~The documentary 924 Gilman St.: Let’s Talk About Tact and Timing, about the legendary punk venue where Green Day got their start, has been released and is available on DVD from Alternative Tentacles. There’s a review on East Bay Express, and Jay Unidos, a long time volunteer at the space, posted some of his thoughts. The film includes performance footage of Pinhead Gunpowder.
John Roecker, the filmmaker who has been working on Heart Like a Hand Grenade, the documentary about the making of American Idiot, just posted a MySpace bulletin with an update and new photos. No word on exactly when the film, which has apparently been delayed for some time now, may be released, however. Thanks for the news to Tripe on GDC and my own beat now. He writes:
Color Correction for Green Day Film Done
Text: Yep the masterpiece is complete. All prepped and pretty. Now let’s pray to the Gods ( and Satan to) that it can now be unleashed on this world.
~The filmmakers of One Nine Nine Four, sent out an update. They said they’re finished shooting and hope to release the film in late 2008 or early 2009. The movie is a documentary about the explosion in punk rock that followed Dookie’s release in 1994, and it includes an interview with Billie Joe shot for the film. A new teaser is out. It’s a funny clip of Fat Mike from NOFX.
~The DVD for the documentary Punk’s Not Dead, which includes interview clips with Billie Joe, is now available to preorder and will be shipped May 1. Preordering makes you eligible for prizes, including, according to Punk News, a Mike Dirnt autographed bass. See an earlier post, here, for more info, screencaps, and video clips.
The documentary film Punk’s Not Dead, which was released last summer, is due out on DVD soon. I saw the movie in the theater back in August, and I thought it was really good. I don’t know if it would be everyone’s cup of tea, but it gives a really good history, with first person accounts, and it captures a lot of the excitement and inspiration that people feel for punk rock. It’s also very funny in parts. There are some hilarious clips from the Phil Donahue show, which Bryant Gumbel introduces by saying, and he’s dead serious: “Watch out for punk rock: it could be hazardous to your children’s health.”
The film covers old-school punk to the music that was inspired by it. There are interviews with members of My Chemical Romance and Sum 41 along with the guys from seminal punk bands like the Subhumans and UK Subs, plus kids who are in underground punk bands today, and many others. And of course with our man Billie Joe. Please buy the DVD and help support this independent project. Check Punk’s Not Dead MySpace to see when it becomes available.
Ok, I know this is more old news, but it’s new to me.
I never saw the movie Live Freaky! Die Freaky!. I guess it just didn’t appeal to me even tho it was Billie Joe who lent his vocal chords and acting skills out for the occasion to play ‘Charlie Hanson’. That should’ve just been enough for me to want to watch it, like everything else he’s done, but idk, I just never had the urge to, I guess.
I was over at YouTube recently - yes, again - and found these little videos. More videos that I had never seen before, and they kinda make me think twice about my not seeing this movie. The first is a vid of Billie Joe recording part of his speaking role in LF!DF! - and it’s pretty funny and sick as well! Heh, even tho Billie Joe is laughing hysterically toward the end, he says, ‘This is so wrong!’ Well, yeah, if the men get to do all the fun stuff while the ladies only get to decorate and possibly make sandwiches, duh!
This little quote was on IMBd: In an interview, Director John Roecker claimed he chose Billie Joe Armstrong to play Charlie because “no one thought he could”. According to the director, he was told by friends that Billie Joe couldn’t perform as the infamous Charles Manson because he was “too nice of a guy”.
John Roecker can be seen here in an interview about the movie where he talks about Billie Joe and that above quote, and also a bit about the upcoming documentary that we’ve all been waiting for.
There are a few clips from the movie, also on YouTube, that I’ve watched, and even tho the content is pretty sick, there were times when I laughed out loud. Sometimes I can’t believe it’s Billie Joe - he sounds so…different! I agree with Roecker, he’s too nice of a guy to say stuff like…ugh, I’m too nice of a girl to even write it here. But for a nice guy, it seemed like he had some fun being a bad guy, even if he was just acting!
As I posted last night on GDA, a trailer for the documentary film onenineninefour, about punk rock in the 90s, has been released. Billie Joe will be interviewed next week and will be in the final version of the film — be still my heart! Here’s the six minute trailer:
Well, I’m excited. It maybe be because I’m a geek who loves documentaries, it may be because I thoroughly enjoyed Punk’s Not Dead, which is another recent documentary about the rise and fall and rise again of punk, but I’m really looking forward to onenineninefour, a soon-to-be-released documentary film about the explosion of punk rock into the mainstream music scene in the 1990s, an explosion which of course has everything to do with Green Day, and also has a lot to do with the vibrant underground punk scene that allowed Green Day to get their start and which nurtured them when they were budding babes.
I’m old enough to have been around for the first wave of punk rock in the late 70s and early 80s, but I wasn’t into it then. It seemed too aggressive, too angry and decadent. I just didn’t get it. My boyfriend had some Dead Kennedys albums, which I loved, but I only listened to them when nobody was around, kind of like a guilty pleasure. I was nerdy and quiet; it just seemed out of character for me to be a Dead Kennedys fan.
