Part 3/11

In the 90s, I was a hardcore MTV kid. With no internet, being too young to drive, no modern-rock radio station and no rock scene to speak of in Kingsport, MTV was the only window I had into the world of modern rock-and-roll. And in true Beavis and Butt-Head fashion, I was positively obsessed with music videos. My parents had bought me my own VCR that I could keep in the den and I kept a blank VHS tape inside labeled “Videos, Videos, Videos” that contained, you guessed it, music videos.

I would watch MTV for hours after school (and often before school) with my tape ready to rock so I could press record on a video I hadn’t seen before. It was reminiscent of the times I stood by the radio waiting patiently for my favorite songs to come on so I could record them onto a cassette tape. I suppose you could say me evolving to recording music videos was just another Video Killed the Radio Star moment and you’d be correct.

Fortunately for me, 90s MTV was the shit and as far as I’m concerned, 1995 was PEAK music television. Just to name a FEW of the hot releases from 1995, my local CD stores were packed to the brim with the likes of …

• Everclear – “Sparkle and Fade”
• The Ramones – “¡Adios Amigos!”
• Jewel –  “Pieces of You”
• Bon Jovi – “These Days”
• The Presidents of the United States of America – “The Presidents of the United States of America”
• White Zombie – “Astro-Creep 2000”
• Foo Fighters – “Foo Fighters”
• AC/DC – “Ballbreaker”
• No Doubt – “Tragic Kingdom”
• Red Hot Chili Peppers – “One Hot Minute”
• Smashing Pumpkins – “Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness”
• Oasis – “(What’s The Story) Morning Glory?”
• Alanis Morissette – “Jagged Little Pill”

And with these powerhouse records came their powerhouse singles and with those powerhouse singles came their powerhouse videos. My “Videos, Videos, Videos” tape boasted the likes of RHCP’s “Coffee Shop,” Bon Jovi’s “Something for the Pain,” PUSA’s “Peaches” and Smashing Pumpkins’ classic video for “1979” to name a few.

There was one video from 1995, however, that was unlike the rest. Three young men stand in a small waiting room with their instruments. After pounding away on the song’s intro, it’s revealed that the location is a dentist’s office and another young man makes his way into the exam room. Over the course of the next two minutes, the viewer is given a first-person angle of the patient being numbed and having a very rotten tooth pulled and plugged.

It was gruesome and so was the song. It was simple, yet heavy, and I loved how difficult the video was to watch. It was rock-and-roll that made me actually feel a little something, even if that little something was queasy. I needed this record in my life and I needed it now.

The problem was I had recently gotten into a few arguments with my parents over the content of some modern rock songs. At one point I had even been forbidden from watching MTV at all. And I obeyed while I was at home … of course, I would watch MTV non-stop while visiting my dad two weekends out of the month. Either way, as far as my parents were concerned, I was only listening to classic rock, radio pop and country at this point, having no way of listening to modern rock.

Fortunately by 1995, many of these restrictions had let up (as made evident by my music videos tape) but they were still very cautious about what kind of music I was letting into my young ears. Still, I was obsessed with this song and couldn’t think about anything else, so I built up the courage to ask my mom if she would take me to the store so I could buy it.

She agreed to take me to the now-extinct department store Hills to buy the CD with money I had saved provided that I could promise the band didn’t sing about sex or drugs. I agreed that the request was reasonable and promised no sex or drugs would be mentioned on the album, thinking that a band of dudes singing a heavy song while another dude got a tooth pulled surely would never talk about sex, right?

We pulled into Hills, I walked straight back to the music section and there, in the new releases I saw it and my life was immediately, inexplicably, complete.

3) Green Day – Insomniac

Released October 10, 1995; Produced by Rob Cavallo and Green Day

If you weren’t following along above, the song I’m talking about is “Geek Stink Breath,” which is a heavy, aggressive song about the sad reality of the band’s hometown scene in the San Francisco Bay area falling to heavy drug use – primarily meth. In fact, the chorus begins with “I’m on a roll / no self control; I’m blowing off steam with methamphetamine.” As a 10-year-old boy, I had no idea what methamphetamine was. I was so excited to read the lyrics in the CD booklet so I could learn them yet was positively stumped when I came across that monstrosity of a word. I, an idiot, proceeded to ask my mother, whom I had promised this new album didn’t talk about drugs, what methamphetamine was.

She wasn’t pleased but she took it well. Fortunately she let me hang onto the record but if she had only known about the language throughout she probably would have changed her mind. Parental Advisory stickers had long been in place by this point but for some reason this record didn’t receive one (and neither did their more-foul followup Nimrod). But it wasn’t the drug references or the foul language that attracted me to this record, it was the energy and overarching theme of alienation.

