Billie Joe Reviews Brontez Purnell’s “White Boy Music” for Rolling Stone

[Todd]

It’s cool to see Billie writing reviews in Rolling Stone. Hope to see more of this in the future!

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/billie-joe-armstrong-brontez-purnell-white-boy-music-album-1129031/

[Thatsername]

Oh wow this is really cool! So now that he's become a writer maybe there is still hope he'll write his memoir too

[suffoKate]

Great writing!

I would like to know what everyone here thinks about the music of Brontez ... any thoughts?

[jengd]

I like BJ’s writing style, you can almost hear him say a lot of that, he does need a little bit of an edit though but that could be just the times on online nature of the review.  
 

I like the song embedded in the article and it made me think of The Roches, had a similar chaotic vibe for me, I quite liked it.

[Thelongshot]

Wow -  are there any limits to this man's talents?

[Beerjeezus]

This proves he can do well with a competent editor (remember the article he once wrote for the Financial Times? This is heaps better.)

[Karol Oliveira]

2 hours ago, Beerjeezus said:

 (remember the article he once wrote for the Financial Times? This is heaps better.)

I DON'T! 😮

[Little Boy Named Booze]

Really nice review!

[pacejunkie punk]

Yes I want to be his Editor but I love that he’s still trying new things (reminds me of 2014 when he did tons of new things during his forced year off). This kind of writing is clearly a challenge for him but a cool read, you can tell an artist wrote it —someone who has a hard time corralling his thoughts into a singular coherent narrative. It’s not like lyric writing, which is closer to poetry.  It is funny that we were just wondering if he would write his memoirs. This at least shows he has some interest in other kinds of writing.  

I wonder if this artist is included in the Golden Bull beach party that’s coming. That would explain the random review. The song they include at the end is a total bop 

[PursuitOfEpicness]

This is very cool, I am looking forward to checking it out!

[Guest]

I love this! I actually really like his writing--and I am saying that as someone with a writing degree who occasionally still does academic editing work. Are there little bits of grammar that could be fixed here and there? Sure, but I really love how the narrative flows. It's actually much better than a lot of things you read in magazines. He has an obvious talent for this.

[Clockwise]

This EP is very good!

[AlissaGoesRAWR]

9 hours ago, Beerjeezus said:

This proves he can do well with a competent editor

[Slave To The Network]

This is so Billie. It's such a stream of consciousness style of writing and you can tell he had a lot of fun doing this! He could use some practice and editorial expertise, but still, for someone without even a full high school education, it's not bad at all! I hope he writes more reviews. This was really cool to read! I will have to check out the record.

@AlissaGoesRAWR I think all of us writing types feel like vying for that position at the moment. 

[Beerjeezus]

On 2/18/2021 at 1:20 PM, Karol Oliveira said:

I DON'T! 😮

It was The Wall Street Journal not The Financial Times and in case anybody cares, I finally managed to find the article. Here it is, written by Billie Joe Armstrong himself (for real because a ghostwriter would have done a lot more polished job, but the stream of consciousness writing is actually really cool. It was nice to go back to re-read this).

http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2014/01/04/green-days-billie-joe-armstrong-the-dark-traditions-of-phil-everly/

[jengd]

I don’t see any article 🤨

[Beerjeezus]

3 minutes ago, jengd said:

I don’t see any article 🤨

What do you see? 

[pacejunkie punk]

18 minutes ago, Beerjeezus said:

What do you see? 

There’s a paywall

[Karol Oliveira]

1 hour ago, Beerjeezus said:

It was The Wall Street Journal not The Financial Times and in case anybody cares, I finally managed to find the article. Here it is, written by Billie Joe Armstrong himself (for real because a ghostwriter would have done a lot more polished job, but the stream of consciousness writing is actually really cool. It was nice to go back to re-read this).

http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2014/01/04/green-days-billie-joe-armstrong-the-dark-traditions-of-phil-everly/

Thanks! I even googled Billie Joe Financial Times and didn't find. Then I got shy to ask the link.

Now it's time to google how to get around a paywall

 

[jengd]

Got the article by just googling it, really good, again same style, you could hear him saying exactly what he wrote.  Thanks @Beerjeezus for bringing it up.  

[Beerjeezus]

11 hours ago, pacejunkie punk said:

There’s a paywall

Weird... first i could read the link until i got hit with a “sign up for free” thingy, when I try again it straight up tells to pay for a subscription.

