Is it cool to start liking Green Day again?

[JGJR]

I always thought Green Day was hugely influenced by Stiff Little Fingers... like, I hear waaaay more of that band in GD's music than say, the Replacements or Hüsker Dü.

You knew this was coming, right? (it's one of my favorite films ever)



I don't really hear it that much, personally, but it's just hard because of how different Billie Joe's and Jake's voices are.

[jaybird]

I always thought Green Day was hugely influenced by Stiff Little Fingers... like, I hear waaaay more of that band in GD's music than say, the Replacements or Hüsker Dü.

You knew this was coming, right? (it's one of my favorite films ever)



I don't really hear it that much, personally, but it's just hard because of how different Billie Joe's and Jake's voices are.

maybe that's where I first heard that comparison... I think I last saw that movie like 20 years ago. I still don't really hear the 'Mats/Dü influence everyone talks about though.

[SamDBL]

I both hear and see a lot of the old UK stuff in them. The chord structures could easily be SLF. You could attribute them to a lot of bands of the era of Ramones influenced UK bands, I guess. But I could definitely hear it as SLF. BJ kinda looks and stands like Strummer when he plays. His vocals sound a bit like Leonard from the Dickies. And I’ve heard 10th hand that he is a fan of them (I could totally see it). However, I think how people sing is how they sing. I’m not sure that the quirky tone, delivery and pronunciation is super intentional most of the time. Maybe, maybe not.
As far as replacement and husker, I barely hear that, either. The only anecdote is from my friend Bobby that used to drum for bad religion and was on that tour with GD. He immediately recognized the melody in the song 2000 Light Years Aways (the line where he specifically says ‘cause she’s 2000 light years away’), was exactly the melody of ‘and visit their graves on holidays at best’ in Bastards Of Young. To which he jokingly accused BJ of ripping them off. To which BJ jokingly confessed as true. And admitted to being a massive Replacements fan. And of course, he ended up playing guitar for them on a couple of reunion shows. But other than that, I don’t hear it much. Replacements are way better. Descendents? I once directly asked BJ at a show here in Tampa if he was into them and he totally was not. I figured they would be as gods to him, being the forefathers of the pop punk meets fart jokes humor shit. But he was pretty dismissive of them. I took it as a regional thing. A lot of NorCal bands, at that time, seem to look down on socal bands, and vice versa.

For Samiam, I’m not sure. You’d be surprised how click-ish these scenes can be. It’s like this here in Tampa. And I saw it when I was at Epitaph as well. There is an ‘in’ crowd, and a tolerated crowd. Sometimes you don’t sense it if you are viewing these bands from some other region and you figure they are all best buds and their crowds all intermingle. But the local music rags tend to favor certain bands over others, fans are enthusiastic for one band and not the other (regardless of musical talent), etc. I have always gotten the feeling that Samiam was kind of not part of that super in, Jawbreaker/Op Ivy/Green Day set, as far as the audience was concerned. So maybe that’s why they didn’t get included on the doc?

[JGJR]

I both hear and see a lot of the old UK stuff in them. The chord structures could easily be SLF. You could attribute them to a lot of bands of the era of Ramones influenced UK bands, I guess. But I could definitely hear it as SLF. BJ kinda looks and stands like Strummer when he plays. His vocals sound a bit like Leonard from the Dickies. And I’ve heard 10th hand that he is a fan of them (I could totally see it). However, I think how people sing is how they sing. I’m not sure that the quirky tone, delivery and pronunciation is super intentional most of the time. Maybe, maybe not.
As far as replacement and husker, I barely hear that, either. The only anecdote is from my friend Bobby that used to drum for bad religion and was on that tour with GD. He immediately recognized the melody in the song 2000 Light Years Aways (the line where he specifically says ‘cause she’s 2000 light years away’), was exactly the melody of ‘and visit their graves on holidays at best’ in Bastards Of Young. To which he jokingly accused BJ of ripping them off. To which BJ jokingly confessed as true. And admitted to being a massive Replacements fan. And of course, he ended up playing guitar for them on a couple of reunion shows. But other than that, I don’t hear it much. Replacements are way better. Descendents? I once directly asked BJ at a show here in Tampa if he was into them and he totally was not. I figured they would be as gods to him, being the forefathers of the pop punk meets fart jokes humor shit. But he was pretty dismissive of them. I took it as a regional thing. A lot of NorCal bands, at that time, seem to look down on socal bands, and vice versa.

