~For gearheads, there’s an article and interview with Chris Dugan on Green Day’s microphones.

~Another good article on the American Idiot musical. Video interview with Green Day and more article links on Berkeley Rep blog. [ Earlier post. See more posts on the AI musical. ]

The San Francisco Bay Guardian has an in-depth article on the American Idiot musical, including an extensive interview with director Michael Mayer, thoughts from other members of the production, and some comments from Billie Joe. It captures the palpable excitement and passion that all involved have for the project.

One of the themes of the article is the immediate and deep connection that formed between Mayer and Billie Joe, even though they come from widely different backgrounds and sensibilities. It’s a credit to both, that they have such an intuitive understanding of each other’s artistic vision, but it’s especially gratifying for us besotted Green Day fans to see Billie Joe’s depth acknowledged, and without the often-seen backhanded compliment that it’s somehow unexpected, that somehow because he moons his audiences, delights in goofy pranks, and says the word “fucking” a couple dozen times during the course of a concert, his artistry and intellectual depth — which is not in any way concealed, it’s plainly showcased for all to see in Green Day’s heart-stopping albums and heady live performances — should come as a surpise.

Art and music critics have a tendency to compartmentalize. Something can be artful and deep, in which case it’s expected to take itself very seriously and manifest its intent with grave pretentiousness and heaviness, or it can be goofy and silly, but in that case it’s not expected or even allowed to make any claims to having a serious artistic or intellectual message. The genius of Green Day is that they live so completely and so seamlessly in both worlds, and both — the goofiness and the serious artistry — are essential components of their message.

If there was only the side of Green Day that makes great albums they would still be a great band. I’ve said that before. But that’s not nearly enough for them. Their huge generosity and love for the fans, the endless interactions, and the silly moments (not just during live shows but in interviews and in the personal anecdotes they sometimes share with us), are all part of their all-out campaign to touch each and every one of our hearts. That’s high art, and essential to Green Day’s delivery: it’s not a sideline. All artists hope to touch the people their work reaches, but not many are willing or able to pull out all the stops, or to incorporate into their acts and their work the most diverse artistic traditions, from high-brow to low-brow, as Green Day have done.

Mayer, whose background is the the grand, expansive tradition of musical theater, totally gets it, and his comments help me understand it better:

“I feel like where we connect is old school,” he says of Armstrong, slapping the table for emphasis. “Tin Pan Alley.” Slap. “Vaudeville.” Slap. “That’s the music he grew up with. He became a punk-rocker — I became a theater homo!”

“Even though we come from different worlds and are such different people,” Mayer says, “you know, at the end of the day, Billie Joe is such a showman! Such a theatrical guy. Not since Al Jolson have I seen someone so in love with the audience and with putting on a performance for them.”

The author of the article makes some insightful comments too, but she feels the need to qualify Green Day’s comedic side as intended just for kids:

Live, the band couples the playfully goofy, childlike comedy that tickles the 14-year-olds up front with the palpable sense of morality — driven by a beaten yet still beating anarchist heart — found on its increasingly serious-minded, idealistic recordings.

As a 45-year-old, I can attest, as I’m sure any of you reading this can, that Green Day’s antics tickle all age groups… But I really loved the statement about Green Day’s “beaten yet still beating anarchist heart.” Being from San Francisco, the author knows well and reminds readers of Green Day’s roots in the politically charged scene and strong ideals of Gilman St., and I think the sentiment of being “beaten but still beating” is a nice summing up of the mix of despair and hopefulness in both American Idiot and Breakdown. I think it may be true that, for some fans, the silly antics do overshadow the seriousness of Green Day’s political and intellectual commitment. Depending on your perspective, that may be a shame, but Green Day themselves seem all to happy to embrace all fans, regardless of what part of their message they respond to, and to bestow their goofy-yet-serious brand of rock-and-roll salvation on all.

~Rolling Stone interviewed Green Day in Philly. Photos. Scans [1,2,3] from GreenDay.com.

Whenever a band puts out an album with political content, especially if they haven’t been as explicitly political in the past, the reactions of fans and critics alike tend to be based on their own political and personal views.

Green Day’s style of writing political lyrics is from a deeply personal perspective, and that invites listeners to inject their own interpretations into what the band is saying. Some choose to deny the band’s political statements altogether — I can’t count how many fans I’ve heard over recent years saying that American Idiot isn’t really all that political, or claiming that the band members somehow respect (okay, I think that may be true enough) or embrace (sorry, but… no way!) all political perspectives. Some just whine that they want the old Green Day back. And then, at the opposite end of the spectrum, people who lean to the left politically tend to either wish that Green Day were more explicit in condemning social injustices and wrongdoings by our political leaders, or they assume that Green Day’s condemnation is more forceful or more direct than can actually be read into their words.

