So much time, and so much music!

Since I have been on here there has been so much good new music that I feel I should comment on, however I’ve gone through some life changes recently and haven’t had nearly enough time to listen to it all! Some of the new CDs that have been released recently are:

Fall Releases 2010

Something For The Rest Of Us by Goo Goo Dolls (August 28th)- unfortunately I have not had a chance to listen to this yet, and regret it deeply.however I’ve been told it’s not as good as their older music, which is probably true. Their new music doesn’t carry nearly as much emotions and deep meanings as in Dizzy Up The Girl.

Asylum by Disturbed (August 27th) – I haven’t heard much about this album, although supposedly it was supposed to be pretty epic. That remains to be seen, although coming from them it most likely will be.

Time For Annihilation by Papa Roach (August 31st) – I don’t tend to listen to a whole lot of Papa Roach, although this is probably worth listening to, they are very talented.

Dark Is The Way, Light Is A Place by Anberlin (September 7th) – Of course I went out and bought this the week it came out, expecting nothing less then pure musical ecstasy. While it didn’t quite live up to my expectations, it is still genius.

Hurley by Weezer (September 10th) – Not an album I’d run out and purchase, but might be worth listening to. With such a unique cover and title it is bound to be interesting.

A Thousand Suns by Linkin Park (September 8th) – Cannot wait to listen to this one!

Hands All Over by Maroon 5 (September 15th) – This is another of those bands that I have been eagerly waiting for a another CD from, especially after hearing their new single, Misery. Hopefully this will be a great followup to their last album!

My Darkest Days by My Darkest Days – A new band that almost nobody has heard of, but has a lot of potential.

The Dissent of Man by Bad Religion (September 24th) – Bad Religion without fail manages to crank out great punk, however after listening to so many of their albums, they are all starting to blend into each other just bit. Good none-the-less though.

Invented by Jimmy Eat World (September 28th) – I tend not to listen too much to Jimmy Eat World, however this will probably be good.

Life Turns Electric by Finger Eleven – This is pretty great

Some new CDs to be coming out soon to keep an eye out for:

Punk Goes Pop 3 by Various Artists, What Separates Me From You by A Day To Remember, Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys by My Chemical Romance and Life in Motion by 3 Doors Down

Concerts I’ve Been To!

Ok, so I’ve been to a fair amount (90 to be exact) of concerts over the last several years, so I thought I’d post them and tell you what I’ve thought. There some bands I’ve seen multiple times, so that will be listed in parenthesis. In future posts I’ll have to explain some funny stories that happened, because you never exactly know what kind of things can actually go on a at a concert…..but anyways, back to my main topic!

Sarah Evens – eh, nothing special

Kingston Trio – If you like folk music, then this might be your dream come true. When I saw them it was actually their last concert with any of the remaining members of the original band, so if you go to see them now they are all replacements.

Skillet (5)- One of my all time favorite bands, they put on a great show. Especially if you like headbanging, screaming like an idiot, and flames. They put on what is probably one of the best concerts I’ve ever seen.

Bethany Dillon – Not really my type of music, she plays more tame girly stuff

Aaron Shust – Good worship music, if you’re into that

Britt Nicole – Pretty good, fun bouncy music

KJ-52 –  This guy is amazing, even if you aren’t into rap (like me). If ever have a chance to go to one of his concerts, DO IT. It’s like a giant party, you’ll have the time of your life!

Disciple (3)- Really rockin’ metal band, lots of fun

Salvador – Unique latino worship band, good if you’re into that type of thing

Tim Hughes – Another worship band

David Crowder Band (4) – Kind of a worship band, but absolutely fun! He brings in all kind of weird stuff, last time I saw him we all ended up square dancing in the mosh pit! Definitely recommend seeing him.

Third Day (2) – Ok

Storyside B – Don’t really remember this one

Parachute Band (2)- I don’t really remember, but I think they were really good

Starfield – Good

Grits – Umm….good I guess if you like heavy rap

Thousand Foot Krutch (5) – Love, love, love this band. Totally awesome in concert!

Leeland (4) – Also a worship band, but very good. I used to be in love with the lead singer

Tobymac (3) – This guy is a blast. Another very fun and upbeat concert

Casting Crowns (4) – A really nice worship band

Phil Wickham (2) – Worship

Mandisa – Great voice and very inspirational

Barlow Girl – Preppy girl music, really not my type

Kutless (2)- They are pretty good rock, but just not my favorite

Newsboys (with Peter Furler as lead singer) (2)- One of the most fun shows with a lot of singing, jumping, dancing and drum wars. Really, really great!

Newsboys (with Michael Tate as lead singer) – Pretty good and funny, just not the newsboys I know and like. They actually are more like a Newsboys cover band then the actual Newsboys, because they sing mostly new music, with very little of the old and well loved hits.

