Takin' A Ride

First of all, Jennifer Finch from L7 passed away 2 days after I made my post about her GoFundMe for her battle with brain cancer. Like I mentioned before, I didn’t know her, but saw her about a dozen times from 1990 (Casbah) until No values in 2024. One of the best times was when L7 backed up Joan Jett at the Hollywood Palladium in 1994 and they did all Runaways songs. So sad. I’m actually really good at doing memorials for friends and people on my Facebook, but that’s because I’ve unfortunately had so much practice. I haven’t done too many recently just because it’s too much for me sometimes and I feel weird about doing them for people I didn’t know. So here’s to you Jennifer, you rocked! R.I.P.

Sorry I didn’t make a post last week. I’m all about Comic Con, which I attended for my 35th year. Believe it or not, there are a ton of rock and metal and punk bands represented there. Attending as fans and doing signings. I ran into Blaze James there a couple times. He was a fellow Flipside writer. He has been managing Coheed & Cambria for almost 24 years now. They always have a big booth at Comic Con and it’s always great to catch up with Blaze. I forgot to get a picture.

The drummer for Klassic ’78 and Du Husker, Charlie Benante, was also there. Oh yeah, he’s also in a band called Anthrax, whom you may have heard of. And the newer version of Pantera. He’s usually always at Comic Con just as a fan (even flying in for a day in the middle of a tour), but this time he was here for some panels and signing for the “Among The Living” graphic novel.

Also doing some signings were Mike McCready from Pearl Jam and Bruce Dickinson of Iron Maiden!

Bruce Dickinson was pretty busy doing panels and signings. Later on one of the nights, he even sang “All The Young Dudes” with the Coverups for a party on the Thursday night of Comic Con. This isn’t too far out of anyone’s field, as Bruce covered this song on one of his solo albums and The Coverups, well, they do covers.

The Coverups are basically a fun side-project for Billie Joe from Green Day and friends where they do a great set of covers. Check out this setlist at Comic Con (links to videos are here too):

The Coverups Concert Setlist at Hard Rock Hotel, San Diego on July 23, 2026 | setlist.fm

Speaking of Green Day, they were all over Comic Con. They were promoting their movie Nimrod. Rumors were flying everywhere that they were going to be playing a live set at a club somewhere, roaming the exhibit floor passing out fliers and t-shirts while dressed up as bunnies, and other things. I don’t know if any of that happened, but one thing that did happen was that they showed up at Petco Park and Billie Joe played a short 3 minute medley of some Green Day songs on acoustic guitar. Then they all threw out t-shirts, some of which had the original design that Green Day used for their first t-shirts.

I was actually able to see this, so here’s some video I took of Billie Joe playing. I turned it off when the guys next to me were talking too loudly, then he stopped about 30 seconds later. I should’ve kept shooting.

Locals Blink 182 also had something going on at Comic Con. Some sort of collaboration with Pac Man. I didn’t see or hear anything about them actually being there, but that doesn’t mean they weren’t.

Just because Comic Con was going on, didn’t mean that everything else stopped. I missed out on several shows that were happening. Simply because there was just so much going on and after 12 hours of being in a mosh pit at Comic Con, I’m pretty spent for the night. Andrew McKeag played, The Nephews played, Ray Brandes from the Tell-Tale Hearts played with the Wyld Gooms backing him up at the Tower Bar. They got a single that just came out. I got to get my hands on a copy!

In the world of actual music releases, there were some very pleasant surprises this week. First up, Overwhelming Colorfast’s first demos were officially released. Only $5.99 for the download on Amazon. They’re also on Spotify. An excellent thing to have to listen to any time you want.

Speaking of excellent things, Drip Tank released their whole catalog on bandcamp! Name your price! I am a huge fan of Joel Nowak and all of his bands. He’s one of the people I’ve seen perform almost just as much as anyone. He’s done garage rock, rock, alternative rock, pop punk all done with his distinctive tone, style, and attitude. The Slurps. Tom’s Drip Tank. Drip Tank. Drip Tank is basically one of the reasons I started writing for Flipside. Backstage at a Mudhoney concert at the Palace, I even gave Kurt Cobain a flier for a Drip Tank show that I made for an Al’s Bar gig that they were doing in August of ’92. Kurt couldn’t make it, as he had to play a show with this band called Nirvana at a place called the Reading Festival. Oh well. Such is life. Anyways, “Feel Low” is my third favorite song of all time. They did record a faster version than what was put on their album “Slake”, and I think that’s way better, but still, I love this song. Some of these tapes haven’t survived that well, but just be grateful they exist.

Badzy from New Orleans just released their debut album and I like it a lot. I was going to give it a full review, but Josh from Faster And Louder did it way better than I could, so you better go over there to read about it and hear it! Josh: “The band’s sound is the epitome of powerful pop, and it’s plenty gritty enough to fit nicely within the underground punk rock ‘n’ roll bubble. But you can also tell that there’s some Def Leppard, KISS, and Cheap Trick in its spiritual DNA.”