In true Punk Rock fashion, only two of the album’s 14 tracks surpass the three-minute mark and nearly every song is packed with an off-the-walls energy that their previous attempt, Dookie, hinted at but didn’t truly achieve. Reportedly the band would record in short spurts after getting loaded on obscene amounts of coffee and the results definitely come through on the recording.

This isn’t to say that the album is sloppy by any means. In fact, the band had taken their sound to a new level with this record, looking away from their Punk Rock peers and toward engineering masters such as the Beatles to get the perfect tone for each track. I love that the guitar tone is slightly different, yet cohesive, on every song and every bass note, every guitar pattern and every cymbal can be clearly heard. Sonically it’s one of the more polished Punk Rock records of the time.

And then you have to consider the harsh realities the band was facing at the time that make up the meat and potatoes of this record: equal parts abandonment by their scene and motivation to prove they weren’t a one-and-done kind of band after the success of Dookie. Earlier this year I read Smash! Green Day, The Offspring, Bad Religion, NOFX, and the ‘90s Punk Explosion by Ian Winwood. In this book, I learned all about the Berkeley, CA, Punk venue 924 Gilman Street. Gilman literally set the stage for many Bay Area Punk bands to find their voices and future success – bands such as Operation Ivy, Rancid, AFI and the Offspring got their start playing there. Gilman was a DIY venue run by volunteer punkers where tickets would only be sold to club members who paid monthly dues. My guess is the monthly dues paid the bills, ticket sales paid the bands.

Green Day also got their start playing at Gilman and were, unfortunately, one of the first bands to fall victim to one of the club’s most strict rules: your band was only allowed to play if you were truly independent. Many of the area’s “bigger” bands had signed to Epitaph Records (started by Bad Religion guitarist Brett Gurewitz), which while well-known and reputable, is and always has been an indie label. Green Day had released their first two records, 1,039/Smoothed Out Slappy Hours and Kerplunk under indie label Lookout! Records but decided to sign with Reprise Records in 1993, a subsidiary of Warner Music Group founded by Frank Sinatra. This effectively banned them from Gilman.

Not to be deterred, Green Day released Dookie in 1994 to much fanfare and success, selling over 10-million copies. And despite many public displays that indicated they had maintained their Punk Rock attitude (the mud-slinging incident at Woodstock 94 and Hatch Memorial Shell incident, also in 94, come to mind), they were largely severed from their hometown scene, a reality that didn’t sit well with Billie Joe, Mike and Tre. The fact that their scene had left them hanging so hard and the distance causing them to see the Bay Area Punk scene for what it truly was are what primarily fuels the aggression of Insomniac.

And before I get into the songs I love, can we please talk about the cover art? The proper cover is merely a quarter of the overall album artwork entitled God Told Me to Skin You Alive by famed collage artist Winston Smith. I would get lost in the collage as a kid, moving from the alarming depiction of a doctor performing what appears to be dental surgery on a horrified patient in a torture device, to Uncle Sam praying on his knees in front of a giant eight-ball, an old television and an armadillo, to chimpanzees wearing hats and either riding a tricycle or standing atop a ball printed with the Tennessee Tri-Star design, to a woman holding Billie Joe’s Stratocaster and a revolver to the nose of a man sleeping in a hammock, to a reddened moon behind flames that contain hidden faces, to the proper cover focus depicting a violin-playing person with their ribs exposed via x-ray and a phoropter over their face. This was not my first exposure to Winston Smith but it was definitely the first time I’d experienced his art and had a name to go along with the work.

Strong Points

No Pride

I think what attracts me to “No Pride” so much is Tre Cool’s drum fills throughout. The song seems to be a first-person narration of someone who is either living in the slums of society or at least strives to live on the outskirts of what many would believe are polite social norms. I may be looking into the song a little too deeply from a philosophical standpoint but lyrics like “You better swallow your pride or you’re gonna choke on it; You better digest your values ‘cause they turn to shit” feel like a poetic way of saying all the things social elitists stand for and all the things they hold dear are, ultimately, empty. Status and money are what we often strive for in this society and take pride in – a pride this narrator ironically seems very proud of not having.

Panic Song

The longest song on the record, “Panic Song” has a build-up that you don’t get in Punk Rock very often. In fact, the build-up makes up the majority of the song’s 3:35 runtime. Tre Cool’s rumbling drums fire off with expert precision and are said to have caused his blistered hands to rupture into a violent scene of blood and pus while trying to get the perfect take. Meanwhile, Mike Dirnt has said his goal was to just play his one-note bass line as fast as he could, which he does consistently for nearly two minutes. Reportedly the song is supposed to imitate the feelings one gets while having an actual panic attack, the intensity building with the intro, the full-panic kicking in by the finale of the song with its melodic “I wanna jump out!” repeated multiple times before finally ending.

