Not long ago I wrote about the Green Day SUPERFAN! and how I was relegated to never be one. Well everyone get out your shock because this past weekend, I too, became a SUPERFAN! and let me tell you it was good…ohhhhh, so good. I would like to say that I was lucky enough to go see PINHEAD GUNPOWDER, but it really had very little to do with luck. I have always believed the SUPERFAN! experience has nothing to do with luck, rather it is more about persistance, planning and an overreaching drive to make it happen. For me, it took planning, a bit of a leap of faith that this show was actually going to happen, a fair amount of sheckles, and the friendship of a truly selfless and wonderfully beautiful woman to make my trip to Berkeley, CA to see PINHEAD GUNPOWDER happen. I will emote more on the SUPERFAN! experience in a later posting.

PINHEAD GUNPOWDER is Aaron (Cometbus) Elliott, Billie Joe Armstrong, Bill Schneider, and Jason White. The vast majority of lyrics are written by Aaron, and to me, have the amazing spirit of COMETBUS in them. PINHEAD played at 924 Gilman, the collectively run punk performace space in Berkeley whose history can be read in the book 924 Gilman. Needless to say it was the performance space that birthed a legacy of bands, and for that, 924 Gilman merits a trip there, regardless who is playing, if you find yourself in Berkeley. As both a GREEN DAY fan and an even larger COMETBUS fan, this was not a show I could miss . The show kicked off rather…well…mellow…as a sing-a-long (!?!?!?!?!!!) while GILMAN got itself together with the sound. If I remember correctly, we sang “My Boot in Your Face is What Keeps Me Alive”, “Find My Place” and “Achin to Be” sans mics. Then, with working mics, Billie and Jason quickly got into a zone, Bill jammed like a mofo, Aaron kicked in with drums POUNDING it out and the show really began. The rest of the show was a bit of a blur, with highlights for me including LANDORDS and LOSERS OF THE YEAR, MPLS SONG, WESTSIDE HIGHWAY, ANNIVERSARY SONG, and NEW BLOOD. I could have lived without 2nd STREET, MAHOGANY and BIG YELLOW TAXI and would have preferred KATHLEEN, SWAN SONG and KEEPING WARM IN THE NIGHTTIME.

There was a bit of crowd surfing and the heaving of fans towards the stage throughout the show which probably crushed a fair amount of people. A Gilman friend dropped me a tip on where to stand and it worked like a charm…I was magically moved from the side wall behind some people, to where I ended up - sitting on the stage at Bill Schneider’s mic stand (thanks again for that tip.) One of the cheesiest highlights for me was my screaming out the words to LOSERS OF THE YEAR at Aaron, and getting a smile out of him for a split second before he reverted back to angry punk dude. It was, for me, a once in a lifetime show and something that will be close to my heart for a long time and probably life-changing in ways I havent even realized yet.

[Me at Pinhead Gunpowder 2/12/10]

Now there WAS luck involved for this next east bay event I attended, the COMETBUS art show. How it coincided with me being out there for the PINHEAD show was like a perfect alignment of the stars. So, yes, Im a COMETBUS fan. I cant remember how I found his zine but Im sure it was from something GREEN DAY related. How to describe COMETBUS zines? Im not quite sure I have the words…I could sit here staring at this computer screen for a solid week trying to finesse a pithy statement to describe it, so in the interest of getting this on to NWWM, I implore you to just pick them up and read them. They are heartwarming, heartbreaking, insightful into both the individual and collective human experience, and they make me laugh…and laugh HARD…and they make me think…they have layers upon layers to them which make reading and re-reading them pure joy.

So, clearly I give the pieces written by Aaron and his tribe of contributors some real brain-time, however, what I NEVER kicked around in my brain was the artistry of the covers for his zines. I never thought of them as, well, as art, I just never thought much of them at all. That ended the moment I stepped into 1-2-3-4 GO RECORDS which is displaying the art creations of Aaron Cometbus - musician, writer, AND artist. It was like seeing a side of someone that was always there right in front of me, but I had always overlooked it. Aaron pretty much pulls his skirt up and lets us into his creative panties. He writes in his intro to the show “my medium - pen, paint and xerox - was probably my mother’s fault. She was an artist, working in fiber and textiles. I was inspired by her use of shading and ability to define form with just a few lines”. He then adds “Through distorting an image, I try to bring out some darker, more vulnerable truth hidden underneath the surface. I like to combine different moods and different faces - unlikely combinations that mix pleasure and a sense of dread and unease”. Aaron uses multi-layers of imagery in his art in a very parallel way that he uses the multi-layers in his writing. Now having gotten a peek at Aaron’s creative panties, all those COMETBUS zine images make so, so, so much more sense to me now. I left 1-2-3-4 GO RECORDS absolutely GIDDY! I was just made privvy to this amazing secret that really was never a secret to begin with.

I will leave you with the PINHEAD GUNPOWDER cover Aaron created for SHOOT THE MOON. The photo on the left is the original photo which looks to have been in some fishing related book. The image on the right is the altered image and album cover. It is difficult to see via this photo captured from my phone but you can see how he created a much “darker” image from a completely emotionally-neutral image….the face of the man is now hidden, the tools in front of him have a menacing feel to them. I was really quite taken by seeing the original images next to his creations. It heightened for me the complexity of his images in a way I had never been able to appreciate before.

Shoot the Moon album cover, artwork by Aaron Cometbus

The Aaron Cometbus art show runs thru February at 1-2-3-4 Go Records in Oakland.

