Early touring years 1990-93

[Hero_Of_The_Hour]

10 hours ago, Ham Pascale said:

While Billie Joe was the driving creative force behind the band, he was also the most useless when it came to actually being helpful while on the road. Mike, along with whoever was the roadie (...Aaron Cometbus, Kaz Hope, Lucky Dog...), took on the driving responsibilities. Tre (and John, before he left - although I use that term loosely - the band), despite his seeming carelessness and utter disregard of those around him, spent hours on end on the telephone booking shows, finding places to stay and figuring out the logistics. Billie Joe would just "sit in the back of the van and pee in the Gatorade bottle", and his one (and only, I presume) attempt at driving the van was disastrous, according to Jeff Ott.

I'm just going to say that this is in direct contrast to what Aaron says in one of his issues where he specifically mentions sitting up front while Billie drives and they both share a cup of coffee while Mike sleeps in the back and Tre counts the roadkill. It is also worth pointing out the extreme animosity that has existed between Jeff Ott and Billie and Aaron for a number of years to the point that Jeff wrote a very unpleasant song about Aaron and Billie so I'd take anything he says about Green Day, it's members or Cometbus extremely lightly. It's not hugely important in this context but in general it may be if he is a "source" of other information you read about them.

[Todd]

3 minutes ago, Hero_Of_The_Hour said:

I'm just going to say that this is in direct contrast to what Aaron says in one of his issues where he specifically mentions sitting up front while Billie drives and they both share a cup of coffee while Mike sleeps in the back and Tre counts the roadkill. It is also worth pointing out the extreme animosity that has existed between Jeff Ott and Billie and Aaron for a number of years to the point that Jeff wrote a very unpleasant song about Aaron and Billie so I'd take anything he says about Green Day, it's members or Cometbus extremely lightly. It's not hugely important in this context but in general it may be if he is a "source" of other information you read about them.

Jeff may have songs about Aaron and Billie, but Pinhead Gunpowder has their fair share of songs about Jeff too. I don't think Jeff would make up something as unimportant as "Billie drove the van once and it turned out pretty bad". No reason to discredit him over that. Now if it was a far more insulting accusation, then it might be worth second-guessing. 

[Hero_Of_The_Hour]

1 minute ago, Todd said:

Jeff may have songs about Aaron and Billie, but Pinhead Gunpowder has their fair share of songs about Jeff too. I don't think Jeff would make up something as unimportant as "Billie drove the van once and it turned out pretty bad". No reason to discredit him over that. Now if it was a far more insulting accusation, then it might be worth second-guessing. 

In all fairness Jeff is a self confessed rapist. If PHGP wrote an album about what a shit he is it would be justified. Clearly he is implying Billie was useless and just pissed in bottles in the back of the bus and couldn't even drive the bus once without screwing up. It may sound trivial but it's just nasty and Cometbus wrote back in the 90's that Billie was driving the tour bus so I'm calling Ott a liar. Unsurprisingly.

[pacejunkie punk]

3 minutes ago, Todd said:

Jeff may have songs about Aaron and Billie, but Pinhead Gunpowder has their fair share of songs about Jeff too. I don't think Jeff would make up something as unimportant as "Billie drove the van once and it turned out pretty bad". No reason to discredit him over that. Now if it was a far more insulting accusation, then it might be worth second-guessing. 

I can't speak to the accuracy of this but I do know that someone cited in another thread about Tre making a similar comment to the effect that Billie hardly ever drove the van and when he did it didn't go well. Just a funny story to whatever extent that it's true. 

They were okay with it of course, everyone makes their contribution in some way and Billie's was inarguable.

Maybe that tension was reduced later when Tre's dad took over driving duties. 🙂

[Todd]

2 minutes ago, Hero_Of_The_Hour said:

In all fairness Jeff is a self confessed rapist. If PHGP wrote an album about what a shit he is it would be justified. Clearly he is implying Billie was useless and just pissed in bottles in the back of the bus and couldn't even drive the bus once without screwing up. It may sound trivial but it's just nasty and Cometbus wrote back in the 90's that Billie was driving the tour bus so I'm calling Ott a liar. Unsurprisingly.

