I went to go see the band "Against Me!" play a concert at the Concord Music Hall last Saturday, which was probably my sixth time seeing the band perform live. And I've got to tell you, they get better every time, no hyperbole. I guess I'm biased since at this point they are one of my favorite bands, but they're a group I can't recommend enough. So that's what I'm gonna do here, as well as recommend a few songs for you, a potential "Against Me!" newbie out there, to sink your teeth into.
"Against Me!" is a Florida native band that got their start in Gainesville back in 1997. A good blanket way to describe their style is "punk rock," but they're also very much a folk-punk band, and especially in the beginning, and an archo-punk band, meaning a group that actively promotes anarchy through their lyrics, which is an attitude that's clear to see on their first few EPs and albums.
Music of the punk variety has always opposed the system's surrounding their creation, and "Against Me!" is no exception. Like their 2005 track "From Her Lips to God's Ears," which actively calls out then-U.S. Secretary of Defense, Condoleezza Rice, asking her "After all this death and destruction, do you really think your actions advocate freedom?" Or even like "Delicate, Petite & Other Things I'll Never Be," when (on stage, one of the times I saw AM! play a show), Laura called out Donald Trump and asked him (via song) "I wanna know how you see you".
And it's stuff like this, especially in our current political climate, that makes "Against Me!" such a visceral, satisfying listen. No, listening to "Against Me!" does not make you any kind of anarchist-political activist. But, it's just freaking cathartic, man. Hearing Laura Jane Grace spit out vitriol and piss and vinegar about our current political climate, especially when the world we live in is frustrating and an overwhelming place that feels like something you yourself can't do anything about it's simply satisfying. And it's good music, too.
Not only are they an important group to listen politically, but socially, humanistically, whatever word you wanna use- "Against Me!" is a band that deals with another very important, unignorable topic- gender identity. In 2012, after 15 years of "Against Me!" Laura Jane Grace came out to the world as a transgender woman, one who has dealt with gender dysphoria since as long as she could remember.
And so in listening to "Against Me!'s" music, one really does enter the psyche of someone struggling with such issues, feels what Laura has felt her whole life. That's something I think, especially for people who are more closed off or have no idea about gender identity issues, is really important nowadays. Their 2014 album "Transgender Dysphoria Blues" takes all of these issues on full force, and is not only an important album in what it deals with thematically but is a killer god damn punk rock album, proved that "Against Me!" still had plenty to share, despite what detractors and bigots might've to hear it from Laura herself: "However fierce our band was in the past, imagine me, six-foot-two, in heels, f*cking screaming into someone's face."
Now, the recommendation part. I'm gonna share with you a song from each of their 7 albums, so you get not only a sense of the range and growth that "Against Me!" has gone through throughout the years, but of the variety of music that "Against Me!" is sonically capable of. Yes, I call them 'punk,' but labels are limiting, and "Against Me!" is the kind of band where no two songs are alike.
Click the links to listen to the songs on YouTube, and then go see "Against Me!" play a live show whenever they come into your town!
Enjoy!
ALBUM: Against Me! Is Reinventing Axl Rose
SONG: "Pints of Guinness Make You Strong"
ALBUM: Against Me!: as the Eternal Cowboy
SONG: "Sink Florida, Sink"
ALBUM: Searching for a Former Clarity
SONG: "Pretty Girls(The Mover)"
ALBUM: New Wave
SONG: "The Ocean"
ALBUM: White Crosses
SONG: "White Crosses"
ALBUM: Transgender Dysphoria Blues
SONG: "Black Me Out"
(also this Acoustic Version cause it's real freaking powerful)
ALBUM: Shape Shift with Me
SONG: "Norse Truth"
