Green Day were polarizing. From the beginning the knock against them was their lack of punk boanfides; no breakneck tempos, no yelled vocals and the lyrics were not only comprehensible but they were clearly about...girls. But Lawrence Livermore and his Lookout Records label (more HERE) stood by the band, as did a lot of record buyers. When the band signed to a major label, the same people who'd derided them as being 'too pop' now called them 'Greed Day'. It's no wonder they abandoned the punk underground. What's more interesting is how much they carried the punk flag, coming around to an anti-establishment view not so far removed from that of the punk politicos they'd left behind.
Like a lot of folks, I wanted to hate Green Day but I ordered those first two singles from Blacklist mail-order back anyway back in 1990 and have refused to renounce them ever since. Yup, I own every Green Day album (well minus live/greatest hits/B-sides collections). I'm not ashamed of this fact, though it's taken me a few years to state it openly. And it started with those opening chords to "1,000 Hours". The lyrics were, as I'd been arned, kinda dippy but the tunes were so strong that they reminded of the really early Beatles (with a hefty does of Buzzcocks thrown in).
(Slightly dodgy footage but I think I'm in there somewhere.)
So here to unite us (maybe?) on the virtues of the band, is a radio show recorded live on May 28, 1992 in the WFMU studios, East Orange, NJ, which Mike Dirnt says is, "A real good Green Day bootleg".
01 Don't Leave Me
02 409 in Your Coffeemaker
03 Welcome to Paradise
04 2,000 Light Years Away
05 At the Library
06 80
07 The Judge's Daughter
08 Christie Road
09 Only of You
10 Who Wrote Holden Caulfield?
11 Going to Pasalacqua
12 16
13 Paper Lanterns
14 C Yo Yus
15 Longview
16 One Of My Lies
17 Dominated Love Slave
18 All By Myself
19 Knowledge
20 Words I Might Have Ate
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http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?ncb5zxhrvryb9gf
ReplyDeletefuckin THANKS!!!!!
Deletei like green day. lack of 'punk cred' be damned. i'm a sucker for the poppier side of punk. and it's nice sometimes listening to bands that my wife and kids like too...
ReplyDeleteYay for 'family-punk'!
DeleteWhoah. The Nappy Dugout?
ReplyDeleteI think I went to three shows there.
Saw terrible bands that I've all but forgotten, except for a memory of a squat little bass player in a Boston Bruins jersey with a yellow do-rag who spat on a friend.
Anyhow, I remember being slightly annoyed that "Welcome to Paradise" was on Dookie. (And slightly surprised that "dooking" was slang for "fucking" at the time, according to some Ontarians I worked with the summer that album came out...) Other than that, I didn't have a problem with Green Day.
I saw Jawbreaker at the ND and I think I saw this show (though I may be confusing it with a similar era show at The Cruel Elephant).
Deletegood to read what you said about green day,i remember when london calling came out everyone slagged the clash(now its considered a classix)same with raven by stranglers and black album the damned.considering punk was about thinking for yourself so many people will hate a band just because its the in thing to do,green day have done some amazing lps and i would rather my kids listen to them than the chart crap
ReplyDeleteOne of the best "insults" (at least the guy who wrote it thought it was an insult) I've ever received was having my old band compared to a combination of Green Day and mid-90's Redd Kross. Oh do I hope we sounded that good!
ReplyDeleteIt's funny, the first time Green Day really excited and impressed me was via this performance on the MTV Music Awards:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jmIh4pgsbc&feature=related
I guess that makes me either a fool or a poser. Eh, so it goes...
CallPastorJerkface
Two of my favorite bands - what was your band?
DeleteThat is the best insult a band could ask for!
Deletethanks
ReplyDeleteJeffen, have you checked out Sweet Baby? Pre-Green Day pop-punk and in some ways the band Green Day tried to be (at least if the gossip in the issues of Lookout zine were accurate).
ReplyDeleteLove SB. I bought the LP (the original Ruby Records version) for a dollar from a Vancouver electro-wave store back in '91 and played it for everyone that would listen!
DeleteNever really cared for them, felt they were fed to the public, but I do have Dookie and listen to it once in a blue moon, Longview my favorite song of theirs by a mile, and I also think American Idiot was a brilliantly written record. That's my two cents!
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting that their critical and commercial faves (i.e. Dookie and AI) are one in the same.
DeleteThanks
ReplyDeleteThe music is in the grooves, not in the label's we stick on the performers.
Well put, Sir.
DeleteCheers!!
ReplyDeleteI make no apology--I was looking forward to Green Day. Having grown up with How Much Is That Doggy in The Window? (arf! arf?, hearing some Green Day sounded pretty nice. But the link isn't working for me. Has Media Fire left us?
ReplyDeleteI just checked it out and it seemed to be working fine.
DeleteAny one else have probelems?
Right. It worked for me this time, too. Thanks for the post & comments. Fun video of GD. I liked it when someone's body sailed by into the crowd. I never experienced things like that in my formative years. Uh-uh.
ReplyDeleteI'm always glad to provide video evidence of the greatness of the band herein.
DeleteGreen Day is well ... Green Day. You mention the Beatles and Buzzcocks, no doubt big influences. But I like to make the case that without The Who you never get The Jam and without them both you never get Green Day. Saw them on the big tour a couple years back and even with all the theatrics they still turned in an absolutely rocking show that, in many ways, was as punk as anything ever could be.
ReplyDeleteYeah and The Who influence only became stronger as they went on.
DeleteGreat bootleg. Haven't heard it in years, I remember (what would become) the Longview bass line during String Break.
ReplyDeleteAbout Green Day influences: I've always thought Dry Ice sounded a lot like Husker Du (in a good way).
Way back when, the punks slagged them off as "Husker Day".
DeleteMy mate lent me this years ago, he hasn't got it back. Quality boot as Dirnt says, and recorded when I think they were best IMO
ReplyDeleteI grew up in the days of the Pistols and the Clash etc and love Green Day, took my daughter to see them and she loves them too
Put on a great show ... that said I still think Crass were the most important band ever!
All in favour of GD covering "Do They Owe Us a Living"? say 'aye...
DeleteWhat a treat to see what would become the Longview bass line & intro taking shape in that string break & the video posted here by jeffen as early as 1992! Shame the video cut out as the Only Of You solo was kicking in.
ReplyDeleteStill Aye to them covering that Crass song, although the maybe closest they came was their song Platypus.
Ripped from Wiki: In 1989 due to Sweet Baby, Green Day changed their name from Sweet Children to Green Day for there to be no confusion before releasing their first EP 1,000 Hours. They made the right decision there!
Green Day is and probably always will be my favorite band. I still get the itch once in awhile to put the old records on and love 'em. I cant imagine any live show in my life topping the ones I saw by them in 95, 97, 2001 and so on. However the triple records "Uno", "Dos" and "Tre" are total shit. They totally pissed on their own legacy. The recordings are crappy and the songs are crappier. They should have just quit.
ReplyDelete