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Me First and the Gimme Gimmes Information
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'Me First and the Gimme Gimmes' is a punk rock cover band that formed in 1995. Drawn together by a mutual love of '60s and '70s music, the Gimme Gimmes work exclusively as a cover band. They have covered songs from such artists as Neil Diamond, Billy Joel, and John Denver.
The band is comprised of several very recognizable faces in the new-school punk rock scene, including Spike Slawson of the Swinging Utters, 'Fat' Mike Burkett of NOFX, Foo Fighters' Chris Shiflett, and Joey Cape and Dave Raun of Lagwagon. The band wasn't originally planning on making an album, appearing only on compilation albums for their first year. In 1996, however, the band began releasing singles named after the singer they had covered. They produced Billy (Joel), (Neil) Diamond, Paul (Simon), (John) Denver, and Barry (Manilow) in this manner. Their first album, Have a Ball, was released in 1997. The band still performs whenever its members aren't busy with their other bands, and makes plenty of guest appearances on punk compilations.
A running joke in the punk rock community has declared many other punk rock artists as former or honorary members of the band, including Billie Joe Armstrong of Green Day, Tim Armstrong of Rancid, Mike Watt of The Minutemen, Fletcher Dragge of Pennywise, Brett Gurewitz of Bad Religion, Pig Champion of Poison Idea, Joe Escalante of The Vandals, Warren Fitzgerald of The Vandals (who played guitar in place of Shiflett during the bands 2003 Australian tour, and a few other times), Lindsay McDougall of Frenzal Rhomb (who played guitar in place of Cape, during the second half of the band's 2003 Australian tour), Ben Weasel and Danny Vapid of Screeching Weasel, Ron Welty of The Offspring and Lou Italian of Sick Of It All.
Members
* Spike Slawson - vocals
* Joey Cape - guitar, vocals
* Chris Shiflett - guitar
* Fat Mike - bass
* Dave Raun - drums
Discography
*Have a Ball (1997)
*Are a Drag (1999)
*Blow in the Wind (2001)
*Take a Break (2002)
*Ruin Jonny's Bar Mitzvah (2004)
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