Green Day's 'American Idiot' Long Player - C/D?

Green Day scores its first No. 1 on The Billboard 200 this week with its first album in four years, "American Idiot." It's also the biggest sales week ever for the pop/punk act, as its fifth studio set for Reprise opens with 267,000 copies.

The group entered the chart at No. 4 with 2000's "Warning," which sold 156,000 copies in the first week and boasts a to-date total of 1 million. Collectively, the band has sold 14 million units since its 1989 debut for indie label Lookout.

they are a fantastic live band, and the record has some good moments.

>Subject: yea they're senior citizens now (green day 1988 - 2005) ( fall 2008 = 20th anniversary)

1) in late 1990 when Tre (a nov/dec baby) finally turned 18, they were the best all-18 three piece in the history of rock bands. unfortunately as drummers (who drink and do drugs) as wont to do, his drumming isn't a shadow of what it used to be, pre-late-90's, so the drum parts are far more conservative now, and more than a bit sluggish on any/all live TV i've seen. (ditto the summer 2001 local auditorium gig i saw). he was one of the best straight power-rock drummers in the country till he started boozing/drugging. and he was never as good as their original drummer! (on the 1st lp and first two eps, ie all collected on the great 39 Smooth/Slappy CD later -- john kiftmeyer who left to go to college sept 1990).

2) but they finally put longtime guitar-tech Jason White on stage right this year on all tours as their 1st guitarist (ie the whole set, non stop), a Arkie who came out from Fayetteville with his band in the early 90's and hooked up with green day early (as friend and crew member). fantastic guitarist (his local band the Influents has a couple lps that are spotty, but that's where i saw him play and was mondo impressed), which would give them two of the best rhythm guitar players in the world...and more importantly frees Bill up to be a frontman w/o playing, anytime he wants. non-musos wouldn't notice the guy (jason) because he has always played a BB-King type Gibson, one of those fat ES-shape things, and is not flamboyant...and looks slightly like a Weezer dork. but he's an awesome guitarist, really powerful with rock-solid mechanics.

i was impressed bigtime at their local 2001 auditorium show (about 4,000 heads i guess, the SF Civic) at how many performing/entertainment chops and schticks they'd transitioned onto the big stage finally (some of them new). they were the funniest club band i ever saw, ie the screwing around during the last 1/2 of any set they ever played, the closest i have ever come to pissing my pants at rock shows were at early 90's green day gigs (a couple good-size saturday night pizza parlor gigs in the East Bay included). if bill A. hadn't been a musician, he would have been a retarded standup comedian donig every open mike night in the bay area or hollywood. (bassist Mike has done some short standup slots in hollywood at real clubs, and said that not being bottled or booed - by houses that didn't know or care who he was -- was "the proudest achievement of my life."). (the first time GD were ever on MTV, ie 120 Minutes at midnight in februar y 2004, mike showed off his Space Invaders mimic sound effects chops).

each afternoon at the 1994 Lollapalooza gigs, bill had each side of the outdoor field, ie 1/2 of 10 to 15 thousand pe-people each day, yelling/screaming back and forth when cued, 1) "rock and roll!!" 2) "fuck you!" / rock and roll.....fuck you. asked later he claimed, "i've been waiting my whole life to do that."

buddy holly would have loved this band.

American Idiot is half crap (the 30 minutes that's good is really good) but the 9 minute / 5 song "Jesus Of Suburbia" (track 2; they open their arena/stadium shows with the first 12 minutes of the album, ie "american idiot" and "jesus of suburbia") is REALLY excellent. i read that they are turning in a video of the whole damn 9 minutes to MTV, jeez, michael jackson redux...what next, a movie...oh wait, that is already in the preliminary stages. hey, the Gerry and the Pacemakers' 1965 movie (black and white like Hard Day's Night) was genuinely bitchin' cool, so who knows.

anyway they shred all over the Who (except for 1965-66 Who), altho that's no big accomplishment. the odd thing about the Who is that the long-circulated bootleg album/CDs of the "short-Tommy" live shows in 1969 and 1970 are REALLY good...i dubbed one from jonathan ages ago. since Tommy doesn't have one single good song on it, that must mean the playing and chosen-sequencing (1/4th of the album is jettisoned) is really excellent. almost tempted to listen to it again before i die.

first weekend of November we're getting flown out to Chicago (free motel room for 3 of the guys, plus about $950 of free plane tickets total -- ie, cash up front, arriving in about 24 hours now) (plus $1000 gig money for friday, plus $500 for being the only band to play the "after hours" invite-only club or house party in the same neighborhood, after the thing is done saturday night) (besides which i will sell ten tonnages of 5 dollar t-shrits and CDs, with whoever helps at merch that is) to play 3rd or 4th billed on a midwest "punk rock festival" thing that's being held at a 4,000 seat venue (theatre like the Palladium i guess)....jeez. pretty posh compared to what the Stanley Brothers got for early 60's folk festival/college gigs i bet! i win the grand prize, because my free crashing space (same as summer a year ago when i visited for a week, distant cousin who's about age hmm...b.1974 i believe...my mom was married/widowed twice, remember) is -- 7 blocks f rom the venue.
http://www.riotfest2005.com since 30 song/40 minute set kills it'll be a good gig like always. like Billie joe A., we always have a killer 1st guitar player so i don't actually have to PLAY except on the really easy stuff, and burn 1/3rd of the set of more just being a dumbass "lead singer." drumming on the 5 or 6 songs in the middle kills though.

