Foxboro Hot Tubs

[alan nagsworth]

Okay so Green Day aren't every Verbwhore's cup of tea, and it's easy enough for even me to admit that American Idiot was so obviously a pile of wank, and Warning wasn't much to write home about at all. I had lost faith, I had lost my way. Then I heard over the past year they have recorded over 30 new tunes. Last year they released an album under The Network which was a stab at new-wave. I've not heard it though. So anyway...



this is their latest new pseudonym, performing with two extra musicians (the keyboardist and guitarist they employed for Green Day's recent live shows). My faith has been restored. The album Stop Drop And Roll is just awesome. They've taken on a distinct 60's garage rock sound and it works brilliantly, Billie Joe's voice works really well alongside it and he uses some good filter/reverb on his vocals to give it that almost psychedelic effect. If I were to compare it to any Green Day recording I'd say it was closest to Nimrod but really this is an excellent departure from Green Day and I'm only making that comparison as a big GD fan.

The album is a short and sweet 32 minutes long and the songs pack an awesome punch in their short lifespans, it's noisy and it's just bloody great. I've uploaded a couple of tunes for you to pass judgement, hope you like them as much as I do.

Red Tide
Ruby Room
Dark Side Of Night

[trotsky assortment]

Last year they released an album under The Network which was a stab at new-wave. I've not heard it though.

Last year?!  It's been out since 2003, nags!  Not heard it?  Then do, it's a great album.  I seem to recall that boki bought one pretty much on the strength of the time it spent at the top of my last.fm stats.

this is their latest new pseudonym, performing with two extra musicians (the keyboardist and guitarist they employed for Green Day's recent live shows).

That'd be Jason White and Jason Freese.  I'm still guessing they make up the other two members of The Network as well, despite rumours it's members of Devo. 

...As for Foxboro Hot Tubs (or Foxboro Hottubs, as last.fm are insisting they're called), I don't have one yet.  Heard a good chunk of it though and like it a lot.  Like yourself, I care not for the bloated pomposity of 'American Idiot' or much of their more recent output as Green Day, so these side projects returning to a more back-to-basics approach is very welcome.

[alan nagsworth]

Yikes really, 2003? I'm gonna seek it out now and give it a whirl.

I got chills from FHT's album, it pleased me so much to hear them producing good material again. They're still probably my favourite band as although I enjoy a lot of stuff more than Green Day for different reasons, they were the first band I ever got into and they've everything Nimrod and prior to has served a loyal companion consistently for the past 8 years. I really did think there was no hope after American Idiot but if anything that album now proves to be one minor blip in what looks to be a future of pleasant experimentation. Heh, I kind of hope they admit they think it's a shit album and that it was only a gateway to better things, that'll show those pesky kids!

[non capisco]

Even 'American Idiot' (autotuned to buggery and full of awful songs, yes 'Boulevard of Broken Dreams' I am looking at you) and those extremely grisly covers of 'The Saints Are Coming' (with U2, no less) and 'Working Class Hero' weren't enough to make me hate the band who wrote '409 In Your Coffeemaker' back in the day. I will check Foxboro Hot Tubs out on your recommendation, Nags. .

[Smeraldina Rima]

The Network and Foxboro Hottubs seem much less like a different band to Green Day than american idiot did. I still kind of worry that the success of AI means that the next Green Day album will be another dull rock album, but i'm delighted with these songs, and that billie-joe has bleached his hair and seems generally less extraordinarily vain in the pictures from these concerts. His perfect image everywhere through the American Idiot time was the worst of it. I liked it when he was fat and throwing mud, and playing going to Pasalacqua.

[Old Thrashbarg]

I haven't heard much of the FHT album (a couple of songs on the radio, basically), but it does sound a lot better than the piece of shit that was American Idiot. I remember pre-ordering that months before it was out, having not heard anything off it. The eponymous single was then released and didn't sound too bad and I still waited excitingly for the album to arrive. Finally it did, and what a waste of a few months that had been. It had virtually no redeeming features. A cash-in on the general feeling about America, with no new ideas, nothing to say and not even any decent music, from what, at the time, was my favourite band. And that was that; my favourite band gone shit with one release.

Based upon the opinions in this thread (including those of AI) and the couple of songs I've heard, I'll probably get the FHT album. Hopefully it'll be a return to form for the band I used to love.

[alan nagsworth]

next Green Day album

Buh? Why bother?

fat and throwing mud, and playing going to Pasalacqua.

AMEN! How he looks in the When I Come Around video - like a fucking hobo.

What makes me laugh about the teenyboppers who hero-worship American Idiot is their argument as to why it's so great - I've heard plenty of them say "they used to write songs about masturbation but now they have matured and are tackling real issues." Yeah alright fuckos, but I think the ratio of punk bands tackling 'politics' heavily outbalances the amount of punk bands tackling their tackle. The whole "look at america with their bombs what a bunch of nutters" shtick has been played to death over the years, increasingly so throughout Bush's presidency, and Green Day were even late on that bandwagon. I often wonder why they bothered with it at all.

