hawthorne heights take aim at ne-yo with disgustingly opportunistic, vaguely racist email blast

AH

Probably all for the better.

hang the DJ
hang the DJ
hang the DJ

hang the DJ
hang the DJ
hang the DJ

Jerk off in dingy basements?

I have doubts.

"We have a mission for you guys ... bring rock back to MTV! We were #9 the last two days on TRL ... Hawthorne Heights is performing on Fuse's 7th Ave Drop! Help bring rock back to ... "

yada yada

"The Corporate Man" must really be fucking them over if they are only at #9 on TRL.

Rough guess: Myspace users probably more likely to root for HH than Ne-Yo. They both fucking suck.

SO UNIQUE.

These guys will make great political consultants one day.

Our society and culture has put rock music on the backburner. If our album can debut at #1 all of us will have taken ROCK music back to the top of the charts where it belongs. You might ask, how has ROCK been put on the backburner? A current example is an artist that we are up against called Ne-Yo. Many people are saying that Ne-Yo is going to outsell us because Ne-Yo has had a tremendous amount of over the top, mainstream media coverage. His album will be in stores tomorrow. Radio has played his single 160,000 times. Our single has been played 3,800 times. We know that does not seem possible but it is the truth. Ne-Yo is on a major label. Hawthorne Heights is on an independent label. ROCK music needs to win tomorrow.

Chaki u bastard. :)

Bad meth.

Jordan, you are sooo lucky!!!

Yes, and I'm fucking sick to death of it.

I'm really not interested in some indie rock dude or dudette talking about they think Elliot Smith is more uplifting than any dance track (that's an actual quote that I'm just pulling out here as an example) because they're afraid to admit that they're just as heavily marketed and promoted as whatever it is they're taking potshots at. It's the music business, for fuck's sake - just tell people "my CD is awesome, you should go buy it" and leave the imaginary battle lines between genres to the critics, who stand a better chance of actually knowing what they're talking about.

NOT IN MOMUS'S NAME!

I've heard the sort of radio station that plays this band, there's a reason they're on the wane...

Back Like That

I like the idea that the only way for a rock album to sell more than an R&B album now is by appealing to a quasi-religious sentiment. Apparently rock just needs to be making better albums if it's a matter of faith.

So why can't you turn off the radio?

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v335/gypsyfrocksbedlam/hh.jpg

though i see the racist undertones ((white culture) rock v (black culture) r&b), who cares? stupid hardcore band releases stupid press release, seems like par for the course.

Because I want to listen to the radio, but I do not want to hear a song I am kind of sick of (I liked it OK at first) on two stations at once.

Dear emo,

I fucking get it. You like Say Anything. Here's my Blockbuster card. Rent something else.

Love,
Chris.

And I hope to never hear the band "Hawthorne Heights."

(Although I do hope some new bands come out with similar suburban L.A. monikers: Temecula Dreams, Tarzana Thunder, Cerritos Wonder, etc.)

and every day thereafter!

asian dudes look vaguely alike? that's more racist than the stupid press release.

that dude also looks nothing like dave.

Dear emo,

I fucking get it. You like Say Anything. Here's my Blockbuster card. Rent something else.

Love,
Chris.

-- Whiney G. Weingarten (christopher...), Today. (whineyg) (later)

Chris OTM

This the first thing I think of when I hear "Hawthorne Heights".. that and the Del Amo Fashion Center... a place I was forced to go to almost every weekend by my grandparents as a kid.

