“Redundant” is my favorite love song. I know it sounds weird to say that about a song with lines like “now the routine’s turning to contention”. It showcases a big problem in a relationship. So why does it reach out and nudge me in the soul?

Because it’s honest, beautifully pensive and hopeful. All this in spite of stifling frustration. The train hasn’t crumpled into a smouldering wreck yet. There is still time to save it. You can hear the optimism in Billie Joe’s voice as he sings, “cause I love you’s not enough, I’m lost for words”. If you can be so tired of your life that it feels like an endless loop on an assembly line, but still love the person who helped put you there, you know you’ve got a chance.

He’s determined to go for it. That spirit of never, ever backing down is probably the thing I love most about Green Day. From signing to a major label to exhausting tours to slogging through personal hell, these guys have seen it. At the end they always come out a little stronger. It doesn’t matter if you have to leave a huge tangle of emotions and happenings behind. It matters that you got out and kept going, aiming to make sure the future would be different.

“Redundant” resonates with me because I’m always screwing up something. I can’t go a day without making a dumb remark or tripping over my own feet. The latter is a backwards kind of talent, but I digress. The idea behind the song is that all you have to do is be willing to try. That’s love.

Now that we have a new President and the White House is getting revamped, I couldn’t help but think of “American Idiot.” I’m not sure why, but I just did… I think it’s the fact that the album protested the Bush administration clearly and it was always something you had to deal with. Now all we have are ‘memories’ of the past four years. I thought it was so amazing how I could learn and love so much about something so simple. For me, there is much, much more to it than what people think. It was something I’d never heard before; It was so different and it meant something. It punched you right in the gut- unapologetically. The songs leaped right out at you, shook you by the shoulders and told you flat out what was going on. Obviously, I won’t forget that; there are so many things I can take from “American Idiot,” and I’m certain it’s affected many people besides me.
We all love the songs like the title track, “Holiday,” “Boulevard of Broken Dreams,” “Wake me up When September Ends,” and “Jesus of Suburbia.” But…what about the other songs? When I talk with others about the album (or try to), those are the only songs they know. Just “Boulevard” seems to have captured their attention, mainly. Am I the only one who actually loves the rest of the album?! It seems so!
Take for example, “Are We the Waiting.” It’s sandwiched between two attention-grabbers, “Boulevard” and “St.Jimmy,” so it’s prone to being ignored. I can safely say that this relatively poignant song means more to me than “September.” This song is realtively all drums, with a small buzzing guitar in the background; you can almost hear each string being picked individually. As soon as the vocals come in, you’re sold on the song. At the risk of sounding all ‘gushy…’ the voices rise and fall so sweetly and at first listen you feel relaxed and even a bit ’smitten,’ even though you haven’t grasped what the lyrics mean to you yet. Plus, it’s great when the chorus comes around and the guitars come roaring in. It’s powerful stuff. For me, the lyrics paint great pictures of night, watching a glittering city from the outskirts; the place to got to think about if you belong there…. Sometimes I ‘hate’ Billie Joe’s romanticism. :) What’s great about the song is that it sweeps you off your feet, and then “St. Jimmy” comes gnashing in, and suddenly you’re thrown for a loop. That’s why I love the whole Jesus/Jimmy thing; the transistion is just so cool.
To continue on to overlooked tracks, I’ll mention “Give Me Novacaine.” Again, with the strength of the drums, only this time there’s a gentle acoustic in there, later to be completely destroyed by a wall of Gibson Les Pauls. A whining, lazy guitar follows during the bridge, which of course, turns me into a shameful puddle of goo. This song is so powerful to me, especially with that section to the end, where everything is thrown into one giant, gnashing crescendo, with Billie singing his heart out about falling in love.
Sorry, but I’m floored after this song. Whoever makes the ridiculous claim that Green Day are not good musicians needs to listen to that track. The boys know exactly what they’re doing.
Also a great song: “Homecoming.” It always bothered me that this was critically trashed. Yes, it can be a bit strange in some parts, but that’s half the fun. Tre sings, for crying out loud! There are saxophones and pianos and all kinds of instruments to be heard, along with my favorite effect, the ‘guitar through the telephone’ at the beginning of “The Death of St. Jimmy.”
So yes, crazy in parts, but a wonderful track to listen to. It’s Green Day at their most ambitious. My favorite section is “East 12th St.” especially at the end of it, when Billie and Mike cry, “Somebody get me out of here!” It just gets me every time.
So….have I rambled on waaaay to long? Most likely. But I thought I’d mention some of the tracks that get swept wrongfully under the rug. I encourage you to look back through all you Green Day albums- there might be a hidden gem to find.

