claim to fame: smoke weed with the vines

check him out over at 12ozprophet.com and Andsuns.

I’m gonna get free
i’m gonna get free
i’m gonna get free
ride into the sun
She never loved me
she never loved me
she never loved me
why should anyone?
Come here
come here
come here
i’ll take your photo for you
Come here
come here
come here
drive you around the corner
Come here
come here
come here
you know you really oughtta
Come here
come here
come here
move outta california
Yeah
Get (get)
me (me)
far (far)
when i’ve a lot to lose
Save (save)
me (me)
from (from)
here (here)
Come here
come here
come here
Come here
come here
come here
Come here
come here
come here
Come here
come here
come here
When it’s breeding time
look into your mind away
I’m gonna get free
i’m gonna get free
i’m gonna get free
ride into the sun
She never loved me
she never loved me
she never loved me
why should anyone?
Come here
come here
come here
i’ll take your photo for ya
Come here
come here
come here
drive you around the corna
Come here
come here
come here
you know you really oughtta
Come here
come here
come here
move outta california

Get free stuff online in 72 Categories of free samples product and freestuff.

http://www.freakyfreddies.com

Frontman Nicholls demonstrates the proper method to destroy the hell out of a guitar

Well, the end of the semester is upon us, and everybody’s scrambling to keep their heads above the water, Ladykillers included. Nonetheless, we can’t afford to leave our lovely readers without substantial articles for so long. So I thought that I’d do a little something regarding a band that doesn’t get a lot of press anymore: The Vines.

Now, The Vines hold a special place in my heart because they were one of the first bands that I listened to that I couldn’t play around my mother all the way back in middle school. I distinctly remember when my first girlfriend burned me their debut album, Highly Evolved, in the eighth grade. I remember putting it in the ol’ Sony CD player and, upon hearing their interesting blend of ‘90s indie and ‘60s psych, thinking “man, that’s good.” I was wrong: that album is not good, but rather unbelievable; at the time, however, I was not old enough to be figuring out much of my own music taste, and I owned probably about 4 CDs, which were mostly things like Linkin Park’s Hybrid Theory and some Beatles compilation.

Luckily, I wised up damn quick.

Anyway. Highly Evolved was the album with which the Vines exploded onto the garage rock scene in ’02, becoming one of the “Big Four” bands of that year alongside “The” Strokes, Hives, and White Stripes. It’s probably most remembered now for their huge single, “Get Free,” which was basically 2:06 of straight, pure, nasty rock based on a riff consisting of two notes (one bent). After that album, however, the Vines became distinct from their peers by dropping off the international radar virtually overnight. What happened? This:

Turns out Craig Nicholls had Asperger’s Syndrome, a mild form of autism that was hugely exacerbated by all the weed he was smoking. After the Letterman incident, he was formally diagnosed and stopped tokin’; nevertheless, both the other members of the trio found it too hard to continue working with him, and left. They were replaced, and The Vines carried on, but the damage to their career seemed to be more or less irrevocable.

As of now, the Vines have four albums out: Evolved, 2004’s Winning Days, the 2006 Vision Valley, and 2008’s Melodia. Admittedly even I don’t own the latter two. But I don’t own quite a few albums that I still listen to regularly. Regardless, here I want to focus on Highly Evolved, as going over their whole career would be absurd and take way more time than I am capable of maintaining my gusto for this blog post.

It opens up with the 1:34 long title track, which has frankly always been an inspiration for me as far as songwriting minimalism. Truly a badass piece of music, it serves as a wonderful and high-energy introduction to the Vines’ unique sound. “Autumn Shade” follows; at only 2:17, it’s the shortest of the 1960s-influenced ballads on the album, and while there are several later in the album that “Shade” can’t match up to, it’s a really good introduction to that style, and a well-thought-out programming choice.

Third album single “Outtathaway!” follows with its enormous wall of feedback opening, and surprisingly groovy and clean verses. In my personal opinion, this one always got kind of a bad rap. Yeah, the chorus is 4 bars long, and basically unintelligible, but come on guys, I know you like the Pixies, so get over it. Also, the guitar solo is really damn tasty, albeit simple. Just awesome tone. On the whole a fairly minimal song, not overproduced at all, but not empty-feeling at all.  Here’s the only embeddable version I could find on Youtube (there’s another video that’s fully nuts).