Oh, the beautiful 562 sprawl. I $lt;3 you, Hawthorne Blvd., and your car-jammed 16 lanes.

well, maybe this is naive, but i'm a bit shocked that a band as comparatively big (and youth skewing) as hawthorne heights gets away with saying shit like this to its fans. i keep trying to apply a simple rockist reading to the one paragraph i quoted up top but certain phrasings and obvious parallels keep tripping me up, to the extent that i honestly don't see how there isn't a racial overtone to what they're saying. (not that they don't probably superficially believe their argument is just about rock vs. r&b...)

i dunno, it strikes me as a scary rhetoric. from their righteous sense of cultural ownership ("rock to the top... back where it belongs") to their barely-subverted indignation over an r&b artist having access to the resources and capital that they don't to their conflicted push-pull with mass popularity (its "over the top" when ne-yo has it and yet its their personal birthright --> this is not intrinsically an indie vs. major thing as they suggest), i think it sucks this passes for regular band pr.

mad xposts

Good save, Joel!
Jeez, I just thought he looks like Dave Pajo!

That said, I am unaware of what Hawthorne Heights knows about "rocking" anyway. They're a crappy Emo band.

The label has been pushing our store to death on this. We have yet to sell a copy. I'm not checking this "Ne-Yo."

-- mark p (mpytli...), September 10th, 2002

God, what a douche!

Which is almost as bad, really, if not worse!

xxpost haha fuck you ethan

judging by myspace, it seems like 99%

-- Dom Passantino (juror...), March 1st, 2006. (Dom Passantino) (later)

I'm not sure who is a bigger dork, the members of the band for that whiney diatribe or you for putting it under the "racist" tag. Why don't you and them have a fight to the death about it. If we're lucky, it'll be a tie.

Hugs and kisses,
Brian

"i just don’t understand how hip-hop and R&B can take over so much of video rotation. it’s just mind-blowing to me. at least split it 50-50, for goodness' sakes! the market does it to itself: for some reason rap gets played a lot more than rock does."

my lead including this quote was rejected for fears that it was vaguely racist. for goodness' sakes.

xpost

vanguardnewsnetwork.com/index405.htm

C'mon people. Look at the picture again. Work with me here. Check out that proprietary arm around the shoulder of the other dude. There's something going on there, a cauldron of neo emo homo eroticism that you are all deliberately avoiding! It's right in front of your eyez! Trembling and stuff!

x-post

And, like I said, HH are dreadful, so is Ne-Yo. But the solution to all this isn't some message board schmuck ticking off his "Racial good deed" for the day in his notebook for starting some dumb flame thread, no?

Ne-Yo emo homo eroticism?

Nobody's arguing that they're *not* dorks either.

bestselling album of 2005 - mariah - bestselling album of 2004 - usher

And Dave Gilmour's #7, so we can look to the lovable Pink Floyd funster having rolling up to the top spot next week Gear. Thanks for your valuable and relevant contribution.

Joel, what about my observation resonated so personally with you? Seriously. I thought the guy on the left looked like pictures I've seen of Dave Pajo from early Slint promo pics. Help me fill in the blanks from that comment to you calling me racist and acting like a total fucking asshole.

http://www.purevolume.com/hawthorneheights

VERDICT: f-ing awful

if Linkin Park decided to go Jimmy Eat World crap type Emo

cliched throughout
wanky fey melodic vocals with some singalong shouty crap
hooky simpleton lyrics
overproduced slick corporate bland FM rawk production - pro-tools overproduced muck

...this is total cliched crap...cookie cutter rawk ..music for morons

Indeed? What'd they say?

on first listen it's kinda underwhelming and samey, but it might grow on me. track 9 is way way head and shoulders above everything else on the album, and then they remix it w/ Ghostface on the hidden track and it doesn't work nearly as well.

Dom, Bright Eyes topped the U.S. single-*sales* chart, which only takes a few thousand copies to do, or anyway did last year when they did it.

...then a big out of place soundbyte of a deep voice saying "VICTORY" at the end

it's a mortal kombat sample! (or, at the vaey least a sound effect made to sound like the "flawless victory" announcer voice from the game)

I might just be really naive but I find this totally impossible to believe.

Man, that's like drinking your own pee.

haha, OTM! and gross.

I like how in their new video they look totally like a boy band, all in white like Blink in "All the Small Things" sans irony. POP IS DEAD.

