“In some of the video footage you can see people in the crowd passing notes to each other on their phones and rolling their eyes.
Spike Slawson is laughing while he talks about the scene of the new Me First and the Gimme Gimmes live record, Me First and the Gimme Gimmes Blow It… At Madison’s Quinceñera. The band has been made up of members of Bad Religion, The Ramones, Lagwagon and NOFX, and has released a number of records taking classic songs and giving them the punk rock cover treatment. The concept for their latest live record was simple: book themselves as the band for a quinceñera celebration and let the hilarity and awkwardness ensue.
As an aside, the band’s previous live album was recorded as they played a bar mitzvah. Between the two live releases, 20 years and a half dozen Gimme Gimmes albums have elapsed. Slawson, the group’s lead vocalist, has built a reputation for putting on a comedic, fast paced, fun live show. While the band typically fills up clubs and punk festivals, Slawson said he knew the quinceñera would be far enough out of the group’s element that, for better or worse, it would result in anything but the typical live concert album. And the recording didn’t disappoint!
“Her mom really liked it. Madison and her friends, however, liked the DJ music because they were playing shit from now,” Slawson says of the album which has covers of songs by artists like Selena, ABBA, Freddy Fender, and a number of Latin artists to better fit the traditional celebration. “We played an Olivia Rodrigo song, that was the only song from the current millennium that we played. They loved that! But the other stuff was a little bit of an uphill slog. You can hear teenagers screaming, that’s kinda funny to me. Occasionally you hear three or four people politely clapping.”
In one funny moment, Slawson asks Madison who her favorite artist is promising to perform one of their songs, to which the teenager can be heard answering Bruno Mars. As the group launches into their next song, Slawson humorously asks, ‘Would you settle for Captain & Tennille?’
Sometimes called a punk rock supergroup, Me First and the Gimme Gimmes has been putting out music for nearly 30 years. The group has put their spin on songs like Billy Joel’s “Uptown Girl,” Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive,” John Denver’s “Country Roads,” and everything else from showtunes to holiday songs. Slawson additionally performs Latin boleros in a project called Los Nuevos Bajos, along with having been a member of Swingin’ Utters. These days he’s happy to take his sped up lounge act out. “Being the singer is great, I don’t have to lift anything. I can do this until my knees give out… and maybe then I’ll keep doing it sitting down. Isn’t that what they do?”
Me First and the Gimme Gimmes are hitting the road and will bring their punked up lounge act to the coveted stages of Reno for a night along the way. While the group will likely be playing for crowds that are much more familiar with who they’re seeing on this tour, Slawson talks about occasionally seeking out the strange venues.
“On those nights when the booing is the loudest, those are the nights that we sell the most tshirts,” Slawson goes on. “It’s a weird thing about the human brain. Comedians, I think, understand it on a deeper level I think than most people. There’s a line that you bend but you don’t break.”
Relating it all back to the live album, where all the mild claps, the explosive Olivia Rodrigo singalongs, the occasional laughter from the crowd are all there, along with a jacket on the vinyl record with photos of Slawson sweating onstage going all out to a hilariously half interested dancefloor, Spike says the record lived up to his best expectations. And it all came about because they intentionally sought out a venue for the record that was the furthest thing from their familiar shows.
“I knew it was gonna be a little bit awkward because we were playing Black Sabbath songs and telling jokes. And that’s how I wanted it to be. I wanted to have a good funny record. But when I was in the actual moment and there were three people applauding and there was an empty dancefloor and I was trying to stop people from leaving, that was totally excruciating, and I wanted to be anywhere else than I was in a fucking nudie suit, you know?”
Me First and the Gimme Gimmes, along with The Schizophonics, Still Animals, and DJ Thirst n Howl will be playing at the Virginia Street Brewhouse in downtown Reno on Thursday, August 15th. Ages 18+
Tickets are available here.
“Me First and the Gimme Gimmes Blow It At Madison’s Quinceñera” is currently streaming everywhere and available on vinyl or CD from Fat Wreck Chords.
