodiacs schon deren zweites Album verðffentlicht
hatte und auch ein weite-rer Teil der UCO-Zerfallsmasse dort als Kool
Ade Acid Test (KAAT) unterkam.
www.scaruffi.com/music/guitar.html
Greatest rock guitarists of all timesaccording to piero scaruffi 1. Jimi
Hendrix 2. Marc Ribot 3. Robert Quine 4. Steve Morse 5. Caspar Brðtzmann
6. Billy Gibbons (ZZ Top) 7. Duane Allman (Allman Brothers) 8. Jimmy Page
(Led Zeppelin) 9. Adrian Legg 10. Gary Lucas 11. Joe Baiza (Saccharine
Trust, Universal Congress) 12. Keith Richards (Rolling Stones)
www.furious.com/perfect/sst2.html
The name SACCHARINE TRUST probably doesn't mean much to you, but for all
the early, seminal SST groups, ST would have to rate as one of the best,
and certainly the most underrated by critics and audience alike. Throughout
their lifespan (roughly 1980 to '86) they recorded music of unequalled
terror, beauty and expression, even though I'm sure their sales history
never reached above miniscule. Such is the way of the world, though I'll
attempt to do them some posthumous justice, nevertheless
.www.erinncunningham.com/minutemen/1982.html
www.enemy.com/Bands/emy_117.html
www.enemy.com/discography.html
www.hootpage.com/hoot_gallery-baiza.html
joe baiza€ one of my oldest friends from the early days of punk rock,
joe baiza is the shit. from wilmington, ca - a guitar w/a voice all his
own, he's played w/saccharine trust, the universal congress of... and
most recently, the mecolodiacs. I can't say enough about how I feel about
him, he's it.
www.sonymusic.com/artists/Watt/wattindex.html
www.hootpage.com/hoot_talkintheopera.html
www.brysdyes.com/concerts/wattoly.htm
www.wattage.com/Contemplate/wattus98-1.html
we deliver the opera in fine form, no stride lost from the europe tour
- in fact, joe baiza is playing really good and is more than fired-up.
this makes watt happy to no ends. bob lee's really good too, as is mr.
steve reed - the team is swinging.
www.nelscline.com/top200.html
200 guitarists whom i've admired since...1965? Guitarists who affected
me, excited
me, and/or made me think. Why this list? Why 200?? First, when asked
to name
guitarists who have influenced me or who i admire, i always toss out
a few names and
then later experience pangs of remorse for forgetting names -- now i
can just say,
"
check out the list on my website."
Second, i believe in giving credit
where credit is due.
*The first part of this list highlights guitarists i've been lucky
enough to play with whom i truly admire:
Woody Aplanalp
Kenneth Ando
G.E. Stinson
Ken Rosser
Nick Kirgo
Joe Baiza
Rick Potts
Rod Poole
Jim McAuley
Tom Watson
www.artistdirect.com/music/artist/bio/
0,,400091,00.html?artist=Joe+Baiza
Joe Baiza is truly one of the great guitarists to come out of the
so-called punk rock scene of southern California, "so-called" because
most of Baiza's music fits more into the catagory of free jazz or jazz
rock. He has often been ahead of the curve with his musical thinking,
playing intense instrumental jams a few years before his audience would
be eager for them, bringing together the creative anarchy of improvised
music with the independent attitude of the punk scene at a time when
the two philosophies seemed mutually exclusive, at least to people whose
brains were fuzzy from falling into the mosh pit.
www.laweekly.com/ink/03/05/live-bruno.php
www.paperbagtheory.com
/bagtheory/images/Bag03-21-02b.gif
Tonight was the birthday of 60-ish, seen-it-all proprietor Mr. T; how
better to celebrate than with a jukebox sing-along, layer cake on
napkins, and four bands for whom hype and, well, pop are non-issues?
www.artistdirect.com/music/artist/
bio/0,,400091,00.html?artist=Joe+Baiza
Baiza was involved in a variety of different groups in the 90's and beyond,
extending the developments of Universal Congress Of with the aforementioned
Melocodiacs and embarking on at least three marathon tours with Watt,
in whose band he replaced guitarist Nels Cline. He also worked in the
band Putanesca, named after one of the most intense types of Italian
pasta sauces--ingrediants include anchovies and squid ink. Baiza is
also a visual artist who has contributed work to several album covers.
http://etrade.malformed.org/work/
Watt2000-10-08info.txt
Mike Watt and the Pair of Pliers
Bonus tracks: KCRW radio interview & performance with Mike Watt & the
Black Gang Crew - Joe Baisa (guitar, vocals), Stephen Hodges (drums,
vocals, SFX samples), Steve Reed (soundman, backing vocals).
http://www.hazelwood.de/uco/index.php
SPARKLING FRESH
The live energy, the virtuosity and the fun behind UCO’s extraordinary musicianship is core jazz at it’s best. "Sparkling Fresh" is a unique testament to the vitality of alternative jazz rock, a live documentary of a legendary group that continues to fascinate critics, fans and even "serious" jazz musicians.
http://www.scaruffi.com/history/cpt49.html
Joe Baiza's Saccharine Trust (2) attempted the boldest fusion of hardcore and jazz on Paganicons (1981) and Surviving You (1984), two albums that are rich in guitar inventions and group counterpoint, although still fully immersed into hardcore dementia. Joe Baiza's subsequent venture into punk-jazz, Universal Congress Of (1), adopted decisively Ornette Coleman's free-jazz. The lengthy, free-form, chaotic jam Certain Way (1987) raised the stakes and Prosperous And Qualified (1988) delivered the goods: an inventive and sumptuous group sound.
http://www.catasonic.com/weba/
webalibraryshow.html
I like the idea of juxtaposing the forms, both musically and dramatically. So with Steve and Nate, I've been writing Bossa Novas, then Art songs. I’m also including in this set several songs that were written and composed with Puttanesca which was the project that I was working on just before the Eastside started. This group – Joe Baiza, Ralph Gorodetsky and Wayne Griffin -- wrote a whole albums worth of material and a few of the songs work really well with the new Bossa material, especially as rearranged for vibes, cello and piano."
his new personal website will be designed by Mad Idea
http://mad.boxmovement.com/
j
http://www.angelfire.com/indie/lazyb/page3.html
7/22 Thursday, Taix Lounge, 1911 W. Sunset Blvd, Echo Park, 213-484-1265. The Sherpas will be playing with Joe Baiza's Congress Of. If you haven't been to Taix yet, now's your chance. Settle into the comfy chairs or booths of the Taix lounge, order cocktails or any of a selection of fine beers,