Interesting email from Victory Records to their street team:
"Happy Hawthorne Heights day everyone - street date has finally arrived!
It all comes down to the next six days and maximizing our sales at as
many stores as possible. We are neck-and-neck with this Ne-yo
character on Universal and we need everyone out there tilting the tide
in our favor. Our projected numbers for first week sales are about
even so we really need to make every unit count if we want to win.
We do this first by selling more Hawthorne Heights, hitting as many
stores as possible, making sure Hawthorne Heights stock is in the
front and very visible in every store we visit. Get inside, do what
you need to do, and move on to the next store. Move Hawthorne Heights
into as many key positions as you can. Remember there are two covers
so not only put them together, put them in different places. HH should
have spots in all the new release racks toward the front of the store
but we can always increase our presence by dropping a few in another
displays.
If you don't see our product on display at the front of the store,
particularly later in the week, then go to the bin and move what you
can. There are a lot of stores that are not as on top of this as they
should be, especially something as hot as Hawthorne Heights, so we
need to give these people all the help they can get.
Also look for HH in the areas where stores keep overstock. Sometimes
this is below the bins or on the top of the rack. If you find any CDs,
particularly under the bins, try to move those out first to the other
areas of the store.
On the off chance you find a store that doesn't have any copies of the
new Hawthorne, find a clerk and ask him why they don't have it. If
it's sold out, find out when they have more coming in. If it's showing
as in stock, let him know that you can't find it so he knows to order
more.
Here is a list of the best chain stores to go to:
Best Buy
Target
Wal Mart
FYE
Coconuts
Wherehouse
Circuit City
Sam's Club
K Mart
Sam Goody
Virgin Borders
Borders
Barnes & Noble
Fred Meyer
Hastings
Meijer
As for Ne-yo, the name of the game is to decrease the chances of a
sale here. If you were to pick up handful of Ne-yo CDs, as if you
were about to buy them, but then changed your mind and didn't bother
to put them back in the same place, that would work. Even though this
record will be heavily stocked and you might not be able to move all
the stock, just relocating a handful creates issues: Even though the
store will appear to be out of stock, the computer will see it as in
stock and not re-order the title once it sells down and then Ne-Yo
will lose a few sales later in the week
This is most important in stores were we are competing with Ne-yo,
which is in the big chains that sell pop and urban product. The stores
listed above are in the order you should hit them up.
The main thing is to keep the pressure up all week. First day sales
are important but keeping our sales going and having a strong weekend
are equally important to grabbing the #1 slot that belongs to us.
Please be sure to email me this week and let me know which stores you
have gone to and worked your magic at.
Thanks everyone,
Abby
Victory at all costs, Victory in spite of all terror, Victory however
long and hard the road may be; for without Victory, there is no
survival.

Yeah, I could see this creating some "issues".

even this creates "issues," isn't it common knowledge that good placement is paid for?

P.S. That "So Sick" song will make my P&J top 10 if radio overkill doesn't burn me out on it. I'm a sucker for a love ode to the radio.

My biggest problem in the whole world of retail with customers is them putting shit in the wrong place. I have scolded customers quite loudly for doing this, in full view of other customers. This Victory-sanctioned email makes me want to put all of our Victory product in the returns pile. Unlike stupid street teamers, I am allowed to do this.

I often wonder what Raybeez would think about his name still on the label's discs given some of the dreck they release. That is if they are still doing that... I haven't checked in a while...

My store has still sold zero copies. We haven't sold any of the Ne-Yo either so I guess it's a tie.

ho. lee. fu. cking. shit. all that's missing is the 'seig heil'.

After getting into Jimmy Eat World, My Chemical Romance, and even to an extent Fall Out Boy, Hawthorne Heights was the band that told me that, yes, it was all right to hate emo again.