So because Jeff is a rapist that also makes him a liar? He was there, we weren't. If he says Billie only drove the van once, then why doubt him? Green Day did a lot of tours. Maybe Jeff was talking about the 1990 tour when Billie didn't drive, and Aaron was talking about the 1991 tour with Mike and Tre in the back of the van. They can both be right, y'know. 

[WhiteTim]

Maybe during the time this Jeff guy was with them Billie didn't drive but once? Perhaps he is only speaking on what he saw? 

[Hero_Of_The_Hour]

9 minutes ago, Todd said:

So because Jeff is a rapist that also makes him a liar? He was there, we weren't. If he says Billie only drove the van once, then why doubt him? Green Day did a lot of tours. Maybe Jeff was talking about the 1990 tour when Billie didn't drive, and Aaron was talking about the 1991 tour with Mike and Tre in the back of the van. They can both be right, y'know. 

Why doubt him? I think you are missing the point. It's not about if Billie drove or not. Who cares about that. As I said to @Ham Pascale it's about Jeff as a reliable source of information about Billie. He fucking hates Billie. I don't know where Ham Pascale is reading all the stuff about the band feeling entitled to trash peoples houses in Europe and verbally abusing their hosts etc but I've never read or heard this before. Maybe it's completely true. However if the source is Ott...I think not. Also the part about Mike and Tre doing everything in their power to help while Billie was useless on the road has never been told like this and is followed by the story by Ott of Billie not driving and so I question if that part also comes from Ott.  

[Todd]

1 minute ago, Hero_Of_The_Hour said:

Why doubt him? I think you are missing the point. It's not about if Billie drove or not. Who cares about that. As I said to @Ham Pascale it's about Jeff as a reliable source of information about Billie. He fucking hates Billie. I don't know where Ham Pascale is reading all the stuff about the band feeling entitled to trash peoples houses in Europe and verbally abusing their hosts etc but I've never read or heard this before. Maybe it's completely true. However if the source is Ott...I think not. Also the part about Mike and Tre doing everything in their power to help while Billie was useless on the road has never been told like this and is followed by the story by Ott of Billie not driving and so I question if that part also comes from Ott.  

Jeff isn't always a reliable source of information when it comes to Crimpshrine and Fifteen. But I have no reason to doubt his stories about Green Day. He's said some bad things about them, but I've also heard him say a lot of good. If he has problems with Green Day, they're over bigger issues, not small things like about who drove. 

 There are lots of stories about Green Day being dicks on tour, trashing houses, throwing stuff out of windows, etc. Here are 3 that I found within a minute searching their 1991 dates on GDA. I suggest you check out their 1990 and 91 tour shows and read some of the stories, I'm sure you'll find more. http://www.greendayauthority.com/tour/all/

Tim Golubeff: "Green Day, what a bunch of pricks. Cheri was nice enough to let them play at her place. ...The drummer told her to suck his dick becouse he's a man and she's a bitch? He was real close to getting his teeth kicked in that night."

Jones: "The apartment was pretty huge and situated on the third floor of a three-story building. The lower two floors, strangely enough, were occupied by an abortion clinic. The building itself was located just a couple of blocks from Jeffrey Dahmer's old apartment building, which was still standing at the time. Dahmer had been arrested just the previous summer, so we all drove by the building and marvelled. There were a lot of people on hand at the apartment. We decided to go greet Green Day and offer a handshake to Billie Joe. No response. Same from the other two members. Then Green Day decided that they MUST go on first so that they could go to bed, even though they were staying in Milwaukee and we and the other band had to be in St. Louis the next day. We explained this and the fact that the crowd would greatly diminish after they played. Their only response was that if they didn't play right then, they were leaving. So we let them go on and, as we expected, when they were done, half the room was gone. We recognized most of the people who had stayed, so we knew that if we played next, no one would see the last band. So we let them go and ended up starting a six-hour drive to St. Louis at 4 a.m. Green Day begged and pleaded the owner of the apartment to let them stay there. She was like, 'Okay.' Somebody put a Grateful Dead tape in the stereo. Tre Cool threw it out the window, and they got kicked out. So they were outside singing and acting like it was no big deal. Then the bass player started sidling over, looking at us like he wanted to give us the privilege of allowing Green Day to sleep in our van. We waved bye-bye and high tailed it on to St. Louis. I heard later that the guy who had organized the show let them stay at his house. This guy lived with his parents. Green Day showed up at 6am and promptly set about dying their hair in the guy's bathroom, getting hair dye everywhere and leaving a big turd behind the toilet. Wow. Punk, I guess. Anyway, that's the story."