For Samiam, I’m not sure. You’d be surprised how click-ish these scenes can be. It’s like this here in Tampa. And I saw it when I was at Epitaph as well. There is an ‘in’ crowd, and a tolerated crowd. Sometimes you don’t sense it if you are viewing these bands from some other region and you figure they are all best buds and their crowds all intermingle. But the local music rags tend to favor certain bands over others, fans are enthusiastic for one band and not the other (regardless of musical talent), etc. I have always gotten the feeling that Samiam was kind of not part of that super in, Jawbreaker/Op Ivy/Green Day set, as far as the audience was concerned. So maybe that’s why they didn’t get included on the doc?

How is Bobby these days? He's an old friend of mine as well, but I haven't seen him since he was at an Avengers show here in 2007. Is he still a drum tech? I miss him; love that guy. I don't even know if he's on social media (any help would be appreciated).

I totally hear Leonard/Dickies and Mike/Social Distortion in Billie Joe's voice, btw, and in a lot of subsequent Cali-type pop-punk/whatever.

Not surprised at all about clique-ishness. I live in the world and went to middle school in the '80s. Hard to imagine Samiam not being part of that set given their roots in the early Gilman scene, Isocracy, etc. but I don't know.

[jaybird]

For Samiam, I’m not sure. You’d be surprised how click-ish these scenes can be. It’s like this here in Tampa. And I saw it when I was at Epitaph as well. There is an ‘in’ crowd, and a tolerated crowd. Sometimes you don’t sense it if you are viewing these bands from some other region and you figure they are all best buds and their crowds all intermingle. But the local music rags tend to favor certain bands over others, fans are enthusiastic for one band and not the other (regardless of musical talent), etc. I have always gotten the feeling that Samiam was kind of not part of that super in, Jawbreaker/Op Ivy/Green Day set, as far as the audience was concerned. So maybe that’s why they didn’t get included on the doc?

Not surprised at all about clique-ishness. I live in the world and went to middle school in the '80s. Hard to imagine Samiam not being part of that set given their roots in the early Gilman scene, Isocracy, etc. but I don't know.

I always thought of Samiam as being more influenced by D.C./Dischord bands, and more rooted in the late 80s school of punk that was moving more into standard "rock' territory, like Dag, Government Issue, Doughboys, etc., They also got tagged with the "emo" moniker pretty early on as well as I remember, so that might have also set them apart from the other Gilman bands of the late 80s/early 90s, who seemed much more cohesive and insular in their influences, and more self-assuredly "punk" in their overall, outlook/values/politics & image/aesthetic, etc... Which probably explains why I think Samiam and MTX were the two best bands to come out of that whole Gilman scene... they often seemed like the odd-men out of that whole scene.

[captain2man]

I both hear and see a lot of the old UK stuff in them. The chord structures could easily be SLF. You could attribute them to a lot of bands of the era of Ramones influenced UK bands, I guess. But I could definitely hear it as SLF. BJ kinda looks and stands like Strummer when he plays. His vocals sound a bit like Leonard from the Dickies. And I’ve heard 10th hand that he is a fan of them (I could totally see it). However, I think how people sing is how they sing. I’m not sure that the quirky tone, delivery and pronunciation is super intentional most of the time. Maybe, maybe not.
As far as replacement and husker, I barely hear that, either. The only anecdote is from my friend Bobby that used to drum for bad religion and was on that tour with GD. He immediately recognized the melody in the song 2000 Light Years Aways (the line where he specifically says ‘cause she’s 2000 light years away’), was exactly the melody of ‘and visit their graves on holidays at best’ in Bastards Of Young. To which he jokingly accused BJ of ripping them off. To which BJ jokingly confessed as true. And admitted to being a massive Replacements fan. And of course, he ended up playing guitar for them on a couple of reunion shows. But other than that, I don’t hear it much. Replacements are way better. Descendents? I once directly asked BJ at a show here in Tampa if he was into them and he totally was not. I figured they would be as gods to him, being the forefathers of the pop punk meets fart jokes humor shit. But he was pretty dismissive of them. I took it as a regional thing. A lot of NorCal bands, at that time, seem to look down on socal bands, and vice versa.

For Samiam, I’m not sure. You’d be surprised how click-ish these scenes can be. It’s like this here in Tampa. And I saw it when I was at Epitaph as well. There is an ‘in’ crowd, and a tolerated crowd. Sometimes you don’t sense it if you are viewing these bands from some other region and you figure they are all best buds and their crowds all intermingle. But the local music rags tend to favor certain bands over others, fans are enthusiastic for one band and not the other (regardless of musical talent), etc. I have always gotten the feeling that Samiam was kind of not part of that super in, Jawbreaker/Op Ivy/Green Day set, as far as the audience was concerned. So maybe that’s why they didn’t get included on the doc?

What about that brief moment of time you were on Go Kart & went on the first Go Kart Across America tour? Or is that a bad wound to re-open?

(whatever your impressions of that tour may have been.....it wasn't the colossal failure that the second Go Kart Across America tour was - and trust me - I know - I was on it).