Tightwad Hill

Recently I learned how to play this entire record front-to-back on guitar and I have to admit that “Tightwad Hill” wasn’t on my favorites list until this project. Musically it’s not unlike any other Punk Rock 101 song but I love the melody and lyrics. The song is about how the stuff the guys used to do when they were younger (namely drugs) just weren’t as fun as they used to be. It may not have been their intention but the song’s style and it’s placement toward the end of the record reminds me of how “In the End” is tacked onto the end of Dookie before the album wraps, almost like one more fast-paced and seemingly random Punk song to (almost) end on.

Favorite Songs

Geek Stink Breath

Already talked about this one up top but just to reiterate – this is my favorite Green Day song, and it’s one of my favorite Punk songs of all time. The palm-muted chugging of the guitar in the intro gets me moving in the same way it does in a lot of Thrash Metal songs (though to be clear, this song is nowhere near fast enough to be considered Thrash). I especially love how the guys took an abnormally aggressive song and paired it with a damn-near obscenely aggressive video and somehow got it all on MTV. Katie says I love to have my senses assaulted and she’s right. This song and its accompanying music video could definitely be considered assaulting, and I am here for it 100 times over. 

Bab’s Uvula Who?

I think what sets apart “Bab’s Uvula Who?” is the melody of the verses and Billie Joe’s distinct delivery. Right out of the gate, Billie frustratingly laments, “I’ve got a knack for fucking everything up,” followed by a flown temper and the narrator getting himself “all wound up.” It’s also very pleasing how each line’s lead-in is backed by a simple rhythm paired with a double chord hit from the bass and drums, then when the followup to each line is spouted – “I get myself all wound up,” the music grows a little more chaotic before coming back down again for the next line. Then when the chorus kicks in, the “wound up” essence of the song flows as the band plays together. It’s simple, yet perfectly tells the story of how we all tea-kettle (as my wife puts it) until we eventually let loose.

Jaded

Often overlooked since it’s frequently just paired with mega-hit “Brain Stew,” “Jaded” is one of my other all-time favorite Green Day songs. Almost a continuation of “Longview,” the song speaks of a boredom that has now evolved into nihilism. The song is fast, short and pure Punk Rock fury and to make it even better, the music video adds to the energy and chaos as the band jumps around in a small room crowded with toys and a variety of other distracting pieces. It stands strong on its own but even though I gripe about the popularity of “Brain Stew,” its slow, sludgy pace and monochrome music video make for the perfect setup for this scorcher.

Again, while Green Day wasn’t the first Punk Rock I ever heard, it was indeed Insomniac that gave me an appreciation for the more modern version of the genre. I think Pop-Punk bands like Green Day, Blink 182 and New Found Glory often get a bad reputation because they’re so accessible and aren’t as serious as the Dead Kennedys and Leftover Cracks of the world. I’d argue, however, that an 11-year-old middle-class boy isn’t terribly upset with Tipper Gore (yet) and is very much likely to believe Nazism died off in the 40s. The tougher, more “serious” Punk Rock sounds great but I think its subject matter would be a little too heavy for someone that age and would therefore be a potential turnoff.

Having accessible versions of Punk Rock – played on the radio, no less – is a great way to introduce people of all ages and walks of life to the genre. We’d all be lying if we said our first enjoyable Punk Rock experience came from one of the more hardcore bands, and if it was, it’s highly likely that you were introduced to that energy from somewhere else – and THAT place evolved out of something accessible. 

I’ve loved Green Day forever and will continue to love them until the end of time. This record stands tall to me not only as a great piece of Punk Rock history but as the record that made me go all-in on the genre. The more I learn about it, the more it turns me on as well. It wasn’t long ago I had a come-to-Jesus (of Suburbia) moment with myself regarding Green Day. I had gotten sick of hearing their hits from the American Idiot album and was irritated that the music they were playing just wasn’t the same as the Green Day I’d always heard and it seemed like their exposure on the radio changed everything for them.

But then I realized that we’re all supposed to change and evolve. They’ve already made Dookie, Insomniac and Nimrod, it would be boring if all they did was create those three albums over and over again. And overplayed though it may have been, American Idiot is a quality record written and performed by quality musicians who started off as punks and, as far as I’m concerned, are still doing the label proud. We all take jobs so we can pay our rent – Green Day just happened to be really good at what they did and now rent is easier for them to pay than ever.

Insomniac wasn’t the promotional powerhouse Dookie had been, primarily due to every song having foul language and the record having an overall “depressing” theme but it received mostly high praise at the time of its release. The record debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard 200, a spot they also held in Austria and Canada, and has gone double-platinum in Canada and the United States, selling 10,000,000 copies worldwide. Pretty impressive for one of their lesser-celebrated records, no?