“Sunshinin’” follows. Kind of cool guitar, but nothing too notable here. However, the fifth track, “Homesick,” is the first time on the album Nicholls really lets his inner Beatle out of its shell. Certainly not a complex song lyrically or structurally, it’s still really beautiful. And Nicholls’s somewhat rasping voice just works perfectly floating over the smooth bass lines and well-tempered drumming that these ballads all feature.

“Get Free,” as I said, was the big single. 2 minutes of kickass, for sure, but one does kind of wish that one of their more artistically successful songs had been the big one as opposed to the biggest, loudest, screamiest song on the whole album. Ah, well. I guess it was what the climate was ready for. “Country Yard” follows, a really interesting track that probably best exemplifies the combination of pretty and mean that The Vines do so well throughout. It manages to be both the smooth balladeering of “Homesick” and the loud rock and roll of “Outtathaway!”.

“Factory” was the song that first got them noticed in the UK, and while I appreciate it, it’s honestly kind of a weird fit here with its bizarro-ska feel. Whatever, it’s followed by “In The Jungle,” a slick rocker that is one of the highest-adrenaline points on the whole album.

…and then, at track 9, is my favorite of the whole album, the ethereal “Mary Jane.” While it’s an obvious ode to the drug that was actually making Nicholls fucking crazy, it is one of the most beautiful ballads in modern rock by far. If you do nothing else in the course of reading this enormous goddamn article, listen to this:

The album is closed by the loud, fun, not especially outstanding “Ain’t No Room” and the epic rock ballad “1969”, the latter of which I would often play on repeat as a 12-year-old, trying to understand where that sort of rock music came from. Now, of course, I understand: The Beatles and Pixies had a crazy baby and named it Craig.

“Highly” recommend picking up a copy of this album if you don’t already have it, and giving the whole thing a listen, not just the singles. Many of this album’s best points went unnoticed by the mainstream, and it’s a damn shame.

-Owen

Morning.  I don’t have any news to report.  Do you?  I don’t.  Do you?  No?  You’re sure?  Well, okay then it’s settled.  There’s nothing new going on in the music world today whatsoever.  Cool.

Let’s look backward then.  Do you remember The Vines?  Yeah, you do.  I know you remember this little ditty:

Of course, that’s not actually The Vines playing “Get Free” from 2002’s Highly Evolved but it is definitely one thing: adorable!  However, the real members of The Vines weren’t much older than that at the time of the song’s peak popularity and the band’s quick ascension to the bands-who-have-appeared-on-the-cover-of-Rolling Stone-club.  Yes, it was September 19, 2002 and the headline declared “Rock is Back!”, placing The Vines at the forefront of the garage rock revival alongside The Strokes, The White Stripes, The Hives, and The Matchbox 20 (I joke obviously, but really if they had added a “the” to their name chances are they would’ve been included just on a formality).  You can see the cover here for a refresher.  I always thought that singer Craig Nicholls looked like Bud Cort in Harold & Maude, if Harold had been stoned out of his mind from morning to midnight, but then I learned Nicholls had a condition known as Asperger’s Syndrome and I felt somewhat guilty for making fun of him.  If you don’t know what Aperger’s Syndrome is you should check out a book called Born on A Blue Day by Daniel Tammet, who has the condition and also happens to be an autistic savant.  An interesting read.  Anyway, back to The Vines.  Here’s another song you may remember from an iPod commercial, but the actual video directed by Michel Gondry is way better:

That’s “Ride” from 2004’s Winning Days.  It doesn’t take a genius to notice that Nicholls is in all likelihood a bit of a Kurt Cobain fan, to say the least.  What’s funny is that I remember when the band first popped up in America they got all kinds of comparisons to Nirvana, but shortly thereafter the thing to do if you were a DJ or music critic was to sort of dismiss this comparison and talk about how The Vines actually had a lot of Beatles influence in their music.  As if this somehow made it more sophisticated or original or what?  I don’t know.  Personally, I’m fine with the Nirvana proximity.  When Cobain was still alive I thought most of the bands that aped that sound sucked, but I was always okay with The Vines and that probably had as much to do with time as anything else.  But for the record – yes – the band actually handles The Beatles territory just fine, so much so that I guess they were asked to contribute a song to that I Am Sam soundtrack that was nothing but Beatles covers.  Here’s their take on “I’m Only Sleeping”:

So what’s going on with these guys?  Well, they released two albums following the aforementioned Winning Days, and it doesn’t seem like either one made much of a dent.  I haven’t heard the music, but mostly I suspect the landscape of what’s popular has just changed in a way that isn’t exactly pining for what The Vines have to offer.  Not to mention, there simply aren’t a whole lot of radio stations that play garage rock stuff in the first place.  The band’s last album, Melodia, was released in the summer of 2008 (but actually comes out next week for those of us here in the States) and sadly the band cancelled most of their scheduled tour last fall due to singer Nicholl’s mental health.  You can read more about that at the band’s website and here’s hoping his status improves.  This is the first single off the album, titled “He’s a Rocker”:

That’s all for today.  More tomorrow…

GET FREE HOOK:
Get Free, yeah, we got chains/ Down to our waistline, look how they hang
Get Free, yeah, we all got a vice/ The one goal in life for everybody to get (Repeat 2X)

Verse 1:

You should be tired of frontin’, …you’re only fooling yourself/
ya keep friends around to tell you that your %#!$ don’t smell/
meanwhile they’re backstabbing and riding your talent/
take your people out the hood, like that’s supposed to matter huh?/
get your own, its cool to throw a rope/
But its those you keep close that’ll open your throat/
Jealousy will get hungry and eat love for breakfast/
like your wild ass cousin runnin up for your necklace/
You know snakes bite, so what are you looking surprised for/
now focus your eyes on the ones you said you’d die for/
but they aint dying for you, but they’d die for your spot/
And the minute you’re on top, they think you owe them alot/
like its part of the contract, but contrary to that/
out of the kindness of your heart you were tryin to give back/
It’s a hard choice to make, I know its easier said/
but sometimes its gotta be done for you to get ahead
And Get free     

Even if you’ve watched it already, go to YouTube and watch it again. Someone at YouTube must have “Great Taste” in music and artistic expression. We found out it was featured on the YouTube homepage yesterday. Super DOPE!!! Dreams Come True, and thanks to you ALL for helping to make it happen. Peace
-Billy Drease

NOTES
After many, many months of development and drawing on my end and a couple thousand hours of editing on the animators end, the groundbreaking video GET FREE has finally been released into the ether. This video was inspired by a friend of mine at Media Music Inc., Andre Howard, who suggested earlier this year that I illustrate and draw my own video for GET FREE. This video is now the perfect tool for promoting what it is that I do. I’m an artist and a musician/entertainer, so what better way for me to display my talents and convey my messages than through image and sound.

I illustrated the drawings for the video on 4 separate panel boards using Sakura of America Pigma Micron Pens. The boards and drawings were then delivered to LifeGuard Productions in Rochester, NY for the animation process and video editing. Link

VIDEO PRESS RELEASE
As America is witnessing the change of the guard, as is Hip-Hop.
Enter artist Edreys aka Billy Drease Williams with the perfectly
timed release of the new hit single “Get Free,” an anthem for change,
for reflection and for action. What also makes this hit single so
groundbreaking is the video may be the first of its kind, as this
animated video was entirely hand-illustrated by the artist himself,
truly making it unique with his own vision, artwork and direction.

“Get Free” is a visual masterpiece married with Edreys’ uncanny
command of the rhyme in which he communicates that no one is without
flaw or without vice but as a collective, everyone can independently
and interdependently “break the chain” and GET FREE!

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anime yang asalnya dari kata animation atau film animasi tetapi anime sendiri bisa diartikan animasi atau kartun ala jepang..gw tertarik ngangkat topik ini mungkin karena udah sebulanan ini gw addict banget ma yg namanya anime..secara dari sisi story bagus2 n tetap mengedepankan spirit dari tokoh utama,sesuatu yang menurut gw selalu ada dalam kartun2 jepang..selain itu,dari sisi edukasi menurut gw bagus n mendidik juga..tapi kebanyakan anime2 skg bisa nyampe episode 100an..untung aja 1 episode paling2 sekitar 20menit an lah..jadi yah lumayan pas break,bisa bikin kopi,n ngerokok sebatang…hehe

fave anime gw no 1 : eyeshield 21,sekilas kisahnya tentang seorang anak biasa yang kemudian bisa menjelma menjadi salah satu pemain terbaik di jepang..sayang episodenya yang terlalu banyak mencapai 123 episode, n itupun lom kelar..hikss..jadi yah cukup banyak menyita space d hardisk ampe 5GB..huhh..

