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.

Rancid, H2O, and The Interrupters at Terminal 5

Last night my wife and I went to see Rancid at Terminal 5 - her second show, my, uhm, I don't remember.

It was a typical Rancid setup - they headline, they have one band they're touring with (in this case, LA's The Interrupters), and one local band. The local band was H2O.

I was pretty happy when I saw that, because I had not seen them in a long, long time. I'm certain the first time I saw them was opening for the Rancid 1995 And Out Come The Wolves tour.

Turns out this is the band's 20th anniversary - and those shows they did opening for Rancid at The Roseland Ballroom were some of their first ever shows. In fact, if I went the third of three shows, which I think I did, I saw their third show ever. Pretty cool.

H2O was really good, and I enjoyed The Interrupters even though I'm not such a big ska fan (I like ska-infused punk, but not as much as straight-up punk.) I did enjoy their cover of Sound System by Operation Ivy (that's the old band of Tim Armstrong and Matt Freeman of Rancid)!

There is a setlist up, but it's got a duplication (they didn't do Junkie Man twice, I can't spot the missing song offhand.) Speaking of Junkie Man, they did that with Lars doing the Jim Carroll (Basketball Diaries, The Jim Carroll band) poem during the bridge.

It was a tight set - much less stage chatter than in the past. And their drummer (who I still think of as "the new guy" despite having been in the band longer than the original drummer) was very animated, standing on his kit a few times during the show. Very cool.

It was an interesting show, since it was the first full non-festival set I saw since Let's Go in late 1994/early 1995 that didn't feature "The War is Over" and the first show in years that didn't feature one of my favorites, "Black Derby Jacket." But I'll live - I like every one of their songs and they always choose good ones to play live. Really oddly, they only did one track off their excellent new CD, and that as an encore! But they played my wife's favorite, Olympia WA, so that's the most important part.

Here is a taste of all three bands live:
Rancid, "Last One To Die"


H2O, "Guilt by Association"


The Interrupters, "Take Back the Power"


Great show, I'm glad we went.