-- Tantrum The Cat (tantrumtheca...), March 2nd, 2006.

well white-power/neo-nazi music labels have long appropriated punk/hardcore/metal imagery and styles to try to appeal to wayward youth.

but victory was previously primarily known for straight edge/hardcore and metalcore stuff. most of it at least ostensibly anti-fascist.

but yeah, hardcore tuff-guy/mook culture might seem kind of scary and vaguely unsavory if you're not acquainted with it. most of it's just bored kids out for a good time though, like any other youthful music scene.

Too many of the emo/hc/screamo-whatever label names remind me of white-power labels - Victory, Resistance, Revolution (I think)..

Resistance is a neo-nazi label, IIRC. By Revolution i think you're referring to Revelation, which is another hardcore label in the vein of Victory, though not as ambitious and aggressive in promoting their product outside of their niche.

Good call. It took me a long time to get over my prejudices about that kind of music. Actually hearing some of the better stuff helped a lot.

I notice HMV have got this, along with the "free" DVD.

Here's the catch.

The DVD is either part one, or part two, of the whole 'documentary/film' thing.

You have to buy two copies to get the whole thing.
If you care that much.

Anyone know what the last one was?

"Victory's Hawthorne Heights could have been #1 if released a week earlier. If Only You Were Lonely is on pace for around 100,000."

Too bad for them, huh?

March will roar in like a lion for the bealeaguered biz when Def Jam/IDJ's Ne-Yo proves to be the year's first breakout artist, with his debut album, In My Own Words, set to debut atop next Tuesday's HITS album chart with somewhere in the vicinity of 275-300k in first-week sales.

...hm, that IS a good question. I thought for a second they were referring to the Offspring's Smash but that never went to number one, just top ten.

From: Abby XXXXXX
Sent: Wednesday, March 01, 2006 3:02 PM
To: Abby XXXXXX
Subject: Street Team 3/1

I hope you guys all realize that this email was a joke! Some of you got it but for those of you that did not I guess my sense of humor may only seem funny to me. If any of you are confused by any of this call me and don’t take things so literally! If I asked you to stand up and do 100 jumping jacks while holding your breath I highly doubt that you would listen! But seriously, call anyway as I do not want anything taken out of context. Shame on my sense of humor!

Thanks guys

-Abby

If we ignore the "rock" qualifier, then probably Tone Loc, Loc'ed After Dark.

At No. 3, rock quintet Hawthorne Heights enjoys its highest charting position ever on The Billboard 200. The band's Victory Records release "If Only You Were Lonely" moved 114,000 copies, which put it at No. 1 on Billboard's Top Independent Albums and Top Rock Albums charts.

and The Go-Gos' Beauty & The Beat in '81

IRS was alligned w/ and distributed by A&M throughout the 80s, so it was hardly an independent in the sense of RT SST or Homestead et al.

What was that?

i haven't heard hawthorne heights, i doubt very much that they're any good at all.

No, trust me, you definitely aren't.

Download Ohio's For Lovers for some comic genius, however. If that song was satire, it'd be the funniest song ever. Unfortunately, it's sickeningly, 100% serious.

OTM. I think Hawthorne Heights are to emo what Trixter were to hair metal: the final sign that the water isn't warm anymore, your fingertips are pruny, and maybe it's time to get out of the bathtub and into some clean clothes.

14 results found:

"Control Myself" - LL Cool J feat. Jennifer Lopez

OH.MY.GOD.YOU LET THESE COLOREDS GET AWAY WITH ANYTHING.HAHAHA!SHIT IS WEAK...I'M IN AWE.

-- FRDGFGG (SGSGFGH...), April 9th, 2006. (userip)

White boy does reggae music

whoa whoa whoa....what about "fiddle riddle"(title?)by frank black?that's a reggaeish tune for sure...and it's pretty fucking good.

-- fgd gd (vdzdgg...), April 8th, 2006. (userip)

Do You Have To Be Sentimental To Enjoy Hip-Hop?

ILM LOVES THESAURUS RAP...AND HATES GUITARS.ILM IS SAD.

