This may become a regular thing. Some of the search terms that people used to get here have been heeelarious.
For the week ending Friday, July 17, 2009:
punk boys,
billie joe armstrong’s ass,
greenday magazine,
brittney cade,
billie joe armstrong without makeup
I shit you not. Top Searches!
I did something yesterday morning that I more than likely should not have done: I listened to Green Day’s “Macy’s Day Parade,” from their 2000 album, Warning.
Why was it a bad idea to listen? Mostly because it’s one of the most depressing songs ever written, that’s why. Oh sure, the video of the song has the lead singer driving off in his old school Suburban, possibly running away to a new life, but really, you know he’s a loser… but at least he’s good at it.*
It’s a depressing song about being stuck in a rut life, losing your dreams, walking through the ruins of your detritus, looking for hope when all is lost and then taking off with no resolution in sight. Or at least, that’s what the video projects. Which I don’t have to show you because the only one I could find on Youtube didn’t have the sound synced, which is really stupid.
So here’s the band performing the song at Ashbury Park, NJ.
I picked up the keys to my new apartment yesterday. Woot! I packed a bit the night before (an always heinous task), threw back a beer, listened to music and checked the GD fansites to see what was happening at the concert in Detroit. I never realized before how much fun it could be watching a world music tour by Internet. I grew up on the delay of magazines and Saturday/Sunday music programs (Soul Train, American Bandstand, anyone?). With the rise of the dreaded Internet, you can now experience anything through social networking. (I’m sure that the end of the world will be blogged.) Quite fun. Very strange. Early reports from the front were that GD had changed up the setlist. Someone had a sign requesting “Macy’s Day Parade,” and the band obliged, right before “Good Riddance (Time of Your Life).” So this morning I decided to listen to it on the old iPhone while walking to my new place. I hadn’t heard it in a while.
The last GD album I bought was Warning, and I don’t listen to it much because it is kinda morose. But then again, so were the times leading up to the album’s release in 2000. From 1995 to 2000, I remember clearly being in the doldrums. I ultimately broke after President Clinton lied about his infidelity. Sure, it was none of my business, but really, after years of defending him while staring at the teevee perplexed by the shit thrown at him, here he was, uncontrolled penis in hand. Add to this mix, the Oklahoma city bombing, repeated threats of war from Osama bin Laden, the heightened rise of terrorism, the Moral Majority and the Religious Right, and heads were about to explode all around. Egads. As to the album, you can tell that the band was tense as well. They were in the middle of the shit and seemingly unhappy. Yeah, sure, they were unhappy before, but at least they were smiling while doing it. Sorta. Hell, one of the songs is actually named “Misery” and another, “Minority,” goes for the jugular of certain GOP-tinged religious bigots who were neither “moral’ nor the majority. Come on, it was a bad time all around.
I realized that listening to “Macy’s Day Parade” was not the right thing to do shortly after the song started, but I kept listening because there is a tiny bit of a teeny strain of hope in the song; you just have to step through the turmoil of it to get to that little green spot. It’s painful traveling to that point, if you make it all. It’s what all great songs are made of. Turmoil, angst, sorrow, hope and lust. Now may I hang myself, please?
Lately, I’ve felt on the edge of either a catharsis or a last resort. I haven’t sorted out which one it’s going to be yet. I guess when you reach this point in life (read: age), you look back and reflect on the dreams that held fast in youth. I went after my dream and I held on as long as I could, which is a lot further than afforded most folks. I chased my dream until I chose to stop. It’s my-life regrettable. Now I have a ‘career,’ but with a student loan that is sucking the life out of me. Ultimately, I am not unhappy with the career path I’ve taken, but if I could, I would certainly change the specific field that I’m in. I would work as an archivist in the arts. And as soon as I figure out how to do that and make money to live, I’ll let you know. Yeah, I’m a sell-out to my dreams, but at least I keep hope alive and pay the rent. Mostly.