Years later, Green Day came along (the first time I heard them was when they played on Conan O’Brien — I was no underground punk rocker!) and it was love, love, love!!!! I was overwhelmed by their wonderfulness. After that, I read up on the Gilman Street scene that had spawned them, and I was amazed by it too: this was punk rock that still had that aggressive edge and no-bullshit outlook, but it was kind of sweet and goofy. Bands like Crimpshrine, Fifteen, the Mr. T Experience, and many of the other bands that were around that scene when Green Day got their start were disarmingly earnest and self-effacing, and also loud and snotty at the same time. They cared about making the world more humane, having good melodies, playing good, hard punk rock, and being silly and funny. It was this somehow perfect and unlikely-seeming combination of attitudes.
The people interviewed in the trailer talk about the influence of skating and surfing on early 90s punk rock, but that’s what was happening in Southern California. Berkeley had a different sensibility, it seems to me. It had that sweetness that allowed songs like the ones on 39/Smooth — heartfelt love songs — to find a place, even if not everyone was thrilled about having them in what was more overtly a political scene. So I’ll be curious to see if that aspect of Gilman Street gets talked about in the movie.
I hope the final cut has some captions, but here’s some of the main people in the trailer identified if anyone doesn’t know who they are (I hope I got them right…):
Fat Mike of NOFX, Dexter Holland of The Offspring, Greg Graffin of Bad Religion
Larry Livermore, founder of Lookout Records, Tim Armstrong of Rancid, Lars Fredericksen of Rancid
[Source]
Drawings by the artists who worked on the Simpsons movie were on display at the 7-Eleven turned Kwik-E-Mart in Burbank, CA, during the month of July.
The Simpsons usually has great caricatures of celebrities done Simpsons-style, but this one really doesn’t look like Billie Joe. It looks like a generic character. Where are his characteristic droopy eyes that turn downward at the outer corners? Or his pointy little nose? A bit disappointing really.
And as Cheryl pointed out, where are his tattoos????
I’m looking forward to the documentary Punk’s Not Dead which will be in a theater here in New York City starting today, and running through August 2nd. By all accounts it’s a serious exploration of the meaning and influence of punk rock, a concept which so often gets blindly scoffed at by people who know nothing about punk rock and don’t understand it.
I didn’t find punk rock until I was old — about thirty — but it has nevertheless meant the world to me. For me it was and is like a breath of fresh air. In a culture in which everything is always trying to sell itself and look like something other than what it is, punk rock is a reminder that, yes, you can be steadfast and truthful. Always.
I am especially grateful to the welcoming and mushy punk rock of Green Day, (Billie Joe once said, “We’ve always been softies”) which actually draws you in, rather than holding you at arm’s length as a kind of challenge, daring you to jump in, the way hardcore and more aggressive punk does.
“What can a teenager with multiple piercings and a Green Day T-shirt learn from interviews with aging punk elders that he or she can’t get by playing the first Ramones album? Can punk rock coexist with corporate sponsorship? Is a flaming-red Mohawk still a blow against the empire when Mom can buy you one at the mall?
“These are legitimate questions that address the ways artistic movements sustain energy and honesty over the long haul, and they mirror punk’s own identity crises. ‘Punk’s Not Dead’ takes core samples from musical forefathers, mid-period bands, and snotty young kids, building a jangly, contradictory mosaic as it goes.
“One amusing and revealing sequence shows a woman angrily describing Sum 41 as sellouts outside one of their concerts until she realizes she’s talking to the band itself, at which point she becomes a moonstruck fan. By contrast, a member of Rancid shrugs, ‘Who am I to say a 16-year-old with a guitar isn’t punk?’
“‘Punk’s Not Dead’ doesn’t exactly neglect the music, but Dynner’s more interested in how that music served as a bridge for disaffected kids to connect with their anger and with each other.”
Just substitute “kids” with “anyones” and I’m completely with you.
I found this little MTV interview (Yes Dee, from a Google Alert - I finally did it!) where Green Day is briefly mentioned by one the creators of the Simpsons, James L. Brooks. It struck me as funny because I hate to answer the phone myself, and I am ever so grateful for the invention, Caller ID. I wonder if Billie Joe and Adie stand there saying to each other, “It’s for you, you pick it up.” “No, it’s your turn, you do it.” Somehow, I think they are just busy with other things, making an album or something…
MTV: There’s also a long tradition of guest-star cameos on “The Simpsons,” and there are a few in the movie, too. Were you able to just call up Green Day because they were fans and have them come in and do a song?
Brooks: Green Day is harder to get on the phone than anyone you can think of. I mean, we heard they wanted to do the movie. And they did want to do the movie. But it involved answering their phone.
I haven’t seen the movie myself yet, but Delfina and I are planning on going, soon! I can’t wait to hear AI, the funeral version. Or maybe I can? D’oh! Ha! I just love saying that!
“The film opens with US punk rockers Green Day playing a gig in Springfield on a lake.
“After singing The Simpsons theme the band’s Billie Joe Armstrong stops to say ‘We’ve been playing for three hours now and would like to say a few words about the environment.’
“So are our fave yellow cartoon heroes are about to turn green? Not a chance. The Springfield crowd go quiet, then start to boo and pelt the band with bottles.”
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