(Single from album, “Stop Drop And Roll!!!”)
Garage rock gets romantic...
...and diverting somewhat from my set list of songs to review, here comes another pop punk review; ah, who cares, I was too excited to sleep, and I needed to write this one; they'll understand I think...
As time goes on, it gets harder to avoid this band; though just a re-hash of the Green Day line-up, and mostly an excuse to venture into a rawer, classic punk sound, with catchy riffs popping up everywhere, Foxboro Hot Tubs have a particularly warming, excitable feel rather than the starkly comparable edginess of their alter-egos; the main event...
Straight in with this track though, (and my complete lack of apologies for technically another Green Day song - nuh-nuh-ne-nuh-nuh!) and its just great. The bass is first noticeable as significantly more intricate than that of Green Day; or maybe I just mistake it as being more fun? I'm unsure, but what I do know is that, despite its apparent complexity, its one very simple bass line in truth, but one, which still does exactly what the bass should - backing the rest of the band. Billie-Joe Armstron's guitars are, to Green Day fans, everything that makes the band's power-punk 'betrayals' since 1994's "Dookie" so 'unbearable'. Here, they are purposefully put to work, and echoing the crunch and liveliness of Iggy Pop's "The Passenger", mixed with the speed of Squeeze's "Is That Love" (sort of), they are epic. Its all cheap crunch effects and distortion the whole way, and we love it. Similarly those punk drums are ecstatic and the centre of the anti-establishment/love-song punk, rebel cause. Its a nicely executed package to say the least...
And then there's the lyrics. As Americans, the Green Day lot have never been superb with words; ok, there are some great tracks, and, hey, the focus is the music mostly, and they do get it right-ish most of the time with the whole atmosphere at least, but, unlike the dry, employment-deprived Indie bands of own infamously depressed land, the garage sound, and indeed the punk sound, suffers somewhat lyrically. Well, "Mother Mary" is different. From the opening, elated cry of, 'Do you want to elope tonight?' to the poetic and contemplative, 'Anywhere is better from here', and ending at the exquisite and memorable, 'Oh Mother Mary, take my hand', the guys have got punk's classic 'words of love' down to an art; its explosive in its declaration of undying love, and in sound, likewise, it tries incredibly hard to exert every emotion on the listener.
In classic, indie, hipster, punk style, the track was the only song from the band's 2008 album to get a commercially available, physical single release, in the form of a 1/3000 limited edition 7" single. The whole thing, might I add, is a very nice touch to an already almost perfect punk love-song; the sleeve's added-for-effect aged appearance, the limited edition label on the front, and, naturally, the back cover, which I found personally, to be perfect; a picture of a Rickenbacker bass and an 8-track stereo recording workstation - two objects of my musical desire...
Its also got a real B-side too, and this is another brilliantly done aspect of the whole single, since "She's Not A Saint, She's A Celebrity", the chosen track, is perhaps the second best ever by this band after the A-side; so if you're going to own at least one piece of Foxboro garage musical history, you should, in my opinion at least, make it this one.
Great sound. Great vinyl. Great love-song.
Things to make you smile...
★★★★★
Versions of "Mother Mary"
Album/Single Version - 2:48