In a House With Unlocked Doors… Part Fifteen
EPs and LPs
By Sharon Mitchell
Once the vinyl bug bites, it easily becomes an obsession, and I soon found out that with Green Day, there were so many records to collect.
The first recordings were made in small numbers, and when they were reissued, there were often changes made in the presentation – a different address for the record company, or maybe coloured vinyl pressed in very limited numbers.
I really got into the vinyl thing in those ‘wilderness years’ between American Idiot and 21st Century Breakdown, when the band slipped out of the public eye after the whirlwind of publicity that was stirred up by AI, and I began to find that people were putting the early stuff up for sale.
Whether this was because times were getting hard, or because a lot of the ‘old school’ Green Day fans didn’t like the new direction that they took with this bold rock opera, it was to my advantage.
I found that I could pick up rare stuff for very good prices. I cannot exactly remember the order in which I acquired these early recordings, and so I am going to go through my collection in the order in which the records originally appeared. That way, I hope I won’t leave anything out or repeat myself too often.
One series of items that had eluded me (and many of my collector friends) was the very earliest EPs and LPS recorded by The Lookouts, a band which was fronted by Green Day’s first record producer, Larry Livermore.
Legend has it that Livermore, a neighbour of the Wright family, met the young Frank Edwin III and decided that the hyperactive boy would make a good drummer.
It was Larry who gave that boy the nickname Tré Cool – and it stuck!
Then, in May, 2011, I had an option on buying three of the four vinyls from one person, who needed to raise money in a hurry, and through them, I acquired Spy Rock Road, IV and Mendocino Homeland.
Barely a week later, after posting pictures of the three titles I already had to my photo album on Facebook, someone offered me the fourth, One Planet, One People for a bargain price. These four vinyls – released between 1987 and 1991 – don’t quite complete the back catalogue of this band, however. I am still searching for a few of the compilation albums that their music was featured on, such as Limited Potential, Lethal Noise Vol 2 and Bay Mud.
If anyone knows where I can get hold of those …..