Limeliters – Another great folk band, although they have none of the original band members left

John Waller – Another worship type, good but kinda weird

The Afters – Great concert, great sound

Red (4)- One of my all time favorite bands, amazing metal sound and vocals, and literally to die for in concert! LOVE THEM!

Flyeaf – Pretty good, although you really couldn’t understand a word she was saying

Paul Baloche –  yeah, another worship band

Hawk Nelson (2)- Tons of fun, really cute boy band

Worth Dying For (2) – Not really worth dying for….or showing up to watch

Jeremy Camp – Just ok, although a lot of people love him

Blushing Well – Nobody knows who they are for a reason, cause they suck (although they might have improved since I saw them last, not sure. If you’ve listened to them recently and have a different opinion, please let me know).

Ryan Payne Band – Cute and funny boy band, pretty good

Ryan Star – Wasn’t a huge fan of the music, but he was hilarious

David Cook – Spectacular, although was quite the snob. After the concert he went straight back to his trailer and refused to sign or even associate with anything.

Josh Gracin – Country music at it’s best

Natalie Stovall – Good if you are into fiddle music

A Rude Revolution – Local ska band, fairly good although all the songs sound exactly the same

Reel Big Fish – Foul, obnoxious ska music at it’s best, although they do sound good

Remedy Drive (2) – Cute, good sound, and they do all kinds of insane and crazy stuff on stage

Bluetree – Nobody knows who this band is for a reason…all I remember is they they are Welsh

Michelle Bonilla – Don’t remember much except it was not stuff I liked

Chris Tomlin (2)- Some of the best worship music to be found

Group 1 Crew – Poppy upbeat stuff, not really my type

Lincoln Brewster – A very talented worship singer

Unspoken – Don’t really remember

Relevant Worship – More worship, what else can I say?

Family Force 5 (2) – Another of my favorite bands to see live, they are a blast. It’s like a total dance party, and impossible to dislike

House of Heros (2) – Excellent

Anberlin – Of course since they are one of my two favorite bands, I have to love them. But they were beyond spectacular in concert, and there isn’t much I wouldn’t do to see them again

Taking Back Sunday – Very good, great sound

All-American Rejects – Where do I even start? They were crude, filthy, vulgar, offensive, raunchy, obscene and plain disgusting. They only good thing about the entire concert was them performing Gives You Hell, which kinda rocked.

Breaking Benjamin – Ah, my other favorite band. They were so amazing live, and just really rock their hearts out. Being able to sing Breath live totally made my whole year (yeah, it was that good)

10 Years – I had never heard them before, but was pretty impressed, good sound and lyrics.

Carlos Whittaker – not that great worship

Downhere – ok I guess

Switchfoot (2) – Not one of my favorite bands, but they put on a really good show

Deluge – worship…

John Mark McMillen – pure acoustic-y goodness, with really intriguing lyrics

Sons of Day – they rock, and do a really good U2 cover

B. Reith – this guys is crazy fun and looks like Ashton Kutcher (bonus)

December Radio – Just as good as I thought they would be (which is pretty crazy good)

Tenth Avenue North – I’ve head a lot of raves about them, but they honestly didn’t do much for me. Except for the song By Your Side, which is just a good song

Brian “Head” Welch (co-founder and lead guitarist of Korn) – This guy rocked my socks off!

Please educate the punkless!

Yes, I’m still having trouble with people who know not of what they speak. I think the problem all stems from calling it punk rock, so people automatically smash the two genres together in their head, and then cannot manage to find a difference. I had to explain to a friend this morning that Flyleaf and Reliant K are not punk bands. The next time someone tells me that Hawk Nelson is the greatest punk band ever (yes, this actually happened) I will have to resist hitting them very hard with a very real and very punk studded object.

So….if you ever hear someone spouting off incorrectly about punk, please take them aside and explain the error of their ways to them. It will save the rest of us a lot of pain and grief!

I came across an interesting issue the other day while listening to several different bands. Is there such a thing as Christian punk?

After much debate and research I came upon an answer….no. Two very important themes to punk music are Anarchy (“Absence of government; a state of lawlessness due to the absence or inefficiency of the supreme power political disorder.” – wikipedia) and Nihilism (total rejection of established laws and institutions, anarchy terrorism or other revolutionary activity, total and absolute destructiveness especially towards the world at large and including oneself, an extreme form of skepticism: the denial of all real existence or the possibility of an objective basis for truth – dictionary.com). So both of those beliefs/practices go against all standard Christian beliefs, which leads to my answer of no, the two types of music cannot exist together.

In the same way I would also be inclined to believe that while you CAN have Christian metal (Demon Hunter, Underoath, etc), you CANNOT have Christian Black Metal (since it tends to contain satanic beliefs or similar stuff)

Panheads (Skillet fans) Unite!

