Unreleased Nimrod Session Tracks

[mrduckygoosy]

On 20/11/2017 at 2:48 PM, Kyle Serlington said:

Also, I know the Insomniac recording list is in this thread too, it has a song called "Insomniac" on it and I was listening to an interview the other day where Billie confirmed that "Insomniac" is the original title for "Brain Stew"

During which interview did he say that ?  

[Maddie86]

On 11/22/2017 at 9:30 PM, mrduckygoosy said:

During which interview did he say that ?  

I can't remember, sorry. It was a radio interview I found on youtube though, and it might have actually been from the nimrod era

[Bobbybarebum]

He's said that in a bunch of interviews over the years (although it gets a little confused), usually whenever the reference to the older album title being Tight Wad Hill is mentioned. I have a feeling it came up in one of those weird `unofficial` dvds like `Pogo Paradise` that had interviews with Winston Smith and the likes. It seems fairly straightforward that Brain Stew probably used the title being the one song about insomnia, then it was used for the album title instead.

"Before the name Insomniac was decided on, the band considered naming the album Tight Wad Hill (after track 13 on the album). After visiting collage artist Winston Smith for the album cover, Billie Joe Armstrong asked him how he managed to make such intricate pieces in such short times. Smith answered: "It's easy for me. I am an insomniac."[5] Armstrong himself has said that the album title comes from his own insomnia, after having been woken up frequently during the night due to his son's screams, Joey. Armstrong also mentions his insomnia in the song "Brain Stew"."

[localinsomniac]

I remember seeing somewhere many years ago that "Jesus Christ Supermarket" was a title they considered for Insomniac.

[pacejunkie punk]

18 minutes ago, localinsomniac said:

I remember seeing somewhere many years ago that "Jesus Christ Supermarket" was a title they considered for Insomniac.

That’s true

[pouty bitch]

2 minutes ago, pacejunkie punk said:

That’s true

Is it really? I thought that was just a joke that Billie made on twitter.

[pacejunkie punk]

26 minutes ago, G-L-O-R-I-A said:

Is it really? I thought that was just a joke that Billie made on twitter.

I thought it was. Can anyone else confirm?

[Maddie86]

58 minutes ago, pacejunkie punk said:

I thought it was. Can anyone else confirm?

they definitely mentioned that in a 90s interview

here ya go everyone, 5 minutes in...

 

[Libertine Angel]

Jesus Christ Supermarket is actually a pretty cool punk title.

 

 

Dibs.

[Todd]

Here's the interview that I recently did with Ken Allardyce:

1) How did you get selected to be the engineer? did the band pick you or was it the label or Rob as producer?
KA: I think it was Rob with whom I had already worked on a couple of projects

2) What was the band's relationship with Rob like in the studio? was he super involved or did he just kinda let them do their thing. This is their first album in standard tuning, was it something that Rob suggested they do or did the band write the songs that way?
KA: Rob was definitely involved in the tracking of Nimrod. As far as the tuning goes -I would imagine that was Billie's decision

3) Billie said the album was a lyrical nightmare, were there any songs that he especially had trouble with? Were there originally supposed to be vocals for “Last Ride In”?
KA: Now you are really testing my memory. As far as having lyric issues I don't remember scenes in the studio and I imagine this was probably Billie's personal nightmare. I don't think lyrics were ever planned for Last ride In certainly not by the recording stage

4) Were they frustrating to work with? It seems like they were heavily drinking during that time, did that work its way into the sessions or were they pretty professional during work hours?
KA: It was actually quite a fun time in the studio. I think being professional entailed a certain amount of partying for them! It certainly did not get in the way of working and the harder partying was only after we had finished recording for the day and had gotten into serious fussball.

5) What made them choose to not have Jerry Finn mix it this time around? Was it the band who didn't want to or was that a decision from the label?
KA: Probably a Rob decision

6) Did Billie play his guitar Blue a lot on this album? I know he used a lot of guitars but what were the main ones used for the rhythm tracks? “Hitchin’ a Ride” has my favorite Green Day guitar tone, what guitar, amp, and microphones were used to capture it?
KA: Blue was used a lot throughout. There was also quite a P90 presence in the form of Les Paul Junior which I think was the main guitar on Hitchin a Ride. Mics were a 57 and a U47 fet. Amp was I think a Fender Bassman through a Marshall cabinet.