And that second tag is such a ridiculous piece of shit I can't even comprehend it. Don't bitch for the sake of bitching, you're anonymous and you still look like an idiot.

[drberbatov]

Oddly though being a pop punk fan (Alkaline Trio, Lawrence Arms, X, Rocket from the Crpyt etc.) I never paid any attention to Green Day though through friends I had heard all of their albums. I purchased American Idiot and thought it was a decent enough album and a a real progression from their early stuff. The problem is that for 18 months the songs from the album were everywhere, chirst if I ever hear 'Wake me up when September ends' again I will lose it.

[trotsky assortment]

I just got around to buying this.

What happened to 'Highway 1', which was part of the original download?  Is it available anywhere other than that?

[trotsky assortment]

autotuned to buggery

Not being a musician or technically minded, what's the easiest way to spot auto tune?  To start with, I thought it was when voices sounded slightly un-natural and sort of shiny like that irratating noise which comes from the mouth of the Panic at the Disco 'singer'...but it can't be as obvious as that, can it?

[Marty McFly]

Not being a musician or technically minded, what's the easiest way to spot auto tune?  To start with, I thought it was when voices sounded slightly un-natural and sort of shiny like that irratating noise which comes from the mouth of the Panic at the Disco 'singer'...but it can't be as obvious as that, can it?

auto-tune at its most OTT is 'that effect' you hear on Cher's vocals in her song Believe. it just sounds like a bad warbling or almost yodelling type noise.

http://www.hometracked.com/2008/02/05/auto-tune-abuse-in-pop-music-10-examples/

surprised to see there's been no mention of Pinhead Gunpowder in this thread yet. just got their new 7" and, as always, it's top stuff!

[trotsky assortment]

Ah, so autotune is what I suspected.  Ta.

Pinhead Gunpowder, mmm.  I've got 'Jump Salty' (comp of their first two 7"s) and I've played that to death over the past 12 years.  I like 'Goodbye Elston Ave' too.  So far, I've never managed to pick up their other CDs or 7"s. 

So, there are 7"s that haven't made it to a CD release yet?

[Marty McFly]

Ah, so autotune is what I suspected.  Ta.

Pinhead Gunpowder, mmm.  I've got 'Jump Salty' (comp of their first two 7"s) and I've played that to death over the past 12 years.  I like 'Goodbye Elston Ave' too.  So far, I've never managed to pick up their other CDs or 7"s. 

So, there are 7"s that haven't made it to a CD release yet?

HTH old boy!

there's 5 CDs in total.. Jump Salty, Ellston Ave, Carry The Banner, Shoot The Moon, and the last one, Compulsive Disclosure, which is another 7" compilation. STM is the one I heard first and it's quite possibly the best. brilliant brilliant cover of "Achin To Be" by the Replacements.

a new 7" just came out, as I say, those 3 new songs haven't made it to CD yet.

http://www.greendaydiscography.com/phgp.html

the 'Down In Front' comp that's listed on that page, I have too.. 3 live-acoustic-on-radio tracks. there is a CD version of that too but I think it may be missing one or two PHGP songs.

[trotsky assortment]

Although I don't own one (yet), 'Shoot The Moon' has been available for listening via LastFM for the poast year, so I've heard it loads.  It is, as you say, possibly their best so far.  Recommended listening for those who dislike post-'Nimrod' Green Day.

[alan nagsworth]

What are Pinhead Gunpowder like? I'm intrigued but have no means of previewing or downloading their stuff.

[Smeraldina Rima]

What are you doing awake at this time you idiot! Pinhead Gunpowder are a punk rock band like early Green Day. They don't, from what i've heard, quite have the hits, but they do a couple of nice covers, Pave paradise put up a parking lot, and a soul song i forget. You could check youtube if that's within access. I like them.

[trotsky assortment]

Pave paradise put up a parking lot, and a soul song i forget.

The first one would, of course, be a cover of Joni Mitchell's 'Big Yellow Taxi'.  The second, I'm not so sure, as it's likely from a CD I don't have.

Nags, if you want to start with PG in a good place, see if you can track down 'Shoot The Moon'.  Actually, not so long ago, you could stream the whole thing from LastFM.  If you still can, punch it into your library and see how you get on.

[Marty McFly]

it's "Mahogany" by Diana Ross ;)

[alan nagsworth]

What are you doing awake at this time you idiot!

I'm hard at work! I mean... I'm hard, at work.

I'll bring my headphones in one of the nights and give them a search on Last.fm and YouTube. Sounds great though, early Green Day is the best stuff.