Ending a week of Green Day albums with some quasi-Green Day that offers a sharp left turn from what anyone expected.
For all their faults, and they certainly have faults, Green Day know how to keep their fans chomping at the bit. In case you were completely ignorant to the realm of popular music last year, about a year ago a MySpace page and official website went live for a band called The Foxboro Hot Tubs. They were a punk rock band that had a sound that threw back to the era of ’60s garage rock, with jangly guitars, minimal production, and a suave vocalist that sounded like a classic 50′s and ’60s era greaser. This in and of itself didn’t warrant much attention, until someone came upon the band’s site, listened to the music and realized that the singer on certain tracks, namely “Mother Mary” and “Highway 1″, bore a striking sonic resemblance to Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong.
Now, this wasn’t terribly uncommon. A few years earlier a band called The Network, decked out in bad pro wrestler costumes, released an album with similar buzz surrounding it, though there was never any confirmation one way or another about The Network’s identity. But nonetheless, the music world went all atwitter over this new band and whether or not they were actually this other band. Eventually the buzz hit the rest of the world, and “Mother Mary” found itself climbing the Rock Radio charts, this about three months after the band’s initial discovery. Still no word from Green Day as to whether or not they were responsible. A few weeks after “Mother Mary” peaked on the radio, a rep for the band came clean and admitted that yes, it was indeed Green Day all along. Eventually a traditional album release took place, but by the time Green Day confirmed their secret identity, most of the magic of it had vanished. Nonetheless, Green Day fans who had been foaming at the mouth for new material for the last 3 years were able to satisfy their hunger for a little but, while Green Day continued to craft what would be their “real” new album.
Overall Stop Drop and Roll!!! isn’t a tremendous piece of work, but it got its job done. It was a goofy, unexpected little side project to blow off steam while the band’s members kept chugging along on bigger endeavors. It’s got some fun stuff on it in the form of “Mother Mary” and “The Pedestrian”, but it was never meant to be taken seriously. In all likelihood, history will remember this as a novelty, a quick pit stop on the way to Green Day’s much larger destination.
The Foxboro Hot Tubs – Highway 1 (YSI)
==TJ==
PS: The Moment of Zen has this weekend off. It’ll be back next Saturday
Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: | Album A Day, The Foxboro Hot Tubs