fave anime gw no 2 : naruto shippuden,kalo ini mungkin anime favorit kebanyakan animer (sok menamain para anime addicted..hehe)..ini adalah kelanjutan dari naruto yang masih kecil,n gila aja ampe 200an episode..tp kalo yg shippuden baru nyampe 50an episode tapi untuk episode selanjutnya masih belum keluar,n juga durasi keluarnya 1 episodenya bisa nyampe sebulan..ini dia yang nyebelin para animer…

itu tadi anime favorit gw,dijamin bagus2 deh..tapi kalo skg gw lagi ngikutin devil may cry ma doraemon movie..devil may cry berkisah tentang si dante pembantai iblis,tp kalo doraemon asli gw pengen ntn untuk mengenang masa kecil gw dlu..tiap jam 8 pagi kalo ga salah dlu pas jaman skolah kudu uda harus duduk depan TV dah..hehe..btw,seneng juga keduanya cuma nyampe 10an episode..hehe..

at least,gw cuma berharap moga indonesia bisa bikin kartun dengan stylenya sendiri..n kalo bisa ato udah banyak jangan mengandalkan kemajuan teknologi aja,tapi lebih diprioritaskan dlu untuk nilai2 susilanya..

oya,tak lupa thanks buat temen2 yg joinan internet untuk share2an nya..kalo bs dibanyakin yah yg d share,jangan lupa update na juga coz gw males kalo mo donlot..hehehe

PISS

sebuah blog tentang kebahagiaan, dan blog yang menginginkan kebahagiaan, mari kita cicipi kebahagiaan itu …

happy blogging

Cuando hablamos del rock moderno, se nos viene a la cabeza el nombre de los Strokes o Arctic Monkeys, pero aunque muchos lo den por muerto, el rock está más vivo que nunca. Seguramente escriba un artículo mucho más amplio sobre este tema, pero por hoy me sirve para hablar del tema principal de esta entrada.

Al mismo ritmo de crecimiento de la sociedad y el mundo en general, crece la música. Hace 50 años sería estrafalario hablar de que de Suecia salen grandes artistas a nivel mundial, o que en Australia hay algo más que aborigenes y koalas. Hoy en día, de Suecia salen bandas como Mando Diao o The Hives, y de Australia salen autenticos grupazos como Jet, Wolfmother o …. The Vines, que son los que nos ocupan.

A pesar de lo que se pueda pensar, al contrario que Jet o Wolfmother, que tienen claras raices en el rock más duro de sus paisanos AC/DC, The Vines mezclan el mejor grunge de Nirvana con melodías modernas que rozan el indie más bailable. Por ponerles una etiqueta, se puede decir que son una banda de garage-rock que de la mano de su líder, Craigh Nicholls , nos trae una visión diferente del rock hecho en las antípodas.

Su trabajo más destacado es Highly Evolved (2002), con el que consiguieron la portada de la revista Rolling Stone y darse a conocer. Luego vinieron Winning Days (2004) y Vision Valley (2006), que fueron a cada cual más decepción en cuanto a ventas, pero no en cuanto a calidad musical. Para 2008 preparan nuevo disco, del que os informaremos detalladamente en masalladelsonido.

No me gusta hablar de la historia de los grupos, ni de anecdotas de los miembros…simplemente dar a conocer su música, que es la carta de presentación que nos entregan, así que os dejo con la que posiblemente sea su canción más conocida, y uno de los singles de su álbum de debut Highly Evolved…get free!!

Xabi

Have you discovered Freecycle? I did, during move #…what # was this last move…oh yes, #6 in 11.5 years. 

If you hate to throw good stuff away, stuff that might be too big or too odd to drop at your local Goodwill or other charitable organization, Freecycle is a way to find that well-loved but no longer needed item a new home. 

Go to their site.  Enter your area (by city, county, state) until you find your local Freecycle chapter.  All Freecycle groups are on Yahoo!, so you’ll need to have a Yahoo! ID to join your local group.  Once you’re there, you can post your items you want to give away….for FREE.  This is important– if you want to sell those items, don’t go to Freecycle, go to eBay, ok?

Here’s the GREAT part.  You can get stuff for free, too!  Check the listings on your local group to see what’s up for grabs.  Or if you have a specific need, post a Wanted Ad and see what happens.  Again….FREE!

I love to clean out the clutter and know my stuff is appreciated, wherever it lands a new home.  Freecycle is a great way to do that, so give it a looksee.

Write on, writing mommies!

WM

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