“Macy’s Day Parade” — how ironic a title for a song where the only parade is despair; the “Minority” video actually got a Main Street parade of rebellious hellions in all of their defiance — knocked me for a loop. I was happily skipping toward my new place when “boom,” right into the wall I went. All the old fears of failure, lost dreams, and thoughts of life just ticking away one mindless day after another went off all at once. It took most of the day to right myself again. In the end, what hit me is summed up in the song’s refrain:
Because I’m thinking about
a brand new hope
the one I’ve never known
cause now I know
it’s all that I wanted
I’ve moved a million times in my life. Literally. I have a nice new home now, and I’ll be there for some long, indefinite period of time. It’s very grown up, but having my own home also feels as if I’m tied down as well, even though it’s but a base of operations. Nonetheless, I’m always thinking of a brand new hope right around the corner, one that I’ve never known and probably will never know before I croak out of this world. And the thought of living so briefly and wanting that elusive and ill-defined it and not obtaining it… whatever it is… is overwhelming. That’s why I shouldn’t have listened to the song yesterday. I was doing a pretty good job of coping with wanting more out of an already full life, but the impact of the late 1990s seeped into my mind by way of a music gateway and it was not pretty. I have to keep reminding myself that it’s not time to kick it. I can make anything happen, yes?
Luckily, the angst of “Macy’s Day Parade” and the album in general is broken up by another single, “Waiting.” This refrain offers just a bit more hope and I have listened to it repeatedly today and I feel much better.
Dawning of a new era
Calling…don’t let it catch you falling
Ready or not at all
So close enough to taste it
Almost…I can embrace this
Feeling….on the tip of my tongue
Catharsis or last resort… I’m going to go with catharsis, yeah, that’s the ticket.
*quoth Billie Joe…
Green Day started their 2009 concert tour on July 3 in Seattle. So far, they have toured Vancouver, Edmonton, Saskatoon, Winnipeg, Fargo, and Minneapolis and have about 500 more cities to go before they finish up next year. I’ve made sure not to watch videos of the band playing for the most part until after I see them later this month in Albany and then again at the two Madison Square Garden shows. I’ve heard so much bitching and moaning about the setlist over at the Green Day Community from pre-AI fans and those who have seen GD’s stadium shows before this tour to last a lifetime — you’ll have to find out what the issues are on your own, if you care to know. So since I’ve only seen them live once at Good Morning America, I’ve decided to experience the band as the band would like to present itself… even if I would love to hear older songs and have the setlist sound a little more unlike the American Idiot tour than I think it may sound. Oh well. Cie la vie. Shit happens.
I’ve made a few exceptions for some special moments that more than likely won’t be repeated at subsequent shows, like this rare rendition of Billie Joe Armstrong singing “Minnesota Girl” in honor of his wife, who’s from Minnesota (and where they met) at last night’s show. I’ve also made it a point of watching videos of Green Day inviting members of the audience up to stage in order to have them try their hand at ‘being in the band.’
My two favorites so far happened early in the tour, the first in Seattle, and the other in Vancouver:
Kamran Inram plays Jesus of Suburbia – Seattle
Michael Aaron Keith bumps it with Billie Joe Armstrong on Longview – Vancouver
I’ve been to a lot of concerts in my life, but I have never seen a band do what Green Day does when it comes to the audience. While I have only seen them once, I’ve seen enough other GD concerts on tape (Bullet in a Bible, Live 8 in Germany, Rock AM Ring in Germany — full video no longer available on Comcast, where I saw it — and a bunch of pre-American Idiot stuff) to know that they have an amazing synergy with their audience unlike any band I’ve been privileged to see, except maybe for Gwar, but I think it’s the blood and costumes that gives Gwar that special something something. Ultimately, it’s got something to do with GD’s guts and courage — who else would even dare to bring an unknown factor into their stage show? I can’t even think of a band that’s done it before, though I’m sure… yes?… that there have been others?
Which brings me momentarily to the American Idiot – The Musical production coming up soon in Berkeley. The night and several-beers-at-the-bierhaus before I saw GD at at 8AM on GMA, I went to see a friend in a production of The Who’s Tommy performed live for the first time by the Gallery Players in Brooklyn. I had never seen a full production of the show before and I really didn’t know what to expect. I was completely and pleasantly surprised by the energy and dynamism of the cast. I’ve seen The Who perform a few of the songs from their album live and it was amazing, and the Gallery Players cast really nailed it — except that the audience wouldn’t move or tap their feet, which annoyed the shit out of me.
I’m trying to figure out in my head what rhetorical devices the cast of AI-TM will employ to bring that same existing synergy between GD and the audience to the live stage. GD songs scream to be sung to and shouted back… It’s going to be an interesting exercise, especially when (not if) the show comes to Broadway. I’ll tell you one thing, if AI-TM is good when I see it in New York, I’m not going to be sitting in the audience asking permission from New York theater snobs to bounce up and down in my seat… if that’s the way the director wants it.
Anyway, this is rambling now. I’m in a hotel in Baltimore after a family reunion and I haven’t been able to post anything in a few days since life is a bit hectic. I’ll fix this up later when I get back to NYC.
