May. 18, 2008 ~The Reverend Strychnine Twitch posted a message on the Foxboro Hot Tubs' MySpace.
May. 17, 2008 ~I've been posting the info that's available on the Foxboro Hot Tubs shows on GDA. Keep checking...
May. 17, 2008 ~BBC Music has a review of Stop Drop and Roll. "All blusterung chords, minimal guitar lead lines and a touch of wiggly organ thrown in for good measure. The writing is tight, the playing suitably spry and the hooks are plentiful."
May. 16, 2008 ~Stop Drop and Roll is due to be released on vinyl June 24. The CD is out May 20. Preorder from Interpunk and get a Foxboro Hot Tubs button.
May. 14, 2008 ~The news that the Foxboro Hot Tubs will be playing a mini tour has spread like wildfire. No surprise, since it was on Reuters, a news wire. Here's a sampling of reports: Kerrang, Spin, Pollstar, Undercover, Spinner. MTV says: "You’ll be treated to some loud garage rock, and who knows what else? Maybe midway through the show, they’ll toss you some American Idiot fan faves — or split off into some other alter-ego band that plays reggaeton. So much is possible."
Well, today’s the day - if you didn’t get a chance to grab the downloads when they were available, you can head out to pretty much anywhere and everywhere today and pick up a copy of the actual CD. I grabbed mine over the lunch hour - it’s pretty cool with it’s retro look and tiny little album cover.
For those that haven’t got one yet - here’s a look:
Sadly, they seem to have removed Highway 1 from the CD release and replaced it with Broadway instead. I wonder why?
Good luck as well tonight to Delfina at the New Orleans show! I’m sure it will be amazing, and I’m sure she’ll be back soon with a full “inside scoop”!
A few bits and pieces of information have been trickling out over the last few days surrounding the band’s opening “home town” shows on their current mini-tour. The band themselves have today posted a few photos here on their official website of the opening night show at The Stork Club. It’s pretty obvious from the shots just how crowded the place was!
Many of you may remember Niki Lee, from her fabulous story “Seize the Green Day” of a few years ago. If you don’t - well - you need to read it. You can find it here on her website. Niki posted a couple of great reviews of both of the Oakland shows on her blog just recently. You can find her write-up of the opening night show at The Stork Club here and the next “family and friends” only show (plus 100 lucky fans!) at Toots Tavern here.
Another lucky fan posted a review of both local shows, including her chance to actually meet some of the band afterwards. In her words “The best part was that they weren’t jerks with rock star egos… not at all. They were genuinely nice, appreciative for their fans coming out, and excited to be playing these shows.” You can read the rest of her review here.
Lastly, a big shout out to everyone attending tonight’s show in Little Rock (that means you Debb and Beth!). Hope everyone has an amazing time!
Well, I’m off for my trip to New Orleans, where I will hopefully be able to see the Foxboro Hot Tubs…
I’ll be away for a few days. Heather of my own beat now will be looking over things around here while I’m gone. A big thanks to her! Give her a big kiss, k?
East Bay Express published a review of Thursday night’s show at the Stork Club in Oakland. The reviewer was almost as giddy as some of us die-hard fans:
“The band’s tight one-hour set was as energetic as one might expect. Temperature in the club must have exceeded 120 degrees, and security guards kept urging members of the crowd to back up from the stage. But it was all for naught. The crowd moshed as the Tubs thrashed, and the Stork Club made rock history while probably violating a fire code or two.”
And the lovely Mary posted a wonderful summary of her experience, and promises more details after she has time to catch her breath:
“As a summation, those guys looked like they were having a genuinely great time. Billie had a fucking ear to ear smile so often that it just was heartwarming. I think this is their way of easing back in to being a band and touring again. After the arena tours of AI, they just wanted to fuck around a little bit and have some fun. What a treat to be there for their first gig. Yep, I feel pretty lucky.”
The Foxboro Hot Tubs played their first show last night at the Stork Club in Oakland, CA.
To begin with, there are photos here!!!! By GoatLegSF:
And there are some great updates on GDA and on GDC. (You have to register to read the personal accounts on GDC, but if you haven’t yet, now is the time!) In addition to the Foxboro Hot Tubs material, they played Blood Sex and Booze, Supermodel Robots, and a bunch of covers in the encore.
Lilycatte wrote that the set was no more than an hour. “The band was introduced in their Foxboro names, like Strichnyne Twitch. Billie Joe was making fun of Pabst Blue Ribbon beer a lot… it seems everyone was drinking it. Security kept asking people to step back from the stage and Billie Joe kept saying stuff like, ‘It’s rock and roll, who the fuck cares, come closer.’”
