The Have Nots!

Band: The Have Nots

Country: USA

Notable Album: Serf City USA

Favourite Song: "Anchor For A Drowning Man"

So I guess I am a lot more lame than I thought and forgot to do a blog again yesterday. So, hopefully, I will be able to squeeze in two today to make up for lost time! Anyways, this is your "H" band - The Have Nots. Forming after the break-up of another ska-punk band Stray Bullets, The Have Nots essentially pick up where Stray Bullets left off. Same singers, almost identical instrumentation, and a similar message - you could actually just call this the second Stray Bullets album. In any case, I have been listening to this album for over a year now and I don't see myself getting bored of them anytime soon!

Each song is fast, powerful, and feature an interesting take on the traditional ska-punk sound. I find it interesting because they are one of very few bands that I know of that choose to use one clean guitar for offbeats and one distorted guitar over top for either soloing or just additions to each song. Obviously, it's recorded in Stereo, so the right speaker or headphone features the offbeats, and the left features the distorted guitar - it's pretty cool to hear. If you know the song "Scumpunch!" off of The Flatliner's debut album Destroy To Create then you might know what I'm talking about (they do this after the intro) - but even if you already understand, check out the Have Nots' music!

I checked out their MySpace page for the first time a few minutes ago after having trouble finding any songs other than "One In Four" (which is probably one of my least favourite songs by these guys), and lo and behold - there were all my favourite songs! So instead of giving you links for each YouTube-posted song, I'll post their MySpace page a few times and you can go check out all the tracks on there. My favourite song off Serf City USA is a super-short track called "Anchor For A Drowning Man." I can't really explain why I like it more than the others, but I think it's because it's not as punky as the other songs, it's a little more folky and that's a nice change from the rest of the album. However, since I am a die-hard ska-punk fan all the way through, I absolutely love the tracks "Used To Be," "There's Gonna Be A Riot," "My Way," and "Muerte De Perros." "Riot" and "Muerte" aren't on their MySpace page but if you pick up the album then you'll be able to enjoy them too! At the very bottom of their playlist is a track called "Uphill Battle." IGNORE THE CRAPPY QUALITY AND LISTEN TO THAT SONG. I just heard it today (since this was my first venture onto their MySpace page) and it blew my mind! This isn't on the album and is a few years old so I doubt it will resurface, but it's just as good as any of Serf City USA's tracks - and wayyy better than some of them!

One last note - Vinnie from Less Than Jake has a record label called Paper + Plastick. This album is featured as a free download right now so if you like the tracks, you can download the whole album, LEGALLY, FREE! This is the link, and if you scroll down the page you'll see that each song is listed as "free download."  HOW AWESOME IS THAT!  This is a great way for up-and-coming bands to get their music out there, and you can help them get on their way! So once again, head over to the site here to grab the entire album for free!