7) What songs were finished from the start, and which songs took the longest to complete?
KA: We worked kind of sausage machine style eg. we got all the drum tracks then all the basses then guitars then vocals. Good Riddance was one of the quickest being one take (apart from the strings which we added later).

8) It is known that there are a lot of unreleased tracks from the Nimrod sessions, including covers of 19th Nervous Breakdown by the Rolling Stones, Alison by Elvis Costello, the Tony the Tiger TV commercial theme, and various tracks titled "Alfred E. Normal", "You Irritate Me", "Idiot", "Ugly Day", and "Slow". Are there any songs that you wish had made it on the album? Can you tell us anything else about these unreleased tracks?
KA: Let's get drunk and go out driving -later named DUI-was one of the unreleased songs we recorded. It was deemed too nonPC for release at the time.

9) Do you know why “Sick” (Later titled “Sick of Me”) was mixed by Neil King instead of Chris Lord-Alge like the rest of the album and B-sides?
KA: Don't know why Sick was not mixed by CLA. Maybe a scheduling thing as it was not mixed at the same time as the rest of the album.

10) You said vocals were the last thing to get recorded. Does that mean these other unreleased tracks had instrumentals recorded, but vocals never finished? (Sent him the picture of the vocal overdub list)
KA: I think it was a mixture -some were completed and others fell by the wayside as it became clear they weren't contenders for the album.

[Billie Joe's Fender]

Great interview, i always thought that Billie Joe used Blue on Hitchin' A Ride considering how he always uses it to play the song live, i wonder if he uses Blue for the solo.

[Maddie86]

I liked the title "You Irritate Me", and it fit one of my new songs well so I stole it https://televisioninfluenza.bandcamp.com/track/you-irritate-me

[luketrebilliemike]

It always amazes me how many songs they have worked on that get cut! 

[romie1415]

Apologies if this was already mentioned, but I (think) I remember hearing that Nimrod was originally going to be called "From the Basement" or something like that. I've tried confirming that, but haven't found anything.

Does anyone else remember hearing this?

 

[Todd]

7 hours ago, romie1415 said:

Apologies if this was already mentioned, but I (think) I remember hearing that Nimrod was originally going to be called "From the Basement" or something like that. I've tried confirming that, but haven't found anything.

Does anyone else remember hearing this?

 

I have never heard that. Very interesting, I'd love to know if that's true.

[Todd]

I thought I'd bump this just to add that the new Nimrod studio footage shows the end of the third list, Espionage. That's all we were missing. Also, in this interview, the engineer says that Last Ride In is the 26th song he's mixed so far in this session. So out of all 30 songs, at least 26 of them were mixed. 18 tracks of Nimrod, the four b-sides, and DUI- that's 23 songs that we have, so there are still another 3 songs that we haven't heard that received final mixes  


I also noticed that Sick of Me is not on the lists. I wonder if "You Irritate Me" could have been the working title for it

[alienlifeform]

54 minutes ago, Todd said:

I thought I'd bump this just to add that the new Nimrod studio footage shows the end of the third list, Espionage. That's all we were missing. Also, in this interview, the engineer says that Last Ride In is the 26th song he's mixed so far in this session. So out of all 30 songs, at least 26 of them were mixed. 18 tracks of Nimrod, the four b-sides, and DUI- that's 23 songs that we have, so there are still another 3 songs that we haven't heard that received final mixes  


I also noticed that Sick of Me is not on the lists. I wonder if "You Irritate Me" could have been the working title for it

In these new videos Billie say that they've had another surf song, but I didin't catch the name. Did you see this?

[Todd]

2 minutes ago, Alf said:

In these new videos Billie say that they've had another surf song, but I didin't catch the name. Did you see this?