I’ve been guilty of it myself, sometimes wanting Green Day to get on a soapbox and tell people what they really think — and I may be guilty of assuming that what the guys think is closer to what I myself believe than it actually is. Still, there’s no denying that the members of Green Day got their political education from the radical left, from punk rock and a place like Gilman St., and that they are highly critical not just of the most egregious wrongdoings of the Bush administration but also of our culture of apathetic complacency and hypocrisy.

But that’s where their message gets confusing. Not because Green Day’s message lacks focus, but because those responsible for being so apathetic, complacent, and hypocritical that we don’t know what do with the mess we’re in, are all of us, collectively. Including the members of Green Day, who live in society along with the rest of us. Bands are only able to serve as sounding boards. They can hold up a mirror to ourselves, speak to us about our own feelings of frustration and disconnectedness, but they can’t change the conditions we live by. They can encourage us to act, but they can’t tell us how we should act. They’re musicians, and musicians, even the most radical among them, have always been an echo chamber, a means to explain our feelings and share them with a larger collective. Musicians are not, and never have been, the originators of social movements.

There’s an article on Rebel Frequencies that makes some insightful points. Although I don’t agree with any of the examples the author gives as to why Green Day’s message is contradictory and confusing (and I generally don’t agree with many of the points in the article), I think he hits the nail on the head when he says:

Green Day do not have at their disposal the full extent of the ideas that the Clash did. We do not live in the aftermath of a 1968; we are building from scratch. So perhaps it comes as no surprise that this kind of earnest radicalism (however vague it might be) has become increasingly watered down by a mushy liberalism.

But we can’t fault Green Day for the absence of a larger social movement and a coherent ideology that they can look to in order to ground their own ideals. What our society offers up is a lot of static noise (yeah, like the song): bits and pieces blared at us from TV screens and radio dials. Most of these soundbites that buzz around us like flies aim to obfuscate rather than clarify. That’s what Green Day is reacting to.

Green Day’s music has always been deeply and unfailingly honest. If they were to come to some arbitrary conclusion and offer it up as a solution to society’s problems, they would be betraying their own ideals, and us, the fans. Accepting contradictions is not a weakness, because the truth is not easily summed up or tied up neatly. It’s full of inconsistencies. Owning up to that, and doing so honestly, is not simply done: it takes a lot of clarity, paradoxically, to see many different, contradictory angles at the same time. And it takes a lot of artistry to write about confusion and paradoxes in a way that touches people, and that allows them to recognize feelings that they themselves have had but didn’t know how to express. That’s one of the things that gives Green Day’s songs so much richness, and it’s also why they ring so true.

~Toronto’s The Star has an enthusiastic review of Green Day’s concert: “Billie Joe Armstrong was enough to rule the world, or at least the mad, cackling rapturous world on fire that he created for the thousands who filled the stadium. There was so much energy in the building within the first 10 minutes that it felt as though the building were leaving the ground.”

~Videos of Tre Cool throwing out the first pitch and Billie Joe singing Take Me Out to the Ballgame at the Chicago Cubs game July 12. [Via GD.com]

~An enthusiastic review from the Detroit News: “Throughout the show, Armstrong was a marvel to behold.”

~The Chicago Sun-Times feels ambivalent about Green Day’s “arena rock.” But Minnesotans seemed pretty ecstatic. Update July 15: Today’s Chicago Tribune’s review reads in part like a response to the Sun-Times: “This was rock as participatory theater… emotional releases were meant to be screamed, spread and shared.”

~The Wall Street Journal posted a review of Green Day’s tour opener in Seattle. “Its urgent, polished music and angry, damning yet curiously hopeful and occasionally romantic lyrics foster a sense of community with Green Day’s followers—we’re in this mess together, they seem to say, so let’s rock. If Green Day is more Springsteen-fronts-the-Who than punk in its sound, the punk spirit lives in the ethos its words and energy convey.”

~Green Day is on the cover of Inked magazine, out July 15. You can read the article online (just enter your email address to view it), with interviews with all three band members. [Sent by Emmy]

~There are so many reviews of 21stCB, but this is a good one. “Billie Joe Armstrong is one of his generation’s best songwriters.”

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