“Well I’ve got some scattered pictures lying on my bedroom floor, reminds me of the times we shared…” I’m sitting on a bed, staring at the messy spread of memories that pull at my consciousness. Some of them make me smile involuntarily, silently echoing the laughter in the frame. Some of them make me stare into that space between me and the wall. The space that holds so many moments dancing faintly behind my eyes. The space that makes me remember.

“Open the past and present now and we are there…” Funny how a picture can erase the intervening years without a hitch. It would be nice to be able to go back and see things again, maybe fix what went wrong. I think the line that gets me most is “Story to tell and I am listening”. The memories float by in that daydream space, real enough to see but fleeting enough to slip through my fingers unencumbered. What I wouldn’t give for a pause button. A half second here or there, given the attention it deserved, might make all the difference for the future. I’m not trying to preach. I just think it’s worth it to stop and say the little things that go through your head. Just because, even if they don’t mean anything really, another person ought to know those thoughts exist. So you don’t end up sifting through a flipbook of memories, wishing you hadn’t gone tearing through that instant on your way to something else.

I like “Scattered” because it reminds me that everyone has glitches they’d like to smooth over in their memories. Tiny blank spots like the scratchy pops of an old vinyl record. They can be annoying and sad, but in the end they can be forgiven. You have to trust that if you know most of the story, the missing details will take care of themselves. In a way it’s comforting that you can’t change the past, because it would be exhausting. Maybe getting lost in old pictures now and then is enough. Just to make sure you still remember. Thanks, Green Day, for making me remember.

A favorite band is like a good pair of jeans. After a while, you get settled into a comfortable groove. Listening to one of their songs, you can anticipate the chords, the drumlines, the changes in key. Everything fits together in the same well-worn pattern. It’s not a bad thing at all. It’s just a sense of knowing exactly how things will go. That’s what Green Day is for me now. Familiar.

I listen to them when I don’t know what else to choose because I know I can’t go wrong. Every time Billie Joe starts singing it makes me happy. That sounds like a total devoted fangirl squeal, but it’s true. It can be anything from the classic “Basket Case” intro “Do you have the time…” to the slower, sweeter beginning of “Redundant”, “We’re living in a repetition…” At that point I know I’m in for something good.

Even with all that, I’m really excited for their new album. I don’t want their older songs to get too firmly settled in my brain. I don’t want them to seem predictable from so much listening. The new album will be exactly what I need to throw off my expectations. It will keep things interesting by getting in the middle of everything else and messing around. Change is a good thing. Even favorite pairs of jeans can’t last forever without falling apart at the knees.

So I’m waiting for the new album, but I’m trying not to think about it too much. Pre-categorizing takes all the fun out of it. In fact, I hope Billie Joe and Mike and Tre come up with music that’s somewhere between their previous albums, with just enough similarity so as not to seem completely out there. Which is really what they’ve done all along. I just have one question. Is it 2009 yet?

Sometimes it’s wonderful to be reminded of how powerful and beautiful Green Day’s music is. I came across a new, beautifully written post about the poignancy of “Wake Me Up When September Ends.” Yes, it was written about the death of Billie Joe’s father, but there’s so much depth and feeling there that the song applies much more broadly.

Here’s an excerpt. Read the whole post here.

What kind of soundtrack could match these desperate times? My iPod dialed up a tragically relevant song from Green Day’s acclaimed 2004 album, “American Idiot.” It is punk rock’s greatest (and almost only) concept album. It follows a teen’s dislocation within a seemingly comfortable suburban setting. Amidst all our sloganeering and war talk, Green Day suggested all the easy answers lobbed at “Jesus of Surburbia” fall short. They invite to continue dancing mindlessly. In the end, we/me all look like an “American Idiot.”

I love the last sentence:

Green Day reminded me that anger, outrage, and empathy are needed now more than ever.

