The Against Me! Thread

So... 500 years is gonna be released as a b-side in May. Nice.

Woot, woot!
Can't fucking wait to here it!

Amazing new Steak Mtn shirt design...

I would never wear that shirt.

I like it.
I'd wear two.

Looks good to me. Are they selling it on this tour?

I'm not digging any of the new shirts.

mitchard wrote:

I'm not digging any of the new shirts.

Me neither. Saw them all at the show on Friday and just thought to myself "It's nice they're letting blind artists design shirts now."

Although the girl selling merch for AM! (Shelby Jacobson) is cute as all hell.

I hate to be "that guy" but why do people like the Steak Mtn. designs? I find them unsettling.

I don't know... Real ghosts caught on tape? Total clarity? Russian spies? White crosses?

Those don't seem very spooky to me.

But the rest... Yeah, they're pretty unsettling. That's actually the perfect word.

speaking of steak mtn.,  I found this interview that kind of makes Chris Norris seem like a dick. I mean, he's allowed to not care for Against Me!'s music, but I think it's a moronic to bash the whole genre of punk.


suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuucks

Anyway, the interview is also a good history of the band's designs

Various Artists wrote:

speaking of steak mtn.,  I found this interview that kind of makes Chris Norris seem like a dick. I mean, he's allowed to not care for Against Me!'s music, but I think it's a moronic to bash the whole genre of punk.


suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuucks

Anyway, the interview is also a good history of the band's designs

Why in the fuck would you hire a designer who didn't like your music? That makes no sense. His designs suck too. Some of them are good but most of them are "high school art student trying to be edgy by having naked boobs to see how far I can push the teacher before I get suspended" awful

I thought the interview was pretty hilarious. I like his bitchy sense of humour, although I get why others find it offensive or immature or whatever. Same goes with his design aesthetic. (Still hate the stupid gingerbread men, though.)

saari wrote:

Still hate the stupid gingerbread men, though.

   

wat

^ sorry if that makes me a bad person lol

Haha no, I always thought it was really brilliant because I had never thought the design for a record could be so funny and clever

And maybe because I think that version of SFS is *Maybe* better than the original

I appreciate the funny, it's just that the image almost gives my eyeballs cavities.
That probably was the artist's intention though.

Huh. Another interview with him.
http://www.punknews.org/article/54568/interviews-rad-people-who-make-rad-art-christopher-norris-stk-mtn

You guys realize Chris Norris has designed almost every official poster and shirt for Against Me! for almost 10 years, right?

Yes, and I like love his designs and collaborations with Against Me! but I just don't think he came across well in that interview. That's it.

And what I will say is that he's a fucking superb photographer.

Kyle wrote:

You guys realize Chris Norris has designed almost every official poster and shirt for Against Me! for almost 10 years, right?

I actually didn't know that until recently. His most recent designs (basically everything after White Crosses) have been either terrible or tasteless (sometimes both) in every sense of the word.

The line "I hate people as a whole, but I like some people individually" (lol!) in the Punknews piece reminded me of the fact that Laura used to do that Misanthrope zine. Wonder why those two hit it off so well, heh.

I'm not into everything stk mtn has ever done, but some of his stuff, like the meatboob cover, is striking. To take something that is usually presented in mainstream visual media as a sexualized, commodified, aesthetically pleasing object and make it look unsettling and alienating and somewhat grotesque... Simple but effective, and works really well with some of the lyrical themes on the album.

I absolutely love over 90% of his work, but he comes off as the biggest cunt.
And, as a cunt myself, that says something....

Am I the only one who thinks he comes off really well in those interviews? I like his bluntness and somewhat morbid sense of humour, and I'd much rather take an honest cunt than a pretentious dick who says all the "right" things. (Then again, I come from a culture where a lot of people are rather blunt and terse by American standards, so I guess I'm biased.)

So an Unconditional Love 7" picture disk with 500 years on the B side will be coming out next month via Xtra Mile. Waiting for a US distro to post it before jumping on shipping from Europe.