#THERE'S SO MANY TYPOS HERE OMFG and nothing makes sense

[poeplepound]

!!! i !!!! love these guys so much!! theyre so spectacular omfg !

also i tried to do this once already ! and i was very far into a very long info dump about these guys and i was ALmost done ,,, and my browser crashed, but im doing it again anyway because i need it (i might make typos and sound like a bum jus btw)

sean bonnette and benjamin gallaty started releasing musci together in 2005 after having worked together in a coffeeshop in pheonix arizona - sean was 18, and the buds released their debut album “candy cigarettes and cap guns” and have since released four other full albums, a handful of singles, two eps, and a compilation

sean has a bachelors degree in social work, and has always been working in homeless shelters, volunteering with youth programs, and trying to give a voice to one of the largest groups of stigmatized humans on our planet

candy cigarettes and cap guns was released when sean (30 y/o) was only 18 - and he has since recieved lots of negative feedback on offensive content in ajj’s older songs - to this, sean apologizes but says , quite frankly , that he was a yung edgy boi at that time in his life, and even if his music was offensive then , it represents a time in his life and hes not going to let its content discount that relevance

this is similar to how ajj changed their name from “Andrew jackson jihad”, sean and ben publicly decided to stop using the old band name because they aren’t muslim and have to right to use the term jihad as a part of an aesthetic - neither of the guys expected ajj to get so big, and andrew jackson jihad was adequate for a yung edgy boi garage band

ajjs vast discography centers around themes of social anxiety, privilege, depression, mania, loving how horrible life is, making the most of nothing, being nothing, and how wonderful our shitty planet is

ajj is considered folk-punk, and to a certain degree i agree with that, but to me music genres are irrelevant, and often times musicians fail to fit a category

the idea of organizing music by genres is restricting to a musician and songs and music grow as people do.  in an interview with verbicide, sean said that he acknowledges ajj’s influence on “folk punk” but how the identification of what folk-punk actually is is very vague and unclear, what really Is folk-punk?

ajj has albums that are way more based in folk music, and some that are way more based in punk - some songs are very poppy, some kind of choral in nature - but somehow, ajj has a very cohesive, recognizable sound that never fails to impress and comfort me

this is in part to sean’s wonderful lyrics, they are so very very raw and uncut - he is incredibly relatable while staying poetic, and i admire that So Much.  his use of metaphor in his lyrics has alwasy been apparent, but even more so in his more recent albums, and his political commentary songs are more prevalent in older songs - but they stay SO RE l AT a b LE !! every time i listen to ajj, i feel so whole and accepted and like im listening to my deepest internal thoughts and feelings in the form of beautiful lyrics and entrancing music

when asked if sean’s lyrics are a reflection of a darkness inside of him, he usualyl replies by saying that hes no darker than anyone else is - he just has a way to express and expel that darkness.  after the release of knife man, sean was asked if his emotional songs were about his past and what he’s been through as a person, and hes replied by saying that a lot of what he sings about is stuff that hes seen through his job, and learned about through people he’s met and interacted with.

shortly before christmas island was recorded, sean’s grandfather passed away.  his grandpa had lived with him from the time he was 13 tot he time he was 18, and he was a very major male role model in his life.  christmas island has lots of imagery around death, and a lot of the songs on the album personify grief and death.  sean has said that christmas island is an album about “pre-grief” meaning the way that people feel bad about death and grieve loses before theyve even happen, just beause they know theyre coming.  sean’s grandfather’s death was not unexpected or sudden, and he died very happily - surrounded by all of his grandchildren, and the feeling of knowing someone you love will die shortly is what fueled a lot of the tone of christmas island.

sean is a big big fan of 90′s hip hop, and a lot of his lyrics and writing style is heavily influenced by his favorites - aesop rock, brother lynch hung, biggie, and ol dirty bastard (seriously sean is SO Iconic)

i’ve been listening to ajj since their release of “knife man” in 2011, i could never pick a favorite album of theirs  - i love each of them and theyre each incredibly important to me

their 2007 album “people who can eat people are the luckiest people in the world” gave me a completely new worldview , and showed me that the world is incredibly imperfect, and humans are incredibly imperfect, but life is so worth living, and there is still so much good amazing stuff in the world

in 2008 they released the ep “plant your roots” and in 2009 “cant maintain” - both of theses eps were the first time i had found relatable emotional music that felt so accurate to myself - it was raw, it was unapologetic, it was beautiful, and it was sad.  these eps have an incredible tone, and theyre both so different (cant maintain being more light and - dare i say - playful) but still so connected and deeply rooted (pun intended ;) ) in my head as near perfect expressions of my feelings

