Bassist Mike Watt, 53, who made his name with Southern California punk band the Minutemen, has released a new rock opera about growing up and growing old, "Hyphenated Man." The album contains 30 songs, and Watt, who recently has spent much of his time on the road as an auxiliary member of the reunited Stooges, is celebrating by playing 51 concerts in 52 days with the trio Missingmen. He also appears on new releases by several artists on his label, Clenched Wrench, including Nels Cline and Richard Meltzer. We spoke to him by phone from Cleveland. Watt performs Friday at Bottom of the Hill.

Q:You're doing 51 gigs in 52 days. Are your knees holding up?

A: My knees hurt. It gets you a little hoarse. You can't build calluses on the vocal cords. But I'm holding up pretty well for a 53-year-old punker. I'm not going to complain. I'm grateful people want to see this opera.

Q:Why did you make a concept album about your midlife crisis?

A: It's called a crisis sometimes, but I don't think it is. The whole thing about midlife is it's supposed to be a total nightmare, but you get to have experiences you didn't get to have earlier.

Q:Sure, if you get to watch Iggy Pop wiggle his butt every night.

A: I never thought about that. My work is a little different. It's scary because you know death is coming closer. Now I want to record more and more. In the Minutemen days, the album was just a flier to get people to the gig. Now I think of it as something that's going to be around forever.

Q:Is that why you do so many things at once?

A: I'm overcompensating for the last 10 years of not putting out any recorded output. Part of it is, how much time do I have left? Gigs are important, but the thing is they don't last. I never had children. I want to leave something. Maybe it's a little ego. A lot of it is collaboration. With the Internet, things have changed where you can collaborate with people so easily. I made an album with this guy in Canada and I never even met him.

Q:I read that you've been in the Stooges longer than any of your other bands.

A: I would have never imagined. It's quite a classroom for me. I don't even think we would have a punk scene without that band.

Q:Did you catch Iggy on "American Idol"?

A: No, I can't watch that; I'm on tour.

Q:You have something like 400 pieces of John Coltrane's music on your iPod. Is that all you listen to?

A: Ray Pettibon turned me on to Coltrane in the early days. D. Boon and I didn't know about jazz. We just thought they were punk dudes that were older. I didn't know he was dead or anything. I thought it was pretty wild s- compared to Blue Oyster Cult. So it's always fresh in mind. He's like the messenger to me. He brings it home to me so heavy. {sbox}

Hear Mike Watt's music at www.hootpage.com.