Yes, that's where they were talking about Espionage

[alienlifeform]

1 minute ago, Todd said:

Yes, that's where they were talking about Espionage

oh, I see. Thanks

[Gonzalo17]

Why wasn't on that way Billie?? 

You Lied is in Eb tone, and in Insomniac promote video list, so I think that the engineers of shenanigans are correct and it was recorded for Insomniac. 

[Gonzalo17]

On 12/4/2016 at 9:45 PM, Maddie86 said:

first off, great research! I love this shit, especially since nimrod is one of my favorite albums. I wanna point a couple things out though. Espionage wouldn't have been on that list, it's an instrumental and that's a vocal overdub list. but then again, Last Ride in is on it, weird, maybe it originally had vocals! Also, look at the credits from Shenanigans. The nimrod session was recorded by Ken Allardyce and mixed by Chris Lord-Alge. Suffocate, Desensitized, and Espionage all list Ken and Chris in the credits. Rotting and You Lied list Kevin Army and Jerry Finn for the recording and mixing credits, so I think it's a safe assumption that those were part of the insomniac sessions. I forget which, but one of the Green Day books I have said that there were 20 or more songs recorded for insomniac, so when you count the 14 on the album plus Rotting, You Lied, Do Da Da, I Wanna Be On TV, and Don't Wanna Fall In Love then that gets you close to filling in that session (maybe the demo of Good Riddance counts for that session too). Now we have Sick of Me left, and I'm not quite sure how this one fits. Sick was recorded by Ken Allardyce, but it was mixed by Neil King, who is the recording (not mix) engineer from Dookie, so that's kinda odd that he would just mix that one song

J. A. R. Is the 20th track that is missing in your Insomniac list

[DC77]

We just gonna ignore the letters spelling out: "World vs. World"?

[aahhhh]

On 1/13/2021 at 4:37 PM, Todd said:

I thought I'd bump this just to add that the new Nimrod studio footage shows the end of the third list, Espionage. That's all we were missing. Also, in this interview, the engineer says that Last Ride In is the 26th song he's mixed so far in this session. So out of all 30 songs, at least 26 of them were mixed. 18 tracks of Nimrod, the four b-sides, and DUI- that's 23 songs that we have, so there are still another 3 songs that we haven't heard that received final mixes  


I also noticed that Sick of Me is not on the lists. I wonder if "You Irritate Me" could have been the working title for it

Since Sick of Me wasn't mixed with the original set of songs, does that mean there's another unheard song that was mixed?

On 12/4/2016 at 8:17 PM, Todd said:

I was thinking that too, but then I realize you'd have to switch perspectives. Sick of me is about someone being sick of the narrator, if it was sung "you irritate me" then it'd be the narrator being sick of someone else. 

I'm thinking this is why the song was mixed later. Either the lyrics weren't finished or they didn't flow well. So the lyrics were finalized after the main sessions, they recorded new vocals, mixed it, and put it out as a b-side. All speculation, though.

[Lenny]

Wow amazing thread here thanks to all of those that contributed. 19th Nervous Breakdown may have been finished or re-recorded later. From my understanding it was also on the completed tracklist for C&V. 

Nimrod is a special album for the band, it's really the beginning of their departure from their classic era and sound. It really shows in how many songs the band had prepared for it. It sucks that some got put aside in the sessions to possibly never be revisited or see the light of day.

I always felt like one day the vault could be opened, there's so many songs between Nimrod and C&V eras that we haven't heard. 

 

[WhiteTim]

On 1/27/2021 at 9:58 PM, Sheenius said:

Wow amazing thread here thanks to all of those that contributed. 19th Nervous Breakdown may have been finished or re-recorded later. From my understanding it was also on the completed tracklist for C&V. 

Nimrod is a special album for the band, it's really the beginning of their departure from their classic era and sound. It really shows in how many songs the band had prepared for it. It sucks that some got put aside in the sessions to possibly never be revisited or see the light of day.

I always felt like one day the vault could be opened, there's so many songs between Nimrod and C&V eras that we haven't heard. 

 

There is no complete track list of C&V...