Thanks to the wonderful Shanty Cheryl, who sent me a copy, I’ve been listening to the great new Pinhead Gunpowder record. It’s times like these I’m grateful, too, to my grumpy old boyfriend, an aging punk with boxes of old scratched up vinyls and a 25 year old record player that still works just fine. (Don’t even get me started on how they used to make stuff that actually lasts. I’ll be sitting on the porch in my rocking chair shaking my fist at all those durn kids on my lawn…)

So what can I say? Among the nice surprises on the record are the male and female vocals singing first alternately, and then, for most of the song, together on On the Ave., which is a really great acoustic number, moody but not at all soft. It’s both sweet and strong. I think it’s my favorite song on the record.

West Side Highway sounds like classic Pinhead Gunpowder, which is great of course. There’s a nice guitar break too. And the lyrics on Anniversary Song are by none other than W. Fink! Hmm, wonder who that is? (Wink.) I suppose word plays like I drove a wedge between the day and night should have been a giveaway. Out of the three, it sounds the most like Green Day song to me. All three have a great sort of mood, which all of Pinhead Gunpowder songs tend to have, I guess stemming from Aaron’s famous ability to tell a story. And Billie Joe is no slouch in painting word pictures either…

I almost feel bad for posting this, when I know so many people can’t listen to the record, even if they have it! But for those who don’t have a copy in their hot little hands, here’s some pictures. Click on the thumbnail for the full size image.

The Von Pip Musical Express asked various characters in the London music scene for their opinions of the song Mother Mary by the Foxboro Hot Tubs. Though some of the reviews are not very positive, it’s fun to read the impressions of a different set of people than Green Day fans, and some of their comments are pretty funny and offbeat. Some people reading them may find them just as confusing as the Rev’s own blog posts… but I tend to be very amused by silly off the wall commentary. Here’s a sampling, edited. Read the full reviews here.

LINDA HOLLYWOOD (HAVANA GUNS): This is a really sweet and very retro track, a potential summer hit with all the sure-fire ingredients. Singing about drinking too much wine and holding hands, Foxboro Hot Tubs’ “Mother Mary” makes me long for lazing in sunny parks and jumping around in sweaty clubs. This is very different - in a good way. This song may not move mountains but it will fill dance floors and perhaps set a few hearts on fire.

ANDY VON PIP: This isn’t so much punky, as jaunty, it did have me drumming my fingers on the table top, a strange idea though, a multi-platinum selling garage band, pretend to be um, a garage band. Still I shouldn’t really do what everybody does and compare this to classic Green Day, seeing them live “Dookie” era still remain some of the most exciting live gigs ever. Anyway this is initially a little uninspiring but played loud in your convertible on a hot summers day it becomes strangely thrilling. It actually made me want to get a tattoo of a waitress, thankfully I remained resolute.

LAURA TROUBLE (SCREAMING BALLERINAS) : Green Day were my fave band when I was little, I don’t know if that’s embarrassing or not. I’m proud of it. Ha. So they are branching out and experimenting, which I can imagine is a lot of fun. I kind of like the 60’s vibe of the production and the oooo’s and aaaa’s are kind of cool but I think the fact that Billy Joe is singing through his nose spoils it, hahaha. I used to draw pictures of me and Billy on our wedding day! Hurrah. I like it more and more now. . . . Ha.

DOGWOOD: When youngsters get this riotous my usual instinct is to open the window of Dogwood cottage and throw a bucket of water over them. But then I took a look at their myspace pictures and was suddenly beguiled by monochrome photos of the sort of women that you just don’t see at the local butchers anymore. So these American idiots have won a reprieve. On the power of the leggy fifties/sixties ladies on display – Dogwood is willing to accept an apology for the music and let this lot in.

I always feel sort of ambivalent about covers of Green Day songs. After all, no one does their own songs better than Green Day, right? But I’m also kind of fascinated to see what someone will do with a song, especially if their interpretation is a lot different from the original. And the covers also tend to demonstrate what a great song it was to begin with: not all punk rock songs can hold up being made into ballads or solo performances.

