blackjaw

The first one is just one tree that they took a picture of, cut the picture in half and copied a flipped version onto the other side.

Will do! If it only takes a second, why not right?

My thoughts exactly. HWM should sue.

There's not much to say that hasn't already been said a million times by every one of us. These bands suck and there's not much we can do about it. End of discussion.

Seventh Heaven kicks ass (see mom, this is what you get when you raise one son and four daughters). But this show doesn't look very good in my opinion, I've seen half an episode.

I read this thread and I just have a couple points to make about my opinion. 1. This isn't punk. When I think of punk, I think of The Casualties and The Exploited, stupid bands who hate everything that they are told to hate without providing any solution for the problems. The Gaslight Anthem is genre defying music that happens to be enjoyed by open minded people who also enjoy punk. People who like many types of music could get into them, they just happened to gain popularity from people who liked punk bands. And as we can see from this thread, "true" punks hate them because they believe in God and don't scream their lyrics, so therefore they aren't punk. 2. I had no idea they believed in God until those liner notes, so it definitely doesn't affect their music. It helps them get by in order to make it, but they make no religious reference or try to force anything upon the listener in their songs, so who cares? 3. There is no mention of Christianity or actual religion. Religion is bad, spirituality is not. No negativity can come from being positive about the afterlife, it just comes from wasting time at church, killing people for believing differently, fearing hell, etc. As far as we know, these members believe in something greater than them, but may not attend church, read the bible, or anything like that. Jesus taught how to be a good person, it's people today that have stretched it into some bullshit (in my opinion) religious story about him being God's son. There is nothing wrong with using his lessons to become a better person. Perhaps the members of this band believe that as well and don't believe in the religious propaganda, but by saying they want to thank Jesus they mean only as becoming good people. By thanking God, they could mean some inanimate ethereal blob floating out there that happens to hold the universe together, rather than the one who murders people, causes natural disasters, refuses to show himself, and makes people who lie suffer for eternity. There's a difference between spiritualism and religion. 4. It's not like they are hypocritical and make music about hating religion or worshiping satan, then turn around and thank God in the liner notes. I connect Christianity with hypocrisy most of the time, but not here. That's a good thing. 5. Music is music. Listen to it if you like it, don't listen to it if you don't like it. But don't let the beliefs of half the group influence your decision if you still find the music listenable, or else you're wasting the opportunity to enjoy a good band. 6. By hating someone or a group of people for innocently believing in something that you don't, you become just as bad as any religious person who condemns you to hell for every little thing you do. If you truly want to be better than them, the best way to do so is to let them do what they want and let them find out the truth in their own way.

Dude... shut up. Everyone who listens to any sort of independent music has felt some sort of annoyance when they find out a band they like is on MTV, or has a song on the radio, or shirts in Hot Topic, etc. EVERYONE. Some people throw a huge hissy-fit, some people just get mildly annoyed, some write about it on a messageboard. But don't act like you wouldn't be annoyed, even slightly, to find out your favorite band is on a TV show or is making some ridiculous merch. I'm really not trying to be a dick to you, but we've all been there. If you say you haven't been annoyed over anything like this I'd probably call you a liar. Yeah, that pretty much sums it up. I'm not angry at all actually, I just found it strange. If a band wants to get popular and make a living out of doing what they love, I have no problem with it. It's just when the band gets douchebag fans that I have to bulldozer through to get to the front of the stage that I start to get annoyed. And whoever asked about this person being on my friends list and whatnot, I clearly called them a bimbo. She's my friend from school, but she's just all looks and no brains and normally listens to whatever's on the top 10 (that's right, not even top 40). Again, I was surprised, not angry.

Find the actual order somewhere and change each song name accordingly. (ie: put a 1 in front of the name of the first song, 2 in front of the second, etc)

Well, I glanced at my MSN window and noticed some bimbo girl was listening to Hot Water Music, so naturally I was all "wtf?" I asked her about it, and she says "yeah I like this song, it was on One Tree Hill (a teen soap opera)"... I looked into it, and sure enough: http://www.oth-music.com/azlist.html They were on Need For Speed and Tony Hawk, but this is taking it to the Alkaline Trio level. Ah well, they still kick ass and I'm sure they weren't asked about this or even know. But knowing some one tree hill person out there likes HWM pisses me off a bit.

Tonight @ 6:00, at the Wrongbar in Toronto... I was going anyway for The Loved Ones and The Artist Life, but now Lemuria has been added as well! That's like... 3 of my top 6 favourite bands... this is awesome. Anyone else going?

I kind of like the new Bouncing Souls stuff, just as much or more than the old stuff. If you look at it as more rock or Americana than as true punk, you'll find it's not that bad. The Gold Record reminds me of The Loved Ones when I listen to it now, when back then I was pissed that it sounded so unpunk.

Cool! I didn't think anyone else knew about them.

I disagree. I think Senor & the Queen is more of a bridge between Sink or Swim and this. I expected them to go in this direction after Senor & the Queen, and the entire album is great. I think they threw Sink or Swim out there with variation between the classic Springsteen sound and a sound that Against Me! or American Steel fans would like, to get a general opinion. They were praised for the different classic sound they had, so they tried that out again with Senor & the Queen and people liked that as well, so they went completely in that direction here.

I mentioned Rise Against somewhere back there, about me enduring their screaming like I'll have to endure this album's reverb-heavy vocals. That's where he posted that from. Not sure what demo he's talking about though.

It's just a little gimmick they've got, lots of bands have gimmicks and I never seem to mind. Hell, at least they sound like no other band I listen to and they're really refreshing whenever they come on on shuffle. And The Gaslight Anthem is the one band I like that could be shown to a person from any walk of life and they would at least admit they're good. I can't say that about any other band. EDIT: Already more than used to the echo, and I'm on track 8 on my first time through. Album of the year.