Matt Branch: "Another time Green Day came to the area, they stayed at at a friend's house and, if rumor is not rumor, jumped on cabinets and opened cupboards, looking for anything they might be able to eat."

[pacejunkie punk]

That tour dates archive is a cool resource. I didn't know that was there. I'm gonna be spending a lot of time reading all that!

[Hero_Of_The_Hour]

30 minutes ago, Todd said:

Jeff isn't always a reliable source of information when it comes to Crimpshrine and Fifteen. But I have no reason to doubt his stories about Green Day. He's said some bad things about them, but I've also heard him say a lot of good. If he has problems with Green Day, they're over bigger issues, not small things like about who drove. 

 

 

 

like I said it's not about who drove, it's about him not being a reliable source because he hates Billie. Maybe he isn't the only source in this case which is fine but I'm advising caution if he is because you can't trust the opinion of someone who hates the person they're talking about. I don't know if you followed the drama a few years ago on punknews.org when he did his stupid song referencing Billie and Aaron but all of Billie's friends like Larry, Kathleen Hanna and Jessie Luscious etc were raging in the comments sections. The song is such attention seeking shit. When I see "Ott" mentioned in a paragraph now I see a red flag. I'm sure you are already familiar with the song but just in case...

 

[Todd]

9 minutes ago, Hero_Of_The_Hour said:

 

 

like I said it's not about who drove, it's about him not being a reliable source because he hates Billie. Maybe he isn't the only source in this case which is fine but I'm advising caution if he is because you can't trust the opinion of someone who hates the person they're talking about. I don't know if you followed the drama a few years ago on punknews.org when he did his stupid song referencing Billie and Aaron but all of Billie's friends like Larry, Kathleen Hanna and Jessie Luscious etc were raging in the comments sections. The song is such attention seeking shit. When I see "Ott" mentioned in a paragraph now I see a red flag. I'm sure you are already familiar with the song but just in case...

 

"At Your Funeral" came first though. That one's just as rude as Jeff's song. I'm not picking sides, I like Jeff, I like Aaron, and I know Jeff's done some shitty stuff. And that comments section was popcorn worthy, I know I've read that at least twice!  "Brother" also seems to be about Jeff. That one dates back to at least 1992 on the Mundt demo. 

But I really don't think Jeff hates Billie. Jeff doesn't like how Green Day use their fame, but that doesn't mean he hates Green Day. And he doesn't hate Billie. Which is why I can trust what Jeff says about Billie. 

 

[reneetaleena]

48 minutes ago, Hero_Of_The_Hour said:

 

 

 I don't know if you followed the drama a few years ago on punknews.org when he did his stupid song referencing Billie and Aaron but all of Billie's friends like Larry, Kathleen Hanna and Jessie Luscious etc were raging in the comments sections. 

 

Do you think all that drama is still online for me to enjoy? 

[Ham Pascale]

2 hours ago, Hero_Of_The_Hour said:

Why doubt him? I think you are missing the point. It's not about if Billie drove or not. Who cares about that. As I said to @Ham Pascale it's about Jeff as a reliable source of information about Billie. He fucking hates Billie. I don't know where Ham Pascale is reading all the stuff about the band feeling entitled to trash peoples houses in Europe and verbally abusing their hosts etc but I've never read or heard this before. Maybe it's completely true. However if the source is Ott...I think not. Also the part about Mike and Tre doing everything in their power to help while Billie was useless on the road has never been told like this and is followed by the story by Ott of Billie not driving and so I question if that part also comes from Ott.  

The part about Billie Joe spending most of his time in the back of the van was said by Tre Cool. (http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/tre-cool-on-growing-up-punk-and-finding-green-days-groove-20090515) Although I got the part about Mike wrong.

Quote

Mike said that on your early tours with the band, your exuberance was hard to take the first thing in the morning, especially if he'd been driving the van all night.
I did more driving than Mike [laughs uproariously]. C'mon! He did more driving before I was in the band. Billie maybe drove once, for a couple of hours. He was smart. "Eh, I don't want to drive. I'll just piss in the Gatorade bottle in the back." My hyper activity and high energy — that's all I know. I'm still pretty much of a nutball, when I wake up 'til I pass out.