So, I thought this was an interesting take on Hitchin A Ride:

Update: The video has been removed from both YouTube and the director’s ’s website. Ah, the Tubbies always keep us in suspense!
(The video has later resurfaced on YouTube, posted by fans. You can see it here.)

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News came out on April 18, from Video Static, that there was a video very likely in the works for the Foxboro Hot Tubs’ The Pedestrian. See the earlier post about it, here.

Yesterday the director, Graydon Sheppard, posted the video on his blog, in high quality Quicktime, and on YouTube, calling it the “official” video for the song. We were told he was only doing a preliminary treatment, so it may be that this is not the final version, but it seems to be! And the image he had posted on his blog, which had been a tantalizing enigma, we now know is from the video as well.

A huge thank you to Susanne!

Here’s a cool little memoir, worth reading in its entirety. It’s about listening to Dookie at 11 years old and enjoying it from the perspective of a well-adjusted 11 year old girl who didn’t necessarily relate to the fairly dark themes of the songs, but loved the album anyway: “To me, the album meant that me and my two 7th grade best friends could jump around madly and write love letters to Billie Joe, Tre Cool and Mike. And maybe if there were any lessons in Dookie it was ‘Kristin, don’t take yourself so seriously! Let loose!’” But she also realizes now that there is more to the album than what was obvious to her, or mattered to her, at that specific time in her life. She writes:

“I appreciate it now as a real punk album - one of the very few mainstream punk albums from the 90s, and I’m actually glad that songs like “Coming Clean” (about Billie Joe’s bisexuality) were around for kids to identify with. And I think it’s fantastic that they actually played this stuff on the radio, because it’s pretty risque. The songs are passionate without being practiced, accessible while still being artistic.”

What she’s writing about is one of my favorite themes about Green Day’s music: that it can be appreciated for so many different reasons by so many different people: even the same person can get more and different things out of listening to Green Day at different stages of his or her life. Saying that the songs on Dookie are “accessible while still being artistic” sums it up nicely, and I think it’s one of the things that are really unusual about Green Day, that they not only are committed to creating serious art but that they are also willing to have their work remain completely accessible, even to someone as young as 11, or younger.

I like the closing paragraph, especially the acknowledgement, which I completely agree with, that whatever the reason why Green Day appeals to any given person, it’s as important as any other: “For me, writing “I *heart* Billie Joe” on my Jansport with whiteout was about as deep as it got with these guys. And, as I said, I think THAT response is also important and part of Green Day’s appeal. Their appeal was their talent for being serious and fun, and serious fun (see what I did there?).”

While I was writing this, I read a bit of news that I think is appropriate to the topic: country singer and guitarist Glen Campbell, who is 72, will be putting out a CD of covers this summer, and it includes his version of Green Day’s Good Riddance. See, Green Day appeals to all ages!

The Foxboro Hot Tubs have unexpectedly graced us with another new song. It’s enough to make your head spin. It’s like a creative energy that has taken on a life of its own. The depth and breadth of Green Day’s output never ceases to amaze. I don’t even know whether to be surprised anymore.

I’ve never had any doubt about Green Day’s amazing talent. The first album I heard was Dookie, and I thought it was absolutely great. Then I heard Kerplunk and 39/Smooth and I thought they were great too. I never bought the notion that they were simply aggressive pop-punk nuggets whose appeal was limited to amped-up kids. There was always something about their work that was special, with a perfection, power and unvarnished honesty and emotional directness that other bands never seemed to quite match.

I studied visual art, where directness and brutal honesty is considered a high virtue, partly because it’s so hard to achieve. It’s a lot easier to be arty than it is to be completely truthful, and still come up with something affecting and wonderful. In music, there seems to instead be skepticism with work that appears to be simple and unpolished, like Green Day’s early work, but I think raw power and sincerity are much more elusive, in music as well as in art, than they get credit for. So I wasn’t surprised that musicians who could produce something as good as Dookie could come out with American Idiot, which had all of their early strengths plus a breadth of feeling and creativity that many thought was unexpected coming from Green Day.

That they would turn their creative energies to something like the Foxboro Hot Tubs is not something that I would ever have guessed, but it makes perfect sense. When they made American Idiot, they said they didn’t want to follow their previous work with another album that was just an extension of Warning or Nimrod. So why would they follow American Idiot with something that sounds like American Idiot? Especially when there’s such a wide open field of styles and ideas out there that a band with the talent of Green Day can romp through and make their own. There’s been a lot of speculation about the pressure that must come from having to follow a huge success like American Idiot, so why not just do something else, at least for the time being? It’s genius.