Hardtoconcentrate was able to meet Billie Joe, Tre, and Adrienne, and got photos with them (which are not posted yet). She said waiting in line for hours turned out to be unnecessary and everyone in line was able to get in, which should be a relief to a lot of people wondering about upcoming shows (though this show wasn’t included in the press release so it wasn’t listed in the mainstream media). “The crowd went completely wild. Because I was right in front of the mic I ended up being pushed into Billie Joe on three occasions! The first time i stepped on his foot and I was about to fall so he pushed me back into the crowd… by my boobs!!”
Oh and uh, most importantly: “Billie Joe was dressed like a pimp… long coat, black shirt, loads of chain necklaces, white sunglasses and his hair was blond and very spiky!”
Knowing that the boys of Green Day are out there and playing makes me all goofy and happy. It’s like a long-awaited return from a drawn-out faraway trip. It doesn’t even matter to me that I haven’t seen them myself (at least not yet). And from the reports, they were in top form…
Update: The video has been removed from both YouTube and the director’s ’s website. Ah, the Tubbies always keep us in suspense! —————————————-
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.
Fourteen years ago, I had never heard of Green Day. I was just going about my humdrum life, when one day I saw a band on TV… and it was the fairest band in all the land…
Nothing new to report today, so I thought I’d post one of my favorite videos. The first time I ever heard Green Day, which I’ve mentioned before, was on March 16, 1994, when they played on the Conan O’Brien show, which at the time featured a lot of new, not-yet-well-known bands. YouTube wouldn’t let me upload that video, so this one is from the very next night, when they played on the Jon Stewart Show. (Yes, Jon Stewart had a short-lived talk show back then.) You can download the Conan video from Megaupload here.
Tell me you wouldn’t fall in love with them if this was the first thing from them that you heard:
Thanks to the people who first uploaded these videos to GDC.
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.
Green Day have often named Husker Du and the Replacements as influences, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard them mention the Descendents, though those are arguably the three bands most responsible for pioneering the style of catchy, tuneful punk that Green Day became masters of. But, as this insightful and wonderfully written article comparing Green Day and the Descendents points out, “without the Descendents there never would have been a genre of melodic pop-punk for Green Day to capitalize upon. They came first, like it or not, influential or not.”
Although I obviously love Green Day more, I think the Descendents are an amazing band, easily one of my favorites. Even though I’m 44 years old, a woman, and I actually like my parents, I can still sing along to Parents — I’m a boy and not a toy, I will kill and I will destroy — with utter conviction and fury at the unfairness of it all! And Cool To Be You, which was written some 20 years later, has all of the same raw frustration and sarcasm: Must be pretty cool to know you belong. Lately I haven’t been able to get that song out of my head. But to get a real feel for the Descendents, you have to read the article. Nothing I could say would come close.
Although Green Day may rub the author the wrong way, and in the end his preference is for the Descendents over Green Day, his praise is so shining I think it transcends whatever reservations he may have:
The fact of the matter is, Billie Joe Armstrong, Mike Dirnt, and Tré Cool are all amazing musicians. Although not as raw as the Descendents, Green Day’s notes are played with greater precision, sung with cleaner technique, and arranged with more compositional attention. With a catalog of doldrum rantings as well as worldly relevant lyrics, and a tight, addictively energetic live performance, I might even petition Green Day as the greatest three-piece alt-rock band in history (yes, better than those guys from Seattle).
As for the criticisms he has of Green Day, I actually find it hard to disagree with them. Tre Cool does have a very goofy and silly name, and though he wears it well as a very goofy and silly guy, if Larry Livermore hadn’t picked out his nickname when Tre was still just a kid, “Tre Cool” may not be what he would be calling himself today, who knows?
I also have to admit that the eye makeup and gelled hairdos of the American Idiot era were always a little strange to me. I think of that look as a package deal that came with the theme and marketing of that particular album, but it doesn’t define Green Day’s image in my mind. When I think of Billie Joe, he still looks like this:
I suppose it’s because that’s when I first fell in love with their music. That photo is from 1994. But, come to think of it, that’s exactly what Billie Joe looks like today:
This photo is from 2008, playing with Pinhead Gunpowder. (Photo by Kristina Siegler.) He’s even got the same kind of necklace! Same hair color, same scruffiness, same style of shirt… People love to moan about how much Green Day has changed. I’m not sure if they have at all!
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For those who may not be familiar with the Descendents, here’s a few sample songs. I wholeheartedly agee with the article it would be worth your while to pick up a copy of Somery.
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Sadly, they seem to have removed Highway 1 from the CD release and replaced it with Broadway instead. I wonder why?
