Old Favourites: The Vines – “Get Free”
“Y’know you really oughta move out of California…”
Earlier in the week, I had the honour of meeting Patrick Matthews when he was hanging out in Wollongong with the lovely Owl Eyes. In case you didn’t know, Patrick was the original bassist for The Vines before going on to Youth Group, and most recently The Jewel and the Falcon. I was happy to chat about the latter two, but one thing you should know about me is that I was OBSESSED with The Vines.
This band, at the ripe old age of 12, exposed me to a whole new world of rock and roll. A world of drugs and destruction and videos like this – Get Free was another one of those things that just completely blew me away the first time I saw it. It blew them away too – literally, the sight of Craig Nicholls flying off the face of the earth due to some explosive on the ground, to me, remains one of the iconic shots of 2000s rock videos.
I can’t really expand much more on how much this video freaked me out and excited me simultaneously as a child. I still love The Vines, but this was my peak of obsession – knowing every word to every song, wanting to be Craig, etc. You know the drill. Anyway, rock out to this one!
Watch This Now: Andy Bull – “Phantom Pains”
“Yesterday, I woke myself with such an awful feeling…”
Welcome back to Y,WGAV! for 2011! More information about the Top 30 Videos of the Year later on in the week, but I thought I’d kick off the year with a great Aussie artist. Last year (ooh, exciting! I can say “last year” now!), I did a blog about Andy Bull and his video for Young Man – at the time, he didn’t have a video to promote anything off his Phantom Pains EP. As you can see, the tide has turned since that blog!
This is a decidedly bizarre video involving paintball suits, blood, some crazy dude and the chopping off of one’s thumb. Watch it once and it makes no sense, watch it twice and it makes a little bit of sense, and then from the third viewing onwards it goes back to making no sense! Whatever your interpretation, it’s incredibly intriguing, well-shot and certain to get heads turned.
Yes, We've Got a Video! 