Johnny Rotten has lived in Los Angeles for the last two decades, and for a time considered his post-Sex Pistols project Public Image Ltd to be an L.A. band, he told The Times recently when he loaded into the passenger side of an old Volvo to get ferried to a video interview downtown. If any of that information is news to you, the video above will perhaps serve you well. In it, Lydon, whose work with the aforementioned two bands transformed rock music in myriad ways over the course of the 1970s and '80s, is his typically acerbic self.

The punk archetype, who turns 55 on Monday, pulled no punches over the course of two hours in the car and at The Times building, especially when the subject of the current breed of punk bands came up. Specifically, Green Day, whose music Rotten apparently dislikes.

Said Lydon when asked about his inheritors: "Many of the punk bands are cop-outs and imitators and have made it easy for the likes of Green Peace -- Green Day, who I hate. I really ... I can’t stand them. To me, they’re like coat hangers, and haven’t earned the right, they haven’t earned the wings, to be wearing the mantle of punk. They haven’t had to go through the violence, and the hate, and the animosity that us chaps way back when had to put up with. We had to fight for every single footstep."

 
Rocker Melissa Etheridge will jump into the role of St. Jimmy in the Broadway production of Green Day’s “American Idiot” for the first week of February, the show’s producers announced Tuesday. She’ll take over for Green Day frontman and songwriter Billie Joe Armstrong, who has been playing the character for a 50-performance limited engagement.

“Billie Joe and I always believed that it would be incredible to have a woman take on the role of St. Jimmy,” said the show’s director, Michael Mayer. “This character is seductive, thrilling and dangerous.  Melissa Etheridge is all that and so much more.”

The singer, songwriter and guitarist will appear in performances Feb. 1-6, after which Armstrong will resume the role Feb. 10 and continue his remaining performances through Feb. 27.

-- Randy Lewis

Photo: Melissa Etheridge in 2005. Credit: Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times

Pop & Hiss had a case of New York-envy this week, when Green Day's Billie Joe Armstrong, a California boy, no less, had a brief stay on Broadway. Armstrong, filling in for star Tony Vincent, took over this week the role of drug-pushing evil-doer St. Jimmy in "American Idiot," the theatrical production inspired by the 2004 Green Day album of the same name. Times staffer Pamela Wilson, however, made the cross-country trip, and filed this guest post for Pop & Hiss on her reactions to Armstrong's jump to Broadway.

Billie Joe Armstrong is not a large man, but he knows how to fill up a stage.

Birthed in punk, the Green Day frontman has become a fine rock 'n' roll showman. Still, he's no doubt an artist more used to holding an audience of 20,000 in the palm of his hand than interacting with a cast of professional actors. But on Wednesday night on the stage of the St. James Theatre in New York, he seemed more than comfortable on Broadway, coming off like a pocket-pistol Ethel Merman.

Filling in for regular scene-stealer Tony Vincent as St. Jimmy in "American Idiot," Armstrong had no problem remembering the lyrics, seeing as how he wrote them. As the drug-pushing alter ego of the main character, Johnny, played by Tony-winner John Gallagher Jr., Armstrong did all the choreography and stage business required for the part, including stripping off his shirt and carving a bloody heart into his chest before shooting himself in the head with a toy gun. "Bang!"

Green Day completed the jump from Berkeley to Broadway earlier this year when the musical inspired by the act's blockbuster 2004 album, "American Idiot," officially opened at the St. James Theatre in April. Now, Green Day lead singer Billie Joe Amrstrong will spend time off next week from his punk rock bandmates singing and emoting on the Broadway stage, temporarily stepping in for Tony Vincent to assume the role of St. Jimmy.  

Armstrong will appear in the musical Tuesday through Oct. 3, and then will join his band on tour in South America. Vincent will return to the production Oct. 12, having to briefly leave "American Idiot" for what a press release distributed today described as a "personal family matter." Following Armstrong's short run, understudies Joshua Kobak and Andrew Call will fill in for Vincent until he returns. 

In St. Jimmy, Armstrong will take on a pivotal role in the musical. Though not the ensemble cast's lead, which belongs to John Gallagher Jr.'s Johnny, St. Jimmy is the musical's drug pusher and all-around bad dude, sending the suburban-raised Johnny into a drug-addled spiral of nowhereness and empty relationships. By taking on the role of St. Jimmy, the good news for Armstrong -- and perhaps the bad news to audience members -- is that the rock star won't have to partake in any of the show's major simulated love scenes. But look for Armstrong to tackle moments of "Know Your Enemy" and "Last Night on Earth."

There's no "American Idiot" without Screeching Weasel. If the Ramones helped define the pop-punk template for urban malaise, Screeching Weasel reclaimed it for suburbia. The down-and-out, disillusioned and financially unstable couch-bound characters that dominate the Green Day soap opera were the misfit heroes of nearly every Screeching Weasel album.