I wasn't really aware of Jeff Ott's beef with Aaron and Billie Joe. I knew there was some bitterness present in their relationship, but not much besides that. I initially thought Jeff Ott was poking fun of Billie Joe in a friendly manner. I should have probably known better, since some things Jeff Ott wrote in his zine My World (like him calling out Jux for being a rapist) are controversial and some people accused Jeff of being a liar. I honestly have no idea who should I believe. And I apologize for that.

The part about Billie Joe and Tre trashing people houses, as @Todd previously mentioned were surfaced from Blogspot and Facebook. I honestly don't know just how true they are, but while a lot of people called out Tre and Billie Joe for being absolute jerks on that tour, they also pointed out that Mike actually came off as a good person.

[Hero_Of_The_Hour]

9 hours ago, Todd said:

"At Your Funeral" came first though. That one's just as rude as Jeff's song. I'm not picking sides, I like Jeff, I like Aaron, and I know Jeff's done some shitty stuff. And that comments section was popcorn worthy, I know I've read that at least twice!  "Brother" also seems to be about Jeff. That one dates back to at least 1992 on the Mundt demo. 

But I really don't think Jeff hates Billie. Jeff doesn't like how Green Day use their fame, but that doesn't mean he hates Green Day. And he doesn't hate Billie. Which is why I can trust what Jeff says about Billie. 

 

The comments were truly enjoyable  I got the impression Jeff didn't like Billie but I am absolutely certain that Billie didn't like Jeff and as of about a year or two ago (using his private IG account that let's be honest we pretty much all know about but can not mention) he was ridiculing Jeff with Corbett Redford on a very public page in a very nasty way. The level of anger and nastiness displayed by Billie suggested that there has to be similar feelings by Ott unless he's a monk which he very obviously isn't. 

8 hours ago, Ham Pascale said:

The part about Billie Joe spending most of his time in the back of the van was said by Tre Cool. (http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/tre-cool-on-growing-up-punk-and-finding-green-days-groove-20090515) Although I got the part about Mike wrong.

I wasn't really aware of Jeff Ott's beef with Aaron and Billie Joe. I knew there was some bitterness present in their relationship, but not much besides that. I initially thought Jeff Ott was poking fun of Billie Joe in a friendly manner. I should have probably known better, since some things Jeff Ott wrote in his zine My World (like him calling out Jux for being a rapist) are controversial and some people accused Jeff of being a liar. I honestly have no idea who should I believe. And I apologize for that.

The part about Billie Joe and Tre trashing people houses, as @Todd previously mentioned were surfaced from Blogspot and Facebook. I honestly don't know just how true they are, but while a lot of people called out Tre and Billie Joe for being absolute jerks on that tour, they also pointed out that Mike actually came off as a good person.

Yeah there was such a massive explosion of anger over the self confessed rapist calling somebody else a rapist who the entire punk community were defending. I wonder who we should believe. Hmm. It's not your fault obviously for being confused by the whole thing but Ott seems to be a very manipulative individual. 

[pacejunkie punk]

They were punk kids, of course there are going to be stories like that about them on the road. I wouldn't want anything said about me at 18 to be read and ascribed to me now.  But I read through the comments from 1990-1991 and for every negative thing there are also positive things about each of them. 

Tons of great stuff in there from people who were at their shows and whose houses they stayed at. Silkscreening their own t-shirts to sell, arriving late and missing gigs, shows with ten or fewer people (the ones that get recorded always look like good sized crowds), Aaron or someone sitting in on drums because Tre was on the phone booking gigs all night, and some real jerk stories about John/Al showing up randomly and insisting on playing after Tre had joined. What a control freak. He seems like he's still that way. The Sweet Children show at House of Blues he would not shut the fuck up. Billie and Mike were extremely patient but you can see halfway through they wanted to kill him. Nice of them to let him have his fifteen minutes of fame. It will never happen again and thank god.

And IRS offered them a record deal and they turned them down! They were enjoying this rough life and weren't ready for it to change. Amazing it's almost as if they knew it wouldn't be their only opportunity but of course they didn't. That's confidence.

