My Green Day Off
Let me give you the definition of an Ideal Situation: I'm sitting at my desk a couple of days ago, minding my own business and attempting to look like I'm working hard while surreptitiously reading The Onion, when I get a phone call from our office manager, Joann. She tells me that I've still got seven days of accrued vacation time and I "really need to use those up before I lose them at the start of the year." For those of you that don't speak corporate (and kudos to you; nice Black Flag t-shirt, by the way), that means exactly this: "Hey C-Dog, you really need to take some paid time off. No, we don't mind, in fact we insist."
Much cartwheeling down the cubicle aisles and screaming "In your face!!!" at my co-workers ensued.
Anyway, I tell you this as a way of explaining why I'm, at 9am on a Friday, enjoying a breakfast of Budweiser and Funyuns and perusing YouTube for the riches it forever contains. Side Note: Now that Google has bought out YouTube, we're pretty much in the last days of said site being at it's current glory. They've already been forced to take off all the Comedy Central clips that they housed and I'm sure that many other networks aren't too far behind. Pretty soon, YouTube is going to be a video wasteland consisting exclusively of people filming their cats and attempting to light their own farts. This is the proverbial crying shame. However, for the moment, you can still find some great things there, especially if you've a taste for obscure musical clips like I do.
Now, I'll admit right off that I was searching for videos, concert footage, etc for the band Green Day. I'm not ashamed, though I do admit that they're a little too closely grouped with MTV and hordes of screaming 15 year olds than I'm comfortable with. See, I've got a marshmallowy soft spot for Green Day; their album "Dookie" was one of the first CDs I bought when I discovered music at 14 and, even today, it still finds it way onto my stereo every now and again. Yes, they were responsible, at least indirectly, for the current wave of mainstream psuedo-punk and, yes, I still think the concept of a punk rock concept album is ridiculous but... what can I say... I still love the guys. They almost always put their fulls selves into the songs they sing and, even with their ages advancing, they can still rile up a mosh pit and sneer as convincingly as anyone around.
So, yes, looking for Green Day clips on YouTube: After sifting through a few music videos and quite a bit of "I snuck a video camera into the concert" footage, I stumbled upon this:
This is, I feel, a truly remarkable video. Apparently professionally shot, this captures Green Day starting a cover of Billy Idol's "Dancing With Myself," getting bored with it, then pulling members of the audience up onstage and having them (the audience members) play a cover of the Ramone's "Blitzkrieg Bop." This is accomplished by Green Day lead singer, Billie Joe, polling the audience thusly, "Who can play drums.... okay, who's got bass.... anyone know the lyrics... etc." I certaintly haven't ever seen a band do something like this and if you have, well, you were probably at this show.
At any rate, I thought it was noteworthy, so I thought I'd share. Now, I'm going to return to my four day weekend of eternal bliss. Talk at ya later!!!
Much cartwheeling down the cubicle aisles and screaming "In your face!!!" at my co-workers ensued.
Anyway, I tell you this as a way of explaining why I'm, at 9am on a Friday, enjoying a breakfast of Budweiser and Funyuns and perusing YouTube for the riches it forever contains. Side Note: Now that Google has bought out YouTube, we're pretty much in the last days of said site being at it's current glory. They've already been forced to take off all the Comedy Central clips that they housed and I'm sure that many other networks aren't too far behind. Pretty soon, YouTube is going to be a video wasteland consisting exclusively of people filming their cats and attempting to light their own farts. This is the proverbial crying shame. However, for the moment, you can still find some great things there, especially if you've a taste for obscure musical clips like I do.
Now, I'll admit right off that I was searching for videos, concert footage, etc for the band Green Day. I'm not ashamed, though I do admit that they're a little too closely grouped with MTV and hordes of screaming 15 year olds than I'm comfortable with. See, I've got a marshmallowy soft spot for Green Day; their album "Dookie" was one of the first CDs I bought when I discovered music at 14 and, even today, it still finds it way onto my stereo every now and again. Yes, they were responsible, at least indirectly, for the current wave of mainstream psuedo-punk and, yes, I still think the concept of a punk rock concept album is ridiculous but... what can I say... I still love the guys. They almost always put their fulls selves into the songs they sing and, even with their ages advancing, they can still rile up a mosh pit and sneer as convincingly as anyone around.
So, yes, looking for Green Day clips on YouTube: After sifting through a few music videos and quite a bit of "I snuck a video camera into the concert" footage, I stumbled upon this:
This is, I feel, a truly remarkable video. Apparently professionally shot, this captures Green Day starting a cover of Billy Idol's "Dancing With Myself," getting bored with it, then pulling members of the audience up onstage and having them (the audience members) play a cover of the Ramone's "Blitzkrieg Bop." This is accomplished by Green Day lead singer, Billie Joe, polling the audience thusly, "Who can play drums.... okay, who's got bass.... anyone know the lyrics... etc." I certaintly haven't ever seen a band do something like this and if you have, well, you were probably at this show.
At any rate, I thought it was noteworthy, so I thought I'd share. Now, I'm going to return to my four day weekend of eternal bliss. Talk at ya later!!!
posted by Clinton at 9:17 AM
7 Comments:
They must do that at each show. When I saw them here in Denver for the 'Idiot' tour, they got kids who could play, to come up from the audience and play the band's instruments on stage. When they were done, Billie Joe told the chick who was playing his guitar, she could have it, and told her to take it home with her. He was stoked at a young girl could rock a guitar. True story.
Sad thing about that show, is it was all tween chicks and their parents, and then old timers like us who are from the Dookie and pre-Dookie days. Strangely, most of the parents of the chicks sang along to the older stuff - which now seems kind of right. I'm 31 after all.
For some reason, it warms my heart to know that they do that at every show... it's just cool and it verifies my life-long "secret shame" of being a Green Day fan.
I've only seen them in concert once, when I was 15 and they were touring behind "Dookie," and it was totally awesome. I got a huge, gnarly black eye in the mosh pit and I felt like the coolest kid in my school.
Maybe someday I'll feel like that about....wait all the new bands suck, my mistake.
Yeah, tough break there. There is still good music these days, but you really have to hunt for it and it's, guarenteed, not going to be stuff you'll find getting much airplay.
Still, it could be argued that the music will only be that much more awesome due to the work that was put in to finding it.
Just don't say Panic At The Disco sucks. They'll be on you like Aiken fans. I learned that the hard way.
I don't have to say that Panic at the Disco! sucks because that's like telling people that grass is green or the sky is blue. All you'll get as a reply is "Duh, they're Panic at the Disco!"
Wait. The sky is blue? Dogs still 'meow', though, right?
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