i would recommend checking at your local library for check-out green day CDs, at least at any big library, then dubbing them. the vocal sounds are pretty dodgy from the get go, but they get much better at time goes on -- the last two (years 2000 and 2004) albums i thought really showed big improvement on the recorded vocals. but anyway as i said, much more user-friendly classic-rock / straight rock than the damn post-1966 Who. who i really never liked any more than you did (didn't, that is). "Anyway Anyhow Anywhere" = awesome. "Pinball Wizard" or "Won't Get Fooled Again" = please, take it off and make it stop. Shel Talmy/Glyn Johns are still the most underrated/underackowledges producer/engineer team in history (Johns cut the early Stones lps, the 1964 UK tracks), or they just had a miraculous knack at right-there-when-the-band-was-great and when-we-split-they-oddly-enough-started-sounding-like-crap (ie, all Stones recorded-in-Hollywoo d dave hassinger rubbish). (or the Who and the Kinks post-Talmy/Johns, ie Village Green and A Quick One, both of which are pretty rotten recordings).

>1) in late 1990 when Tre (a nov/dec baby) finally turned 18, they were the best all-18 three piece in the history of rock bands. unfortunately as drummers (who drink and do drugs) as wont to do, his drumming isn't a shadow of what it used to be, pre-late-90's, so the drum parts are far more conservative now, and more than a bit sluggish on any/all live TV i've seen. (ditto the summer 2001 local auditorium gig i saw). he was one of the best straight power-rock drummers in the country till he started boozing/drugging. and he was never as good as their original drummer! (on the 1st lp and first two eps, ie all collected on the great 39 Smooth/Slappy CD later -- john kiftmeyer who left to go to college sept 1990).

2) but they finally put longtime guitar-tech Jason White on stage right this year on all tours as their 1st guitarist (ie the whole set, non stop), a Arkie who came out from Fayetteville with his band in the early 90's and hooked up with green day early (as friend and crew member). fantastic guitarist (his local band the Influents has a couple lps that are spotty, but that's where i saw him play and was mondo impressed), which would give them two of the best rhythm guitar players in the world...and more importantly frees Bill up to be a frontman w/o playing, anytime he wants. non-musos wouldn't notice the guy (jason) because he has always played a BB-King type Gibson, one of those fat ES-shape things, and is not flamboyant...and looks slightly like a Weezer dork. but he's an awesome guitarist, really powerful with rock-solid mechanics.

i was impressed bigtime at their local 2001 auditorium show (about 4,000 heads i guess, the SF Civic) at how many performing/entertainment chops and schticks they'd transitioned onto the big stage finally (some of them new). they were the funniest club band i ever saw, ie the screwing around during the last 1/2 of any set they ever played, the closest i have ever come to pissing my pants at rock shows were at early 90's green day gigs (a couple good-size saturday night pizza parlor gigs in the East Bay included). if bill A. hadn't been a musician, he would have been a retarded standup comedian donig every open mike night in the bay area or hollywood. (bassist Mike has done some short standup slots in hollywood at real clubs, and said that not being bottled or booed - by houses that didn't know or care who he was -- was "the proudest achievement of my life."). (the first time GD were ever on MTV, ie 120 Minutes at midnight in februar y 2004, mike showed off his Space Invaders mimic sound effects chops).

each afternoon at the 1994 Lollapalooza gigs, bill had each side of the outdoor field, ie 1/2 of 10 to 15 thousand pe-people each day, yelling/screaming back and forth when cued, 1) "rock and roll!!" 2) "fuck you!" / rock and roll.....fuck you. asked later he claimed, "i've been waiting my whole life to do that."

buddy holly would have loved this band.

American Idiot is half crap (the 30 minutes that's good is really good) but the 9 minute / 5 song "Jesus Of Suburbia" (track 2; they open their arena/stadium shows with the first 12 minutes of the album, ie "american idiot" and "jesus of suburbia") is REALLY excellent. i read that they are turning in a video of the whole damn 9 minutes to MTV, jeez, michael jackson redux...what next, a movie...oh wait, that is already in the preliminary stages. hey, the Gerry and the Pacemakers' 1965 movie (black and white like Hard Day's Night) was genuinely bitchin' cool, so who knows.

anyway they shred all over the Who (except for 1965-66 Who), altho that's no big accomplishment. the odd thing about the Who is that the long-circulated bootleg album/CDs of the "short-Tommy" live shows in 1969 and 1970 are REALLY good...i dubbed one from jonathan ages ago. since Tommy doesn't have one single good song on it, that must mean the playing and chosen-sequencing (1/4th of the album is jettisoned) is really excellent. almost tempted to listen to it again before i die.

