He has no ties to Alembic that I know of. But Mike Watt is one of my bass heros and he was in Milwaukee last night, touring for the 'hyphanted-man' CD. Excellent show - great CD and I got his autograph next to Stan's and VIc's on my Distillate backplate! :-)

 
A friend of mine made the cool poster for the show!

Mike had a Spoiler or Distillate at one point~ it wasn't pretty, but an Alembic nonetheless.

Kind of an Alembic. It was one of the handful of Japanese-built basses made for the domestic market in the early '80s.
 
I've got his John Hancock on my bass. He seemed flattered when I told him he was only the second person I'd ever asked for an autograph.

Mike Watt is a one awesome guy - super humble as well as  a brilliant bassist. This latest disc has some seriously great bass lines in it.