~Photos of the opening of the 21st Century Breakdown inspired art show, including a hilarious one of Mike Dirnt.

~A short film inspired by Green Day’s “East Jesus Nowhere”. [Via GDA]

~The song-by-song compare-and-contrast of the songs and art inspired by 21st CB on Art Design Cafe has added comments written by yours truly.

~A song-by-song critique of the songs and art inspired by 21st CB. Plus Green Day’s manager. [ Sent by R.J. and Dani ]

~The art exhibit of work inspired by 21st Century Breakdown announced last July [1, 2]will be shown at the StolenSpace Gallery in Shoreditch, East London Oct. 22 to Nov. 1. [Via GD.com]

Now that more large-size images of the art exhibition of works inspired by the songs on 21st Century Breakdown have been released, I’m even more interested in it.

I’m sure you’ve had this experience too: as I’m listening to the songs, images tend to come into my mind, called up by the mood and scenes suggested by the song. I think it’s kind of a natural tendency, to make words into pictures. I have more affinity with visual imagery than I do with music. I studied art myself and was immersed in the art world for many years, mainly because my former boyfriend is a professional fine artist.

So it’s cool to see individual artists’ concepts for each song. I really like “Before the Lobotomy” by Dabs and Myla. It’s like a cityscape in your mind, like in a dream, where you can see the whole city at once. It’s made up of sooty urban buildings but it’s also populated by these strange, oversize creatures, that are maybe your demons, or maybe fears and misgivings nagging at you from the outside? But they’re not really sinister, entirely, because they’re painted as cartoon characters. (And how scary could your fears be when one of them is smoking a cigarette?) It’s both dark, with a hint of hopefulness, like the song’s lyrics (I’m not sure why the person is holding a bird, but it’s pretty cool anyway, and it seems to fit), and also uplifting, like the song’s music.

I like that it sticks pretty closely to the song, like with the watery streaks at the bottom of the painting — the characters and buildings are sort of melting and disappearing — which remind you of the line “when the rain had washed away all these scattered dreams.”

“Before the Lobotomy” by Dabs/Myla
[ Larger ]

I think fans might like “Know Your Enemy” by the London Police, because it’s a funny cartoon of the band members (though I’m not sure that it’s that close to the song itself).

“Know Your Enemy” by the London Police
[ Larger ]

You can see all of the art for each song in large format here (it’s a large file, 10MB).

Earlier post here.

Green Day commissioned artist Logan Hicks to assemble a group of artists to create works of art based on each song from 21st Century Breakdown. The exhibition will travel with Green Day’s tour. The results are pretty amazing. It’s cool to see another artist’s interpretation of a given song, rendered as an image.

You can see photos of the artwork on Stencil History X, where there are also links to each artist’s website, and on One Big Freak Show, where you can read the press release. Larger pics of the Green Day portraits, by Logan Hicks, on Blackbooks.

Hicks says, “I chose artists whom I felt had a similar visual approach to art as Green Day does to its music. They embrace the same emotional rawness with their art, which speaks from the heart and swings with the fist.” Billie Joe is quoted as saying, “Seeing the pieces that our new album has inspired is very exciting. Many of the artists Logan has chosen show their work on the street, and we feel a strong connection to that type of creative expression.”

These are two of my favorites:

“Peacemaker” by M-City

“East Jesus Nowhere” by Chris Stain

Warner Music did a promotional campaign in Australia for 21st Century Breakdown, and they hired a company to put up graffiti around Sydney with the album’s artwork, which drew criticism from the city and from local commentators. But the most direct criticism is from a graffiti artist, who spray painted the words “Cash Cow” on one of the images.

I’m sure the members of Green Day had nothing to do with the campaign, and none of the criticism is aimed specifically at them. But the issue points out the fundamental problem of having something that is genuine (the band and their music) in the hands of an entity (a huge corporation like Warner Music) that treats everything they control as a means to make money, without a real understanding of and respect for the genuine, real-life inspirations that contributed to its creation.

Graffiti is mentioned several times in the album’s lyrics as a fundamental yearning to declare one’s existence. “You blast your name in graffiti on the walls.” “She puts her make up on like graffiti on the walls of the heartland.” It’s a way of crying out “I am here!” in a visceral and very public way. Graffiti has always been a way for people who are invisible in society to — literally — make their mark. It’s especially important in a society like ours, where if you have a lot of money you can scream out your advertising messages on huge billboards, but if you’re just a poor working class stiff you face huge penalties just for hanging up a flyer on a telephone pole.

It’s pretty galling when a corporation appropriates something that has meaning for people, something whose popularity has been spread by people marginalized by society at considerable risk to themselves. The corporation just piggybacked on the street cred earned by graffiti artists with their own efforts, and exploited it as a marketing gimmick to make some cash.

Like I said, this is not a criticism of the band. But when they signed to a major label, this is the kind of thing that punks were very wary of. It just comes with the territory, I guess.

When it comes to Green Day graffiti, this is more to my liking… (thanks to Diana for sending it in).

~Geekstinkbreath, who also posted set list photos from the other two recent Green Day shows, has photos of the playbill that was handed out at the show last night, plus a description of the show and the setlist. More photos.

~Spinner has a sildeshow af artwork for 21st Century Breakdown, including the cover of the single for “Know Your Enemy” and an image from the album’s special edition, which they say will be available from greenday.com starting Friday. [Via GDA]

~Sixten, the artist whose stenciled image of a couple kissing was the inspiration for Green Day’s album cover, talks about creating that image here. I think the stencil that Sixten posted on the blog is far more compelling than the version used on the album cover. See what you think…

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