-- CVFSGFG (FDFDF...), April 4th, 2006. (userip)

Join My Boycott of Morrissey

black people are just as idiotic as white people...and that's pretty idiotic.

-- sdddfsg (dgfgfg...), April 4th, 2006. (userip)

hawthorne heights take aim at ne-yo with disgustingly opportunistic, vaguely racist email blast

"black people are perfect creatures.white people are evil"-ILM

-- RSTVTR (DFGGS...), April 3rd, 2006. (userip)

FREE JAZZ: Pick Only Ten

this thread is WAY jazzist.

-- gegetyer (ertyyhdte...), April 3rd, 2006. (userip)

albums that end in an incredible way

no no-it's gotta be lambchop's "is a woman".

-- trethyethge (sdfgsrg...), March 31st, 2006. (userip)

100 Misconceived Epics--6:00 and above

wilco-LESS THAN YOU THINK.

-- dfdsSGS (FSDAfdAD...), March 23rd, 2006. (userip)

Built To Spill-"You In Reverse".

someone,anyone...tell me,can this be had at the moment?i need a little built to spill in my life.ima searchin'...but no luck.i buy i buy.

-- heymanitsme (crabappleshoo...), March 22nd, 2006. (userip)

Built To Spill-"You In Reverse".

ok,here's the inevitable.i'm gonna buy it,you just quit it.where on earth can i find this?tell me it's reached a certain soulseeky area.tell me i can find it if i look hard enough.ha!

-- jfdfdf (dfwfgdgw...), March 22nd, 2006. (userip)

What kinds of music do Republicans genuinely enjoy?

YOU'RE A NIGGER.

-- AAFAEWRGTE (WRGERHE...), March 10th, 2006. (userip)

Excuse My Ignorance

ok...so i'm pretty sure i'm going to get a lot of people telling me to fuck off...but for the kind-hearted souls...what exactly is "oink"...how does it work and how does one get on?i use soulseek but there are a few things i've heard i can only get here.so,any info is appreciated.

-- wetryeety (sghdthtre...), March 7th, 2006. (userip)

THREE 6 MAFIA: OSCAR WINNERS

if that was the best two minutes of television in a long time,you must own(and read)a ton of books.

-- rgtwecttc (aexfer...), March 5th, 2006. (userip)

what are the most indifferent,apathetic songs in the world?hmmm?

i've seen "what's the happiest"...and "what's the saddest"...what about a song that is neglectful of both?

-- dfsdsfggf (adfgsgd...), March 1st, 2006. (userip)

WAY TO GO TONY!

wow.

Tony Brummel
Owner, Victory Records
Jan. 26, 2005
By Adrian Gregory Glover

After speaking with Victory Records owner Tony Brummel, I can understand why the dude has gathered the reputation that he has in some circles. Why? Because he’s a pretty honest and direct guy.

That threatens most people in life and that causes them to take it back to the high school level and gossip, while back at the ranch his label is surging forward on the strength of Taking Back Sunday, Atreyu, Hawthorne Heights and more.

etc.

How dare you make fun of the lead singer of Bad Manners that way.

This made me smile.

http://www.gocolumbiamo.com/ParksandRec/Images/Special_Olympics/so-logo.jpg

*lights bulb appears over Brummel's bald noggin*

hehe

The band's third album is due to be released on August 5, 2008,[11] surprisingly through Victory Records again, after a lengthy legal battle between the two parties.

I thought about reviving this the other day because I finally listened to Because of You and Ne-Yo is the shit and his next album will no doubt be a total game-changer for the entire world, like Thriller meets 1999, and I was wondering if Hawthorne Heights still existed. And now I see that they do.

Listen to this shit on MySpace-- this band goes gold?

http://www.myspace.com/hawthorneheights

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Qi1ZVk_TeU&feature=player_embedded

say it ain't so, Gil ;_;

everyone knows that Ne-Yo is really Neil Young right?