I don’t know that the Foxboro Hot Tubs has the depth of American Idiot. I don’t think it does. But it’s pretty great stuff nonetheless. My completely un-objective barometer is how it makes me feel. American Idiot is so good I’m kind of in awe of it when I listen to it. It almost makes me feel shy. The Foxboro Hot Tubs doesn’t match that feeling, but it brings out some of the same sense of wonder.

I don’t know whether Stop Drop and Roll can be considered “Green Day’s next record,” which is what the band members themselves have said, but I don’t really think that’s an important question. This is what they’re working on. And it’s pretty damn good. So who cares?

It will be interesting to see if there will be a tour, or interviews and other public appearances, for the Foxboro Hot Tubs. Even the proposed video for The Pedestrian is apparently not a sure thing yet. I’d love to see a tour obviously, but even the way this was done, without the massive publicity that surrounded the release of American Idiot, is a wonderful breath of fresh air. We got a lot of great music without a lot of hype or commercialization. Green Day not only succeed in constantly reinventing themselves musically, they even manage to reinvent the public image of the band and how the band and the music relate to its fans.

In spite of the easy labels they’ve been given over the years, which prior to American Idiot could be pretty dismissive, Green Day doesn’t sound like any other band. The bands that approximate their sound, like blink 182 or Sum 41 are just imitators. They’re not all bad, but they only skim the surface of what Green Day does so well. And even bands that are more appropriate comparisons, like the Bouncing Souls, or that were around when Green Day got their start, like the Mr. T Experience, aren’t what Green Day is: inventive, edgy, tight, emotional, aggressive but sweet, and always with perfect, catchy melodies.

A lot of pop punk is silly and nerdy, and self-deprecating in a way that ends up feeling self-conscious. Green Day is more serious, in spite of all their goofiness and antics. The music always has a very serious intent. Part of the intent is delivering one’s heart on a tray, but instead of doing it in a bleak way, which is the usual way to serve up woe and mournfulness, Green Day expresses a dark view of life with catchy hooks and happy melodies, so the seriousness is not as obvious. I think the Foxboro Hot Tubs delivers strong emotions too, but in a more playful way. It’s not pure silliness like The Network, which is creative and fun in its own right but not really a favorite of mine (though I think Spike is a brilliant little gem of audio theater).

Recreating a distinctive sixties sound is more like an artistic experiment than a chance to dig deeply into one’s own personal demons. There’s a kind of distance you feel listening to the Foxboro Hot Tubs, unlike with Green Day songs that rip your heart right out. Some of the lyrics are very sixties, even using actual lines from famous songs, like “ride Sally ride,” or words that seem corny today, like “baby,” which is maybe a timeless classic. But the clever plays on words are very Billie Joe, and so is the way they lay emotions bare, even though the storylines seem to be about fictional characters, more like a scratchy, faded movie than autobiography.

But what I really love about the Foxboro Hot Tubs is the music, the kick ass instrumental breaks, like in Sally and 27th Ave Shuffle, or the cool meandering groove of a song like Red Tide, which goes so perfectly with the aching vocals. The more I listen to the songs, the more I love them. (I’m not crazy about every single song, but no need to split hairs…) The breadth of Billie Joe’s musical talent never stops blowing me away. What more gems does he have up his sleeve?

In American Idiot there were influences and even some riffs taken from the history of rock and roll, but that’s part of the album’s genius: reinventing a stew out of familiar flavors and making something completely original from the mix. In the Foxboro Hot Tubs the borrowing is up front, and the reinvention doesn’t stray far from its influences, but the result is fresh anyway. Sally sounds like The Monkees’ version of Stepping Stone, and Alligator sounds like The Kinks’ You Really Got Me, as was pointed out to me, and Dark Side of Night is an awful lot like The Zombies’ She’s Not There, but you don’t listen to these songs and think you’ve heard them before. You kind of think, holy shit, how does something this good come out of territory that was already explored and thoroughly trampled forty years ago?

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