[Hero_Of_The_Hour]

19 minutes ago, pacejunkie punk said:

They were punk kids, of course there are going to be stories like that about them on the road. I wouldn't want anything said about me at 18 to be read and ascribed to me now.  But I read through the comments from 1990-1991 and for every negative thing there are also positive things about each of them. 

Tons of great stuff in there from people who were at their shows and whose houses they stayed at. Silkscreening their own t-shirts to sell, arriving late and missing gigs, shows with ten or fewer people (the ones that get recorded always look like good sized crowds), Aaron or someone sitting in on drums because Tre was on the phone booking gigs all night, and some real jerk stories about John/Al showing up randomly and insisting on playing after Tre had joined. What a control freak. He seems like he's still that way. The Sweet Children show at House of Blues he would not shut the fuck up. Billie and Mike were extremely patient but you can see halfway through they wanted to kill him. Nice of them to let him have his fifteen minutes of fame. It will never happen again and thank god.

And IRS offered them a record deal and they turned them down! They were enjoying this rough life and weren't ready for it to change. Amazing it's almost as if they knew it wouldn't be their only opportunity but of course they didn't. That's confidence.

I wasn't obviously there so I can't say if any of the negative stuff happened or not. Of course it's all perfectly plausible. However I've read about the silkscreening of shirts a trillion times. There's a video on YouTube of Aaron playing a show until Tre shows up. The story about John insisting on playing the Bad Religion gig is infamous despite Tre being in the band. Billie must have told that one a million times. Many of the other stories may be true of course but many could be people just inserting themselves into the million preexisting interviews, footage and zine stories out there but adding a negative spin because back in the mid 90's you have to remember Green Day were hateful sellouts to those in the punk scene. As Kamala Parks has recently said regarding the boycott Gilman movement, (I'm paraphrasing), she will disregard any comments or claims made on Facebook or other social media because they are faceless. 

[pacejunkie punk]

But mostly it was just stupid immature stuff, nothing so terrible given their age. They do owe a few poeple money though. 😄

[Todd]

35 minutes ago, Hero_Of_The_Hour said:

The comments were truly enjoyable  I got the impression Jeff didn't like Billie but I am absolutely certain that Billie didn't like Jeff and as of about a year or two ago (using his private IG account that let's be honest we pretty much all know about but can not mention) he was ridiculing Jeff with Corbett Redford on a very public page in a very nasty way. The level of anger and nastiness displayed by Billie suggested that there has to be similar feelings by Ott unless he's a monk which he very obviously isn't. 

Yeah there was such a massive explosion of anger over the self confessed rapist calling somebody else a rapist who the entire punk community were defending. I wonder who we should believe. Hmm. It's not your fault obviously for being confused by the whole thing but Ott seems to be a very manipulative individual. 

No fair, citing Billie's private instagram  

4 minutes ago, pacejunkie punk said:

 They do owe a few poeple money though. 😄

Those comments always make me laugh!  

[Hero_Of_The_Hour]

33 minutes ago, pacejunkie punk said:

But mostly it was just stupid immature stuff, nothing so terrible given their age. They do owe a few poeple money though. 😄

With interest that comes to... 

31 minutes ago, Todd said:

No fair, citing Billie's private instagram  

 

It's all fair in punk wars 

[pacejunkie punk]

I'm loving the tour info pages. I'm reading about a local house show in 89 where Billie's mom calls during the set to yell at him for not feeding their dogs! He has to beg a ride home, feed the dogs and then came back and they finished playing. 😂 Good times. Hard to be a punk when your mom's waiting to whup your ass. 😂 

He must have left home soon after that. That was the last straw. 😁

[Todd]

3 minutes ago, pacejunkie punk said:

I'm loving the tour info pages. I'm reading about a local house show in 89 where Billie's mom calls during the set to yell at him for not feeding their dogs! He has to beg a ride home, feed the dogs and then came back and they finished playing. 😂 Good times. Hard to be a punk when your mom's waiting to whup your ass. 😂 

He must have left home soon after that. That was the last straw. 😁

I'm glad you're liking all those stories! They're the hidden gem of GDA, I wish more people knew they were there. Hours of entertainment, huh?  

[pacejunkie punk]

1 minute ago, Todd said:

I'm glad you're liking all those stories! They're the hidden gem of GDA, I wish more people knew they were there. Hours of entertainment, huh?  

Too many. It's keeping me up into the wee hours.