Chewy030 from the Vancouver thread at the GDA found this wonderful soundcheck photograph on Twitpic. From what I can tell the person who took the shot works at the Vancouver stadium where Green Day is performing tonight.
Green Day Sound Check by Kevinmiam on Twitter
I remember when I used to do theater (God, how I miss it), and the rehearsals prior to a performance or warmup. There was always a sort of sacred vibe of being onstage in front of that empty and hollow space and knowing that in three or four hours, that space would be filled with living, vibrating people… all of whom are judging you and waiting for you to entertain them, move them. Just the thought of it reminds me of the fluttering sensation I always got in anticipation of what would happen when the space was filled with an audience. What a delicious, exciting, and terrifying sensation it is.
In theater, there are basically two kinds of rehearsals: the technical rehearsal and the performance rehearsal. The performance rehearsal primarily takes place prior to the audience actually showing up at the theater. It’s those long, grueling weeks or months where the lines are memorized, the director’s vision is melded onto the playwright’s words, the actors become the characters, the blocking (the actual steps or actions an actor takes in the course of the play) is set. The technical rehearsal usually only occurs a few times until the entire play is coordinated with sound and light cues. Once a play opens, there might be a few more performance rehearsals to tweak scenes here or there. However, unless there are drastic changes in the technical aspects of the show, there will never or rarely be another technical rehearsal.
The theatrical technical rehearsal is closest to the soundcheck in music. The biggest difference in music, though, is that the soundcheck occurs in every city or club that a band visits. When a play goes up and is running to par, there may not be another performance rehearsal after the initial previews.
I remember back in 1983 when The Police came to Cobo Hall, now known as Joe Louis Arena, in Detroit. I wanted to meet them so badly! I was studying theater at Wayne State University and was interested in both onstage and backstage aspects of the art. I had designed sound for a few shows, and I created this elaborate ruse (UPDATE!: and I was writing a paper!) to get backstage to meet the band… I was “on assignment” to learn more about concert lighting, so I went to the Arena with this elaborate story of wanting to meet the lighting director of the Police show. It kinda worked: I did get backstage and actually heard of bit of the Police’s soundcheck prior to my ass getting thrown out of the place. I’m glad I didn’t meet the Police. In retrospect, I have come to the conclusion that they are assholes (or at least Sting is) and it probably wouldn’t have turned out to be a pleasant experience meeting them! 🙂
Every band goes through the soundcheck, whether they are as big as Green Day or not. Bands have to make sure that the venue’s system works properly with the traveling equipment, that the sound levels are right, that the video equipment is coordinated properly, and that the massive soundboard works. Concerts on the scale of GD’s take an enormous amount of manpower, setup and breakdown. Theatrical productions, even those that play out-of-town are usually in one place for a number of weeks, not days, unlike bands. Bands can be in Albuquerque one day and Des Moines the next;
that’s a lot of setup, breakdown, and rehearsal.
At least a few things are consistent between theatrical rehearsals and music soundchecks, however, and it’s that feeling that this picture evokes to me: the performer onstage inside that hollow space, waiting for the audience to walk in and fill it up with their anticipation, their adoration, and their judgment. It captures that delicious, exciting and terrifying moment that few people outside of the world of performance know or think about, the time between rehearsal and performance. I remember that moment fondly, and miss it.
Thanks for the photo. Nicely done.
*This post was written a bit because it sucked and needed to be rewritte
I hear the show is amazing! There are a bunch of pics on Twitter but Billie Joe told folks to put their phones away, saying that this was, “our time.” Aww… ain’t that sweet?
Here are some offiicial photos from the Seattle Times.
Have I said lately how I can’t wait to see them in concert? Uh… yes. I think I have.
I’m hyperventilating a bit from both the heat and rain here in Brooklyn and the fact that Green Day starts their new tour tonight in Seattle. I can’t wait to hear about the concert from folks who are going… what’s the set like?… what did they play?… did folks have a fabulous time… did anyone hurt themselves dancing like fools?
I have to wait another 22 days and then another 24 days to see them in Albany and Madison Square Garden. I am expecting to dance like a fool and hurt myself in the process.
I should really start exercising like crazy in order to protect my body from falling objects, like other falling bodies. Maybe I’ll dance in my apartment and disturb my downstairs neighbors. I’m moving out… what do I care?
I have a tendency at shows to loose myself in the intensity of the music. I almost caused serious damage to myself when I saw Green Day play at Central Park for Good Morning America, but that show only got started before it was sadly over. I didn’t limp out of the venue. However, when I went to see Gogol Bordello a few months ago, I could barely lift my head the next day, and the next day was a work day… eek! 
