I added a note to the public record on Joe Baiza

Like most of us these days, I know a little bit about a lot of things. This makes me fit in pretty well with the Wikipedia era, in which the critical community - construed as broadly as the bandwidth will allow - is free to range throughout the universal library, making marginal notes and revising the historical record on the spot.

I can't explain, then, why I never contributed to a Wikiepedia entry until today. But I know why I did today.

I was looking for information on Joe Baiza. The name rang a bell, as one of those suburban Los Angeles punk pioneers, but I couldn't make any sense out of that ring. Asking The Oracle, I came across a Wikipedia stub on the man.

And I thought, well, hell, as little as I know, I know something this stub doesn't know and it's worth telling the people about it.

Here was what the stub said:

Joe Baiza is a punk rock and jazz guitarist whom Eugene Chadbourne cites as one of the most noteworthy guitarists to emerge from the Southern California punk rock milieu. Baiza is a founding member of the bands Saccharine Trust, Universal
Congress Of, and The Mecolodiacs. He also performed guest guitar spots on several Minutemen tracks and played alongside Black Flag's Greg Ginn and Chuck Dukowski in the SST all-star jam band October Faction, recording two albums with them. Baiza was also part of the musical side project Nastassya Filippovna which featured Bob Lee (drums), Devin Sarno (bass) and Mike Watt (bass). He substituted for Nels Cline during Mike Watt's European and American tours behind his second solo album, Contemplating the Engine Room, in 1997 and 1998. Currently, he is in the reunited Saccharine Trust as well as the improvisational unit Unknown Instructors with former Minutemen Mike Watt and George Hurley.

And here is what I knew and told the people, through the stub; it's the new penultimate sentence in the entry:

Also in 1997, he and Cline played (sometimes together) in the band Solo Career with Lee (drums), Richard Derrick (bass), Walter Zooi (trumpet) and Gustavo Aguilar (percussion); other guitarists in that rotating ensemble included Mario Lalli, Woody Aplanalp and Ken Rosser.

How do I know that? Because Richard Derrick has become a friend and collaborater of mine, though my persistence, love for the music, and thirst for archival musical sources to augment my own work.

I'll talk more about that soon - and post up some unreleased Solo Career with Joe Baiza and Nels Cline on dueling guitars, if they will let me. The one Solo Career record Richard has released on his Box-o-Plenty imprint has Nels Cline but not Joe Baiza; I am feeling, much more, the live set with them playing together with forever steady, inventive Richard Derrick. I hope to help get that music out into the world.

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The picture of Joe Baiza with the late d. boon (Minutemen frontman; roommate of Richard Derrick) in 1980 is by Victor Sedillo and posted on a Mike Watt forum.