Billie Joe Armstrong - Whole Wide World

Billie Joe Armstrong just released a cover of Wreckless Eric's classic Whole Wide World:



Good stuff!

I prefer the original:




And I also like this cover by The Prissteens better:




That's actually the first version I heard of the song. I heard the original after listening to that Prissteens version over and over again.
(I first heard them on Terre T's show on WFMU, where she said that The Prissteens put the angry in Shangri-Las. Awesome.)


You could go down a whole rabbit hole of covers of this song - The Proclaimers do a good cover, for one, (and one with Eric), and Torres, as did Green Day:

Foxboro Hot Tubs - Mother Mary

Just some music I'm listening to right now:

I really like this Green Day side project.

The Armstrongs - If There Was Ever a Time

So this took long enough - Tim Armstrong (Operation Ivy, Rancid, The Transplants, Tim Timebomb & Friends) and Billie Joe Armstrong (Green Day, Foxboro Hot Tubs, etc.) and two other guys last-named Armstrong that I'm less familiar with formed a band.



It's a fund-raising track for 924 Gillman Street. I've never been there, but my friend Jesse (The Criminals) has long been involved in keeping it going.

Green Day w/Tim Armstrong - Knowledge / Radio

Here is a good-quality sound video of Green Day featuring Tim Armstrong of Rancid, aka Lint of Operation Ivy. They cover Knowledge by Op Ivy, and then play Radio by Rancid. I can't really say "cover" here because Billie Joe Armstrong co-wrote Radio - he's got songwriting credits on it along with Tim and Matt Freeman.



It's a nice image - Tim and Billy Joe sitting on a porch writing, with no idea of their respective, successful, futures ahead.

Ken Yokoyama: Won't Turn Off My Radio

Back when I taught Junior High School in Japan, I had some students who were way into punk music. They introduced me to Hi-Standard and its lead singer, Ken Yokoyama and the record label Pizza of Death. One proudly wore a "Fuck Ken" t-shirt, which I can assure you they and Ken Yokoyama both understood.

I chanced to see Ken Yokoyama on Japanese TV playing his new single:



It's good. If you like that, you'd probably enjoy the rest of his songs, such as How Many More Times or Ricky Punks. Or this cover of Basket Case by Green Day.

Actually I had an interesting discussion about him and his English. I said he speaks English well - but with a very strong Japanese accent. The person I was talking to said it wasn't good, because it sounded so Japanese. I think both are good points. Ken's English usage is correct. He doesn't just sprinkle random English words into a song ("Let's Fighting Love!") but uses English correctly and well. Yet there is the accent. You decide.

11 Songs: Green Day

The first time I heard Green Day was on the radio, driving up to NY State to see a girl. It was a stopped-in-my-tracks moment. I remember Longview coming on, turning it up, and being really grabbed by the song.

So I've liked Green Day since then. I went out and got Dookie and my cousin passed me a copy of Kerplunk! and I taped them back-to-back on a cassette. I listened to that enough that when I hear the songs I can picture myself where I was living at the time - Maryland/DC - and driving around.

I didn't always follow them closely - I skipped most of their albums between Dookie and American Idiot - but kept listening to what I had and always cranking them up when their songs came on. Well, all except the (to me) inexplicably popular "When I Come Around." Yeah, it's good, but it never really connected with me.

I did pick up International Superhits, though, in between. As a Green Day mix goes, it is awesome. I keep that in mp3 form in my car and periodically just let it roll from "Maria" all the way to "Macy's Day Parade."

I will say that there is nothing from Foxboro Hot Tubs on here, but that seems fair. I like FHT, but Green Day playing as FHT feels different enough that I didn't want to mix them here.

So without much further ado, here are my 11 Green Day songs.

1) Longview.

The song that got me in the first place. I love the speed changes.

2) Basket Case.

If I had to play one song for someone to explain Green Day to them, it would be this. Minority would be a strong second, but this one is . . . the band in a nutshell in the same way Whole Lotta Love will tell you everything you need to know about Zep.

I stayed up late to see them on Letterman and give the performance linked here. No, I don't know what's with the video cut away in it, and I can't find my VHS tape of the original to check it. I love the raw but sharp sound they get here, complete with some distortion but just enough of it to add to the performance.

3) Burnout

Amazing drums at the start - brump, brump, brump. It's even better on the album, when it feeds into Having a Blast/Chump/Longview in what feels like one long song.

4) J.A.R.

Memorial/Story song. I like story songs. I also like clear emotional connections between the band and the content. This song really conveys loss without getting maudlin.

5) Minority

Yeah. Free for all, fuck 'em all. One of the smartest and most eloquently smart songs I know.

6) 2000 Light Years

The standout track for me on Kerplunk!, although their cover of The Who's My Generation is excellent and so is Who Wrote Holden Caufield?

7) American Idiot.

I'll admit I'd kind of lost track of newer Green Day stuff a little before this came out. Then I heard this track on WFMU and that prompted me to get the album immediately.

8) 21st Century Breakdown.

On the CD of the same name, this is a pretty good song. Live, such as on Awesome as F**k, it's really outstanding. They take it and run with it in a way that retroactively improves the album track. Much like the Rancid song "Radio, Radio" (which Billy Joe co-wrote, actually), live, it has some amazing kick to it.

9) Walking Contradiction.

Lyrically entertaining and really good musically. I'm always in the mood for this song if I'm in the mood for Green Day. "A smart ass but I'm playing dumb." That's pretty much this band, right there.

10) She

Another Dookie track I just couldn't stop listening to - and that's on a CD that really has no bad or skippable tracks, even the one I mentioned about not actually liking very much.

11) Static Age

I can't tell you what it exactly about this song for me, but I really enjoy it. It's on a CD that works better as a whole than in parts, but this is the second of two parts I liked enough from that CD to put on this list. Take that for whatever it could mean.


Really good band. So much I could have listed, but those really feel like a solid list of songs that have some meaning to me. Did I miss any of your favorites? If so, let me know in the comments.

Good Covers: Rockaway Beach and Covers x 2

It's a tight race for the top, but my favorite song by The Ramones has to be Rockaway Beach. The lyrics, the quick and pounding drums (especially after that little pause after the bridge), the straight-up guitar - it's all there.

This cover - another collaborative cover - combined the crooning of General Johnson and the Chairmen of the Board with Joey Ramone on a surf-swing version of the song. It's nothing like the slamming original, but it stands up as a great version of the song.

For a straight cover, I like the version Green Day did when The Ramones were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. You can skip ahead to the song, but honestly, just wait 1:55 and it'll start.