I can only imagine how much pain Green Day is in after one of their shows. I’ve read articles that have said Billie Joe is completely wiped out after a show, and you know, I can relate to that. Bring the pain, boys… I’m ready!
Have a great time, Seattle!!
Just as orange became the color of revolution in the Ukraine during their “Orange Revolution” of 2004-2005, the color of green has become the predominant color of protest in Iran over the last few weeks. I’m not saying that Green Day had anything to do with this to promote their new tour… but… well… it’s just a coincidence, yes?
Five days ago, the Iranian people went to their voting booths in order to elect a new president. The battle for the presidency came down to two government-approved candidates, Ahmed Ahmendinijad (or as a friend calls him, Ahemenogenocide) and Mir-Hossein Mousavi Khameneh.
The vote seems to have been declared very quickly for Ahmadinejad and the next thing you know… all hell breaks loose. Five days later, there’s millions of people in the street claiming that they were robbed of their votes. The situation was somewhat similar to the United States election of 2000, but with one major difference: the great majority of the Iranian people seem to have taken to the streets in protest and we just let Bush become president. As a result of the flawed election and counting of the ballots, the ruling Supreme Ayatollah Khamenei is having a hell of a time putting the genie back into the bottle and serious trouble is on the way for the country.
I’d like to clear up a major misconception that Americans have about Iran: they kicked our ass in 1979, and we sorta deserved it. In 1953, the United States, along with the British, overthrew their prime minister, Mohammad Mossadegh, in order to take back Iran’s nationalized oil industry. In the process, we returned Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi to power. The Shah’s rule was horrible and payback is a bitch. The Iranian Revolution occurred in 1979, and I remember clear as day watching the events unfold on my teevee as 52 American hostages were held in Iran for 444 days. Since I was raised in a Christian apocalyptic househould, I thought the end was neigh.
The apocalypse didn’t happen but something in Iran has changed since the Iranian Revolution brought forth an Islamic Republic with a pretense of democracy. The population has become younger and particularly in the urban areas, majorly hip. I used to know an Iranian guy back in the 80s. He had sea-green eyes and he was, as one may put it, hot. Today’s Iranian youth are highly educated, some are well-traveled, are very much connected with the world of the Internet and are pretty much demanding not necessarily an end to the Islamic Republic, but an end to living in an autocratic society. They want their freedom, whatever that means to one who lives under a government ruled by any religion.
Since I’m a member of the Idiot Club over at greenday.com (yes, I know I’m obsessed, leave me the hell alone), a poster seemingly from Iran started a thread about what was happening in his or her country. Unfortunately the thread didn’t go very far, but one poster in general made me shiver. They wrote that they didn’t care what happened in Iran as long as Islamic extremists didn’t come over here and kill people. Mind you, Idiot Club fan club members are from all over the world and that opinion was clearly in the minority (though of course, as the song goes, they might be happy being in that Minority). I couldn’t help but comment, however. What happens in Iran affects what happens to us here, I wrote. This person probably had something happen to friends or family that caused her or him to think this way. Obviously they didn’t know that Iran and Iraq went to war with each for years or that Osama bin laden hates Shia Muslims, the majority of which are Iranians. Or maybe she/he was just a person who only knew what they knew from their small, isolated communities and never dared to look at or learn about the dynamics that actually make up the world, the cause and effect of it all. No good deed goes unpunished and not everything is as it seems.
Whether Mousavi (a reformist candidate with a deep and nasty history in the actual events of the Iranian Revolution) had become or still will become the Iranian president somehow, doesn’t necessarily mean that the relationship between the United States and Iran would get any better, but it certainly could not have gotten any worse than it already is. Or at least, I would hope it wouldn’t have gotten worse.
When describing “21st Century Breakdown,” Green Day usually says that it’s a (paraphrasing) “collection of pictures of things that happen in the world and America with a seeming new crisis everyday.” The onslaught of everyday living can be overwhelming, that’s for sure. I really hope, however, I never get to the point where I don’t care what happens to someone else, as long as I’m left alone. The planet really is too small for that crap. I may not be able to do much and I may not know everything or even anything, but this I know: Iranian men are beautiful and Persian culture is about 500 times longer than ours. I also know that what happens in Iran doesn’t stay in Iran. What happens in Iran affects us all.