“knife man” was released in 2011 and it came into my life at a time where i was trying to learn about myself and discover who i was, and this album guided me in such a strong positive direction - it introduced me to white privilege, taught me about forgiveness, how to be unapologetically me, but still let me stay in touch with my dark, cynical, pessimistic side of myself - knife man is somehow so negative but still so positive and i think thats how a lot of real life is, and ajj captures that incredibly well 

knife man was the first ajj show i ever saw, and i will never forget how captivating sean is when he preforms, his body language and his expressions reflect so much of what he’s singing, theyre so true

in 2014 they released “christmas island” and im not gonna lie when i first heard it i really didnt like it - i thought it was too poppy, and not raw enough like how ajj usually is - it felt wrong to me.  but alas, i kept listening, and i soon fell in love with this album.  it is indeed poppier than their other stuff, and when it came out in may of that year, i didnt really want to like it that much - and so i avoided it, and once Taylor Swift’s super poppy 1989 came out that october, i avoided it Even Harder because i felt like 2014 would be the year of great musicians selling out to labels to gain hits.  eventually, i let myself sink into christmas island - i allowed myself to like it, and boy o boy did i fall in love. i saw the show and i cried. the album seamlessly ties together themes from older albums - optimism, death, unrest, self-loathing - but it introduces a new style to seans words - theyre less direct, less blunt, less in-your-face , he starts using metaphors that dont make sense the first time you listen, his lyrics take on a new type of poetry on this album - and its beautiful

christmas island is softer, its more about introspection and knowing why youre the way you are - its about emotional intelligence - this album taught me how to know whats happening, and how to accept it and learn form it and let myself dream and live, despite how shitty stuff is, and i love it.

in 2016 “the bible 2″ was released, and i waited to listen to any of it until i went to see the show - i binged the album twice through right before i went to see them, and i had really really mixed feelings about it - some of the songs i didnt understand, i didnt like the sound of some of them, and i felt like they got very preachy.  once i saw them play the song “small red boy” though, i was 110% hooked - it suddenly made sense to me as an album.  the sound is so personal to me, and i connect with the radio static and the messy raw noise, and the lyrics take on such a poetic, innocent tone, and all the songs are equal parts inspiring, funny, and dark.  i really really really truly love this album.

this is kind of just a silly extra, but in 2015 they released a single called “keep on chooglin” and i honeslty dont understand what most of the song means, but its really a bop and its poppy and upbeat and positive, and i can gather that basically to “choogle” is to be yourself unapologetically and just do your own thing and basically fucc the haters, and its a nice song to listen to if youre feeling down because the lyrics are funny and the message is bright

ajj’s discography has gotten me through some of the hardest years of my life, and have seriously, literally, kept me from killing myself on so many occasions and i am forever grateful - if i had not stayed alive until now, i would miss so much and i would throw away my life, just because i didnt feel like making it, and now i can say in full confidence that this band has ridded me of all my suicidal ideation , and if anyone is down here reading this, im gonna make an ajj “dont die” playlist that i Will post here

in 2012, ben gallaty recorded a couple songs under the name wiccan babysitter, adn then a few years later (2016) he recorded a few more under the name benjamin galaxy - he compiled these songs in 2016 onto an lp, one side being the wiccan babysitter ep and the other being the ben galaxy ep.  i didnt know this was a thing until recently? which is weird? but i have listened through the lp many times - i still dont have a strong grip on what the songs mean, but i can say that the wiccan babysitter/benjamin galaxy lp is super comforting to me as well.  the sound is unique and different from ajj, but it is still warm and whole feeling, and the lyrics are still relatable to me, and i want to read more about what ben wrote about and why, but im having trouble finding info on this project

im mostly done for now, it’s very late at night, and i have work tomorrow morning, but i’ll leave u with this - youre an irreplaceable human soul with your own understanding of what it means to suffer, and thats a huge bummer

#me #mental health #ajj #info #ajj the band #actuallyautistic #infodump