Kevin Bronson on October 16th, 2008

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It’s one thing to pay homage to Mike Watt. It’s another when the legendary punk rock bassist pays it back. That’s what happened when the young Long Beach-based band the Widow Babies unleashed “The Mike Watt E.P.” It kicks off with a tune that wins my award for Song Title of the Year, “Mike Watt Created the Universe With a Bass Solo” — a 2-minute, 12-second thrash that announces these youngsters aren’t just messing around. [Download it here.]

Earlier this week at the Echo Park underground venue Pehrspace, the Widow Babies played their EP release show — and Watt (in his incarnation as Dos with Kira Roessler) played the show too. I caught up with Long Beach-based producer/composer/rocker and Sufjan Stevens collaborator Chris Schlarb, who produced the Widow Babies, released the EP on his Sounds Are Active imprint and was instrumental in making the Pehrspace show happen.

“I recorded them for an underground movie for (promoter) Sean Carnage,” Schlarb says. “He told me, ‘You’re gonna like these guys — they’re like a mixture of early Genesis and Melt Banana.’ … They just four kids making real music; they’re excited and they’re naive and they’re prodigious listeners. They told me, ‘We’ve got this Mike Watt concept album, but it’s only 11 minutes long.’ I said, ‘That’s fantastic.'”

Less than 24 hours after Schlarb extended an invitation to Watt to play the show, Watt agreed.

In addition (and in seeming juxtaposition), Schlarb’s band I Heart Lung also celebrated the release of its new album “Interoceans.” (Asthmatic Kitty). The juxtaposition: I Heart Lung’s music is heady improvisational prog-rock — the kind of stuff you might feel will affect weather patterns if you listen to it on headphones — and “Interoceans” has songs that are longer than the Widow Babies’ entire EP.

“We’re polar opposites as far as aesthetics are concerned,” says Schlarb, who also works on composing scores for video games and documentary movies. “But that’s the magic of it. I have a hard time paying attention to genres. On ‘Interoceans’ I come pretty close to wearing my influences on my sleeve — early ECM recods, Fripp, Eno, free jazz.”

||| Live: I Heart Lung plays tonight at Open bookstore in Long Beach. The Widow Babies play Nov. 8 at the Smell. Mike Watt and the Secondmen play a benefit for the San Pedro Skate Park at 8 p.m. Friday at the old News Pilot building, 356 W. Seventh St.

Photo of Mike Watt, left, the Widow Babies and Chris Schlarb by Clay Cooper.