Green Day on the Cover
This 1997 cover of Britain’s punk rock magazine Big Cheese cracks me the hell up. Shitty, snarky white punk boys with funny-assed faces completely on the edge of mayhem. If I had met these guys on the street back in the day, I would have crossed it. Scary looking dudes, if you ask me.
I didn’t pay much attention to the band back then. And I’ll tell you why:
Graduate School.
I went to graduate school from 1991-1992 and then again between 1996-1998. Prior to 1991 I had left New York to go back home to Detroit and between graduate school stints, I moved to Philadelphia before ending up back in NYC for a second torturous round of grad school hell. If any of you have never been to graduate school, let me tell you, it sucks the living life out of you. I was broke and thinking about other things besides music or Green Day. I do remember watching them on MTV in their 1994 Jaded in Chicago tour stop, though, and being completely blown away. Who the hell were these crazy motherfuckers?
And then… life as I knew it became a music-less proposition as school and work converged into one tired girl by 1995. Sure, I listened to the radio here and there, but I hate radio, particularly New York radio and I tend not to listen to it… and thus I get my music few and far-between.
Please, don’t cry for me, as I know you’re not. It’s my own damn fault that I probably bought less than 20 albums between the years of 1994 and 2004, the year that I finally came up for air from life in general. Yes, I had heard GD songs in-between and I knew who they were and I always thought that they were great, but I was more into Nirvana and the Red Hot Chili Peppers and my 80’s die-hard leftovers of the Talking Heads, the Police, U2 and some others when I had the time to listen. I also tried to keep on top of my former life in an acting ‘career.’ I had studied Experimental Theater at NYU in the 1980s and I wrote and performed several one-woman shows and curated a program of storytelling called Oral Text. I was a busy girl, so sue me.
One other vital fact: I am not a punk, but I tend to have a punk attitude, whatever that means. If it means hating overbearing authority, despising organized religion for the most part, liking loud music (I tend to gravitate to music with a heavy beat) and trying to do things on one’s own terms, then in some sense I have a punk sensibility without being one. If it counts, I’ve seen Gwar live twice and the Butthole Surfers once… does that help?
By 2001, I was a bit more settled in life, though not by much. (I am always living on the edge in some ways which really has got to stop.) I had a strange job as a researcher on the television show “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire,” and I traveled to Amsterdam, city of my dreams, in June 2000 and August 2001 and things were beginning to mellow out a bit. Then came the Bush II Horror Show Part One followed by 9/11… well, let’s not even talk about 9/11. I was angry and frustrated and felt as if I were ruled by a bunch of bumbling idiots, because, you know, in reality, I was ruled by a bunch of bumbling idiots from 2000-2008. Fear was everywhere, nervousness was in the air, and xenophobia was the impending meme. What a nasty, nasty time it was.
In order to alleviate a sense of helplessness that would turn into self-mutilation if I didn’t stop banging my head against the wall, I joined the satirical political group “Billionaires For Bush” to find some political relief, laughter, and outlet… and then… Green Day’s American Idiot album came out. After four years of living in an American society were dissent was publicly ridiculed and mocked, Green Day came out and said it loud and raucously: I will not be an American idiot. While we did turn out to be idiots anyway by voting Bush back into office… well, that’s a different story.
American Idiot dragged me through the years of 2005-2008, gave me some hope and helped me to focus my unending longing for a smarter, live-free-or-die and greater country than the one I was handed. I will always be grateful to Billie Joe Armstrong, Tré Cool, and Mike Dirnt for the support that they gave me and millions of others (American or not) during these years as well as during their long and wacky career. They are always quick to laugh, have one of the greatest live shows ever invented, and well, they seem like fun people to hang out with as long as no one is crapping on anything.
Yay.
They have come out with a new album, 21st Century Breakdown, and I love it. It’s not the best of their records and its got its ups and downs, sounding more like the sequel of American Idiot than a standalone album. It’s not my favorite Green Day album, but really, after American Idiot, where could they go? AI was perfection and it would have been hard for anyone to top it. It took a good five listens to really fall deep, but it’s been in heavy rotation on my iPhone along with my other Green Day albums since it came out on May 15. I have also been to my first Green Day concert, at Good Morning America, of all places and no less! My goodness, I’m a geek.
That’s my backstory. I will add that I’m originally from Detroit, am adopted, racially mixed black and white, grew up in my father’s bar and my mother’s hardcore Pentecostal religion. I studied theater and I am now an archivist at an undisclosed location. I’m sane, but not by much.
I’m actually just a basket case.
Big Cheese Magazine picture found courtesy of the Idiot Club.
Green Day Mind 