Those who have listened to Skillet know just how rockin’ and amazing they are. But unbelievably enough there are still people out there who haven’t heard of them yet! And even more surprising is the fact that many people do not know that they are a Christian band.

I had heard people rave about Skillet for years, but never had a chance to see them until Creation Festival 2007, when they were the opening band. Unfortunately they sucked. Although in all fairness it wasn’t their fault, since they were the opening band all of the amps and equipment were not set up completely, so the sound just wasn’t good. I now know that the opening band always tends to sound kind of aweful, because they don’t have everything adjusted. But after that concert I thought Skillet was one of the worst bands I ever heard until their song Whispers in the Dark. I fell in love!

Since then I have seen them in concert 4 times, and every time they have just gotten better! All of the songs on their comatose CD are deep, emotional and just sound great! However when I heard about their new Awake CD I was a little concerned. After such a great breakthrough with Comatose I wondered how they could ever make a follow up for it. But they did! While I didn’t particularly like it the first time I heard on, it definitely grows on you.

My favorite song has to be Forgiven, you can’t tell if they are talking about a relationship with another person or with God. Based on the phrasing of the song it could go either way!

Here is a great review from amazon:

“Ever since their self-titled debut album, Skillet has been known for great music and mind-blinding lyrics. Things like “I’m going to drown you in maddening forgiveness…” (from “Hey, You, I love your Soul” of the album with the same name) and “Soak my heart in Gasoline/Light a match and consume me…” (from “Gasoline”, self-titled debut) truly made this critic anxious to see what their seventh full-length production would bring — both lyrically and musically. After six albums, one would think that there’s not much life left.

And one would be wrong.

“Comatose” opens up with their first single: “Rebirthing,” a beautiful mix of power and emotion, which sets the pace for the rest of the album. Filled with piano, strings and the angelic voice of Korey Cooper, the emotion is not lacking throughout the length of the album. However, it is filled with enough guitar riffs and catchy beats that maintain the “Skillet” hard-rock flavor we’ve all come to know and love. The orchestral elements prove the musical genius that Skillet was capable of. Versatile, beautiful and powerful — Skillet has, once again, raised the bar for themselves and their contemporaries.

Skillet’s sound in “Comatose” is much more complete and mature. Now, it’s about much more than the crunchy music. It’s a complete experience.

If you like exceptionally-made hard-rock music with elements of piano and stings, or if you’re a “Pan-Head” (like me!) this is a must buy.”

Free Legal Punk Music (What could be better?)

We all know that usually downloading music from the internet is illegal and wrong, right? (please just nod and say yes) However it can be legal if the music is downloaded from a group that has the right to distribute it such as the band itself, the recording company, or maybe a sponsor. Yesterday I was doing some research and found several totally awesome sites where you can get free and COMPLETELY LEGAL music downloads. Many of them are punk, because it seems that most punk artists are a lot less comericialized and a lot more generous than other genres of music. (seriously, it’s true)

So check out these awesome sites! All of them are linked in the sidebar

1.  Altsounds – You have to scroll around to be able to find all the artists, but once you do it is totally worth it! Most of these bands are emo/screamo. Includes Anberlin, Panic! at the Disco, UnderOath, Red Jumpsuit, etc

2. iLike – Most of the downloads from this site are from bands without recording contracts yet, but there are still a few pretty amazing ones! Check out Brokenfall and Superbeing, they totally rock!

3.  GarageBand – Another great site for discovering bands without recording contracts. Also a great site for new musicians to promote their music

4. Fat Wreck Chords – Punk recording label, and they have some pretty great downloads if you are into real  punk. Includes NOFX, Rise Against, No Use For A Name and Propaghandhi

5. Hellcat Records – Punk and Hardcore recording label, and more rockin’ MP3s. Includes Rancid, Nekromantix, and Horrorpops

6. StereoKiller – Umm…Interesting. But they do have several good downloads including a few by Underoath

7. Anti-, just a really cool site with downloads from Greg Graffin (Lead singer of Bad Religion – I love this guy!) and Michael Franti

8.  3hive – It has a few  pretty cool downloads including Dropkick Murphys and Flogging Molly

9. Mp3.com – Millions upon millions of songs and downloads, but I didn’t recognize even a single artist. However you might be able to find some good stuff in here

10. PureVolume – I love this site! There is a ton of music, and much of it is by popular mainstream artists. I have found free downloads from Demon Hunter, Paramore, Anberlin and other awesome bands. You can find music from pretty much any genre ever created!

A few other sites that I didn’t find worthy enough to put in the sidebar: Stereogum, bt.etree.org, SoundClick, Honc. biz, Jamendo, Epitonic, SubPop records, MTV, and iSound. You might be able to find something good on them, it just takes more effort than I am willing to spend!