That opening paragraph makes the bratty Screeching Weasel out to be something serious. Make no mistake, the band grappled with aging (the fear of impending fatness in "Pretty Girls Don't Talk to Me"), tolerance ("I Wanna Be A Homosexual") and themes of maturity throughout its career. Ben Weasel (real name: Ben Foster) colored his insecurities with conversational, self-deprecating details. "I'm sure you got a boyfriend and he's probably a lawyer or something" he sang on "I Wanna Be With You Tonight."

Of course, he also pleaded with girls to "Lose the Dink," bragged about his political indifference and had little use for metaphors, unless they were somehow related to television shows. "If you were a TV show," Weasel told one ex, "baby, you would have been cancelled." 

Snarling its way out of the northwest suburbs of Chicago in the late '80s, Screeching Weasel created the roadmap for what would be the mid-'90s pop-punk explosion, when the songs of Green Day, Blink-182 and Offspring made the slacker a king. Screeching Weasel's anthems weren't of the woe-is-me-sort, however. There was anger, but this was motivation through sarcasm, and "old folks," Led Zeppelin, surfers and girls with boyfriends were the target of Weasel's venom. 

Now on the reunion circuit, Screeching Weasel plays Club Nokia in Los Angeles on Sunday night, making a rare appearance outside of the Midwest. The night prior, Weasel-off-shoot the Riverdales (Screeching Weasel with less snarl and more pop) will appear at the Troubadour. The Weasel Weekend is a well-deserved and long overdue victory lap, and not simply because it keeps songs such as "Amy Saw Me Looking At Her Boobs" alive in the American rock 'n' roll canon. 

Look, Pop & Hiss understands the Club Nokia gig is not a cheap ticket for a punk rock show. While the $21 list doesn't seem so steep, various Ticketmaster fees and AEG building fees ultimately result in a $41.40 ticket. That's a Hollywood Bowl-like investment you're looking at right there. But there are reasons Screeching Weasel may be worth the cash.

Billie Joe Armstrong and company reinforce their scrappy punk status at the Verizon Wireless Amphitheater, inviting fans to come on stage and sing along.

Heads up, Jerry Brown and Meg Whitman: You may be in for some unexpected company come November.

“I’m running for governor of California!” Billie Joe Armstrong revealed Tuesday night at Irvine’s Verizon Wireless Amphitheater, where Green Day played one of the final dates of its U.S. tour in support of last year’s “21st Century Breakdown.”

That this announcement came not long after the frontman declared (in slightly saltier language) that he’s a rock star and can therefore do whatever the heck he wants was no cause for worry: Armstrong is a benevolent despot who encourages fans to join him onstage and launches free merchandise into the cheap seats with an air-powered T-shirt gun.

The singer’s introduction into state politics would present another problem, though: the early retirement of what might be America’s best live band.

Green Day is riding as high as it ever has this year, thanks in large part to the success of “American Idiot,” the Broadway adaptation of its 2004 album of the same name. And in Irvine the Oakland-based outfit — filled out to a six-piece with auxiliary players on guitars, keyboards and other instruments — seemed determined to prove that its theatrical streak runs deep.

These days, visuals, media saturation and listener interaction are as crucial as the notes.

When will.i.am shouted, "Welcome to the future!" as he and the rest of the Black Eyed Peas cavorted with a blur of dancers through a medley that sounded like a military cadence mixed with an ad jingle at the 52nd Annual Grammy Awards on Sunday, he wasn't only spouting a cliche. His bulletin announced that pop music's winning game is changing, and that the only way for the music business to survive is to jump into the pandemonium.

This year's telecast and the awards it celebrated showed how the recording industry is definitively moving beyond albums, and even songs, as the basic unit by which music is both sold and affects our lives. Music is increasingly enhanced by visual or dramatic elements that deepen or even change its messages; it intersects with other art forms, like dance and fashion, to form more complex statements, and benefits profoundly from the active engagement of fans. These perennial realities have now thoroughly transcended the idea that the literary, privately absorbed version of music -- exemplified by the records that played on the gramophone that is the Grammy symbol -- matters most.

The night's performances connected to Broadway (best rock album winner Green Day's performance of "21 Guns" with the cast of the forthcoming New York musical based on their 2004 album "American Idiot"), Cirque du Soleil (Pink's gorgeous "Glitter in the Air," which featured the soulful rock star doing an aerial routine with silk ropes), opera (Mary J. Blige's duet of "Bridge Over Troubled Water" with tenor Andrea Bocelli), and the rise of social media (Bon Jovi playing a song requested by fans over the Internet.)

Pop & Hiss will be handicapping the major Grammy categories leading up to the Jan. 31 telecast. Read our picks, and vote for your own, below.