first weekend of November we're getting flown out to Chicago (free motel room for 3 of the guys, plus about $950 of free plane tickets total -- ie, cash up front, arriving in about 24 hours now) (plus $1000 gig money for friday, plus $500 for being the only band to play the "after hours" invite-only club or house party in the same neighborhood, after the thing is done saturday night) (besides which i will sell ten tonnages of 5 dollar t-shrits and CDs, with whoever helps at merch that is) to play 3rd or 4th billed on a midwest "punk rock festival" thing that's being held at a 4,000 seat venue (theatre like the Palladium i guess)....jeez. pretty posh compared to what the Stanley Brothers got for early 60's folk festival/college gigs i bet! i win the grand prize, because my free crashing space (same as summer a year ago when i visited for a week, distant cousin who's about age hmm...b.1974 i believe...my mom was married/widowed twice, remember) is -- 7 blocks f rom the venue.
http://www.riotfest2005.com since 30 song/40 minute set kills it'll be a good gig like always. like Billie joe A., we always have a killer 1st guitar player so i don't actually have to PLAY except on the really easy stuff, and burn 1/3rd of the set of more just being a dumbass "lead singer." drumming on the 5 or 6 songs in the middle kills though.

i'll be schlepping out 150 lbs (3 check-ins, 50 lbs max allowed) of t-shirts/girls tops (over 200 of them the all different 5 dolalr shirts, all already run more or less). and the record label will ship out (to my crashing address) i dunno, at least 200 to 300 CDs. two days, several thousand attendees maybe (it's the first of its type in the central midwest, ie Illinois and adjoining states...cleveland OH is the closest place that ever had a smaller version of a 2-day national punk rock fest) -- bands tell me you can expect to sell 4 to 5 times the volume (shirts / CDs) of a regualr headling gig atr these things. (two weekends ago, 10th grade surfer girl/drummer fromcosta mesa Rosy the Merch Table Personnel Manager moved 90 t-shirts/tops to barely 200 teenager in Corona, easily an all time regualr gig record).

yearly bonus point: when i realized i HAD the Oct 1971 Rolling Stone issue (originally saved just because it had pt 2 of the two part Brian Wilson/beach boys "what teh hell's going on" feature) with the infamous Black Sabbath feature, "12 hours with the princes of downer rock: How Black Was My Sabbath" (non-music critic, a reporter, makes no musical evaluations but instead does what is more or less a rip job on their fans and the still officially-unnamed genre..."downer rock" obviously didn't stick, ha ha)...anyway.. there's an AMAZING backstage pic of Ozzy slumped in a chair brooding, with Iommi's stenciled "black sabbath" SG guitar case at his feet. i believe the half-tone is clear enough (and good white/black contrast) that we can make an "angry samoans" t-shirt out of it. whoo baby. and two great small pieces ()from the copy) to cut and drop it --

1) "It's more of a money thing now," said Ozzie. "I'm going to make as much money as I can then shoot myself."

2) (the second best one, much longer, is about his Metrospan antidepressant that he's been put on...but the pills 'must have some ups in them,' because they're making him crazy." )

on the 1-hr (42 min run time) green day MTV "DRIVEN" that had tonnage (most of the show) of childhood and teenage photos/testimonials/facts/recollections (by everyone but the band; first time they had ever ok'd this), the age 14 or 15 photo of mike w/bass that they use a few times, has him wearing a trucker's cap front side front -- yep, BLACK SABBATH. ha.

christine's 7 year old (in november) loved black sabbath the minute he got his hands on the very good sounding european bootleg CD (from a 3 dollar bin) last christmas...he's "oppositional" (hates the world he was born into, altho he inherited the family's brain genes and is about up to a 3rd or 4th grade level at math already compared to his fellow 1st graders; let's just say he HATED being touched when he was a baby) and started serious weekly "play theapy" with a good therapist this past summer. so...he's gonna shit when he sees this MTV show w/his favorite band (along with AC/DC, Sabbath, and way further down, Kiss) giving props to black sabbath. one of green day's big rock radio/alterna radio hits, "Brain Stew" (1995) was a big slow heavy Black Sabbath type riff. (and still in their live set to this day).

i would recommend checking at your local library for check-out green day CDs, at least at any big library, then dubbing them. the vocal sounds are pretty dodgy from the get go, but they get much better at time goes on -- the last two (years 2000 and 2004) albums i thought really showed big improvement on the recorded vocals. but anyway as i said, much more user-friendly classic-rock / straight rock than the damn post-1966 Who. who i really never liked any more than you did (didn't, that is). "Anyway Anyhow Anywhere" = awesome. "Pinball Wizard" or "Won't Get Fooled Again" = please, take it off and make it stop. Shel Talmy/Glyn Johns are still the most underrated/underackowledges producer/engineer team in history (Johns cut the early Stones lps, the 1964 UK tracks), or they just had a miraculous knack at right-there-when-the-band-was-great and when-we-split-they-oddly-enough-started-sounding-like-crap (ie, all Stones recorded-in-Hollywoo d dave hassinger rubbish). (or the Who and the Kinks post-Talmy/Johns, ie Village Green and A Quick One, both of which are pretty rotten recordings).

Looks like the film version could be on.