Monthly Archives: March 2026

#1377: Green Day – Tight Wad Hill

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Anyone remember the Green Day: Rock Band game? Came as a shock to me when it was initially announced in 2010. It was so close to the Beatles game that had been out for only over half a year at the time, and I like Green Day but I also felt there would have been so many more classic rock bands Harmonix could have dedicated a Rock Band game to. Like Led Zeppelin, or The Who or something. Green Day was a cool choice, though. I wasn’t complaining. I got the game. It was fun to play through the whole of American Idiot, Dookie, a large majority of 21st Century Breakdown and other well-known Green Day songs. Green Day was my favourite band for a while in 2005. By 2010, I’d had physical copies of Dookie, American Idiot, International Superhits… even 1,039/Smoothed Out Slappy Hours for years. But I think it was the release of this game that provided the impetus to dive deeper into the band’s discography as the year went on.

One day I came upon Insomniac, the band’s pissed-off, harder rocking follow-up to Dookie, the band’s big breakthrough album that had only been released a year before. It’s my favourite album of theirs because of the previously listed adjectives. I was well-acquainted with the singles from there, which I never fell out of love with, and the other songs on there were just more of the same. ‘Tight Wad Hill’ is the second-last number on Insomniac. I’ve been around Green Day forums and Reddit pages, and it looked to me that whenever there’s a ranking going on ‘Tight Wad…’ is the tune that’s always rated the worst or the least best. I remember liking it off the rip. Before then, I’d read about how it was almost the title track of the album before the bandmembers decided on ‘Insomniac’, so I reckoned it must have been considered a bit of an important song amongst the band during the album’s making.

Reasons I could think of, though. It follows the musical pattern of verse-chorus-verse-chorus-instrumental break-chorus that’s damn near on every other song on the album. The song details the depressing experiences of a drug addict, and that’s already covered with ‘Geek Stink Breath’, which also provides a more personal level of perspective. It’s also near the album’s end, so listeners are probably just waiting to see how the whole thing officially finishes. But it’s fast, it hits hard – Tré Cool’s pounding away on his drum set – it’s heavy, makes me wanna scrunch my face up. Billie Joe Armstrong’s sings an infectious melody with a snotty snarl, and Mike Dirnt’s playing some very cool lines on the bass guitar. And that’s Insomniac all over. ‘Tight Wad Hill’ does the job, it’s a great representative. Just a shame the band rarely play anything from this album. Insomniac appreciators out there, I’m with you.

#1376: Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks – Tigers

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Mirror Traffic, the fifth album by Stephen Malkmus and his sort of solo act The Jicks, turns 15 in August. I wasn’t aware of it, I’m sure I’ve said in a couple posts before, until a couple years later when the group’s next album was on the horizon in 2014. To the 18-year-old I was, it made sense to listen to the most recent work just to get a taste of what maybe was to come. The cool thing to find out about Mirror Traffic was that it was produced by none other than other singer-songwriter musician man Beck. I appreciate a Beck album or two. He and Malkmus had been mates since the ’90s. I never knew Beck to be a producer. I think he does a good job on …Traffic. It’s also the last album to feature Janet Weiss on drums before she went on to join Wild Flag and then reunite with Sleater-Kinney. People in certain circles know how the latter turned out. Weiss deserved way better. Digressing. I was in uni, it was time to hear Mirror Traffic. ‘Tigers’ starts it off.

Hull City A.F.C. is the name of a football (soccer, bleh) team in England, who are affectionately nicknamed ‘the Tigers’ because of the orange-and-black striped kit the team traditionally wears. Malkmus is a big fan. Their nickname inspired the song’s title, and that’s where the link between the two stays. Otherwise, the track is a kind of collection of evocative ideas and images that sound nice when put together. And really that’s Malkmus’s M.O. He sings about catching someone streaking in their Birkenstock shoes, he blares out the line “zits and toothpaste”, he rounds out the first chorus with “Change is all we need to improve.” A mixture of humour, near-absurdity and straight sincerity throughout, all wrapped up in under two-and-a-half minutes. I believe the whole track acts as an invitation to the listener to be one with the group. Not with the Jicks, but with the Tigers as the members call themselves in the bright choruses. Malkmus also wants you to know that you can put your trust in him, confide, he can be your energy boost. It’s all positive thinking on this tune.

The lyrics that close the song out have stumped music sites for years since its release. I’ve come to the conclusion the final “verse” is: “Hard believe I never had a spleen / Never had a spleen / Never had a dream / Ice cream with straw / Vagrant steel”. It doesn’t make any sense. Lyrics don’t have to. The ending of ‘Tigers’ really comes out of nowhere, a swift right turn from normal proceedings. But it’s great that way, keeps you on your toes. Mirror Traffic isn’t my go-to Malkmus/Jicks album. I’ve got an appreciation for it, just ’cause it’s by Malkmus and he’s straight up one of my favourite songwriters. But again, the tracks on the album that I’ve tried to succinctly write about on here are Malkmus highlights to me. I relistened through the album a couple years back after not doing so for a long, long time. ‘Brain Gallop’ jumped out in a way it hadn’t before. That was about it, though. That song would have a post if I were to do this all again. But that’s all from this album, it’s out of here. Expect more Malkmus, though.