The category: Best rock album

The field at a glance: A pair of recent Grammy winners will compete for this year's best rock album title. U2 and Green Day have each won this category in recent years. Green Day for its first attempt at the rock opera with "American Idiot," and U2 for its prior two efforts, "How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb" and "All That You Can't Leave Behind."

Prior to the announcement of the nominations, it would have been easy to guess that best rock album would largely be a bout between U2 and Green Day. Green Day's "21st Century Breakdown" is another ambitious effort from the group, once again filling out its punk rock with Broadway-ready flourishes. U2's "No Line on the Horizon" wasn't the runaway sales success of its prior efforts -- although at more than 1 million copies sold to date, according to Nielsen SoundScan, it wasn't exactly a retail bomb, either -- and the band won high marks for its 360 Tour.

Yet neither rock release was chosen to represent the genre in the overall best album field. Instead, that honor went to Dave Matthews Band's "Big Whiskey And the GrooGrux King," a release that received generally favorable reviews for maintaining a rather direct rock 'n' roll drive. But don't count out AC/DC's "Black Ice." While a late 2008 release, it was one of that year's bestselling rock efforts, and AC/DC is overdue for Grammy recognition. Though it doesn't do anything different, it showed AC/DC hasn't lost any of its energy.

A live release from Eric Clapton & Steve Winwood rounds out the field. It's here on brand recognition only, and while Grammy voters have a tendency to go with the elder statesman, it shouldn't be considered a serious contender.

M.I.A.'s "Paper Planes" wasn't the obvious choice to be nominated for a major Grammy Award. The song, after all, uses a string of gun shots as one of its hooks. At a major award gala, one in which the Dixie Chicks were considered a surprisingly political nomination choice, it would be safe to assume that the revolutionary anthem "Paper Planes" would be sitting the kudos event out. 

Yet old man Grammy had a few surprises in store for its 2009 telecast, nominating M.I.A.'s "Paper Planes" for record of the year, and embracing obscenity-per-second rapper Lil Wayne in its album of the year field. Ultimately, the more conservative choices won, but a step on the continued road to relevancy had been taken.

Can the Grammys maintain a bit of adventure when nominees are announced this Wednesday evening? Pop & Hiss has already handicapped the major album and new artist categories, and today turns the attention to the record of the year field. In a year that featured new singles from Green Day and U2, is there room for any new blood in Club Grammy? Read on.

Liked Green Day's "21 Guns" but thought it lacked a certain -- how shall we say? -- pizazz?

Then you are in luck, as Green Day will re-release the cut later this month with the cast of Berkeley Rep's "American Idiot." The musical, based on the 2004 Green Day album of the same name, made its debut in the Bay Area earlier this fall, where Times theater critic Charles McNulty found it more positive than negative, writing, " 'American Idiot' translates Green Day's generational angst into a moody theatrical fantasia. If it doesn't spin an entirely satisfying yarn, its roar is still irresistible."

An official release date wasn't given for the newly recorded single, but it will be made available for purchase at all major digital outlets. Green Day will perform this Sunday on the American Music Awards on ABC, and "American Idiot" just finished its run in Berkeley.

The next stop for the musical? Likely Broadway. 

Rihanna will take a break from the interview circuit to promote her upcoming "Rated R" at this month's American Music Awards. The pop star, on the verge of releasing her first album since last February's pre-Grammy incident with Chris Brown, was among of host of new performers unveiled Friday morning.

Green Day, Shakira, Mary J. Blige and Keith Urban were also added to the AMA lineup. The AMAs will take place Nov. 22 from the Nokia Theatre and downtown's L.A. Live complex, airing live for the East Coast at 8 p.m.

Tickets for the AMAs, which range from $70 all the way up to $1,000 VIP packages, not including Ticketmaster surcharges, of course, are on sale now. There is a four-ticket minimum when purchasing a VIP package, bringing the total cost to over $4,100. 

GRAMMY AWARDS 2010

 

For the first time, the Grammy eligibility year has been moved up from the end of September to the final day of August. In making the change, the eligibility period for the 2010 Grammy Awards was shortened to 11 months (the Grammy year will be back to a 12-month cycle, with the new qualifying dates, for the 2011 awards). 

Ultimately, this means that heavy hitters such as Mariah Carey and Jay-Z will now have to wait until 2011 to see their albums get Grammy recognition. An album now must be released no later than Aug. 31 to be in the Grammy running.

That means it's time to look at the albums most likely to be lauded by Recording Academy voters in the album of the year field, Grammys' biggest prize. Note, however, what follows is not a reflection of the year's best albums. No discussion of that sort could happen without mention of Metric's "Fantasies," Lily Allen's "It's Not Me, It's You" and on and on and on. 

For now, however, get your pencils and scorecards ready. Here's an early look at some of the works most likely to receive album of the year attention when Grammy nominations are unveiled at the end of the year.

This is Part 2 of the installment. Click here for Part 1 to see what you missed. Pop & Hiss will be back to see how wrong we all were in December.