[Guest]

Yeah I am getting hit with the paywall now too. I used to be able to get around that with WSJ but not anymore.

11 hours ago, Karol Oliveira said:

Thanks! I even googled Billie Joe Financial Times and didn't find. Then I got shy to ask the link.

Now it's time to google how to get around a paywall

 

When I first read this it sounded like there is a publication called "Billie Joe Financial Times." I won't pay to subscribe to WSJ butt I would subscribe to that. Interesting to see how Billie would operate as a financial advisor. 🤣

[Karol Oliveira]

1 hour ago, BillieMyLove said:

Yeah I am getting hit with the paywall now too. I used to be able to get around that with WSJ but not anymore.

When I first read this it sounded like there is a publication called "Billie Joe Financial Times." I won't pay to subscribe to WSJ butt I would subscribe to that. Interesting to see how Billie would operate as a financial advisor. 🤣

I'm not sure I'd trust my money with him 😬

😄

[Guest]

8 minutes ago, Karol Oliveira said:

I'm not sure I'd trust my money with him 😬

😄

Actually, I bet he could give lots of great advice about how to save money by living in an abandoned warehouse LOL.

[pacejunkie punk]

Googling the title worked for me. Here it is copied:

Green Day's Billie Joe Armstrong: The Dark Traditions of Phil Everly

By Billie Joe Armstrong

Updated Jan. 4, 2014 6:14 pm ET

 

My connection to the Everly Brothers goes way back. My mother was an Everly Brothers fan. I remember her playing them in the house and hearing songs like "Bye Bye Love" and "Wake Up Little Susie."

The Everly Brothers' harmonies are so immaculate. You can tell that they're brothers and have been singing together basically since birth. They improved on the whole craft of singing harmony, and their harmonies are pretty much better than everybody's.

Their 1958 album "Songs Our Daddy Taught Us"-- I thought it was just so dark. They sounded like angels or spirits singing these really dark murder ballads and old southern hymns and folk songs that go back to the 17th century. It was just so different for them being rock and roll stars at the time to then take this turn looking at their family history and singing these songs. It was impressive.

I've been singing harmony with Mike Dirnt since we were about 15 years old.  I've always had a more melodic side of me. Even in punk terms, I've always been drawn to melodies. The Everly Brothers, the songs are so good, and they are also very percussive. When the chords on "Bye Bye Love" come out, they come out rocking hard, there's no pretense at all. I feel like I really love the range of their voices, the tone of their voices.

The song that always gets me from "Songs Our Daddy Taught Us"  is "Put My Little Shoes Away." The kid in the song is talking to his mother and saying it's time for me to go. How could you not be affected by something like that? It's so real. Death is something that happens to all of us.  I'm still kind of in shock with Phil Everly dying—it's almost as if I can hear him singing that song.

They've influenced people already and the people they influenced don't even know it. If you're influenced by the early Beatles harmonies, then you're influenced by the Everly Brothers. If you're influenced by Simon and Garfunkel, then you're influenced by the Everly Brothers.  I think any time you hear harmony, the spirit of the Everly Brothers will live on forever.

I never met the Everly Brothers or Phil Everly. I thought that I'd run into him in the future. When I found out yesterday that he had died, I got to say I'm kind of in shock. I feel like I lost a relative.

They've been on my mind for the last couple of years, I've been thinking about this record and diving inside those harmonies and seeing the way they do things, and diving inside those lyrics and knowing they sang those songs on a porch somewhere in Kentucky. Anything that you're a huge fan of and paying homage to on top of that—when it's taken from you, it's sad.

I think their songs are about family and tradition. I have my own family. There are certain things in society that need to be torn down--these things that come in between the human spirit and people truly identifying with each other in a pure way.  Everly Brothers songs connect people and traditions. They're handed down. They're kind of like a family heirloom.

They were a part of the foundation of rock and roll. You have Chuck Berry and Jerry Lee Lewis and Buddy Holly and Little Richard and Elvis Presley---a lot of those guys are straight rockers. And what the Everly Brothers did is they brought that straight harmony in that is so important to establish how the future was going to go.

 

— Billie Joe Armstrong is the lead singer for the rock band Green Day. Last year, he collaborated with Norah Jones on "Foreverly," an album inspired by the music of The Everly Brothers.