Wintergreen (band)
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| Wintergreen | |
|---|---|
| Origin | Los Angeles, California, USA |
| Genres | Alternative rock, Indie Rock[1] |
| Years active | 2006 - present |
| Labels | Mt. Fuji, Old Flame Records |
| Members | |
| Drew Mottinger Trevor Sherwood Todd Ramsey Matt Casebeer |
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Wintergreen is an alternative rock band from Los Angeles. While the band was relatively unknown at first, their break out song “When I Wake Up” became popular on the internet in early 2006 when a music video was released. Because of the popularity of the song on blogs and other social sites, Wintergreen gained an online following.[citation needed]
Contents |
[edit] Members
Current:
- Lead Singer/Guitarist - Drew Mottinger
- Guitarist/Vocals - Trevor Sherwood
- Drums - Todd Ramsey
- Bass - Danny Young
- Keyboard - Matt Casebeer
Former:
- Bass - Brad Vartan
[edit] When I Wake Up
Wintergreen's first video retells the story of one of the most infamous video games of all time, E.T. the Extra Terrestrial for the Atari 2600. During the video game craze of 1982, Atari made a twenty-two million dollar deal with Steven Spielberg to create a video game on his movie E.T. Atari was hoping to cash in on the film's popularity and rushed the game into development in order to have it out for the holiday shopping season. Because of time constraints (only 6 weeks were spent developing the game) and little manpower, the game was buggy and had awkward controls and a sparse plot. Because of this the game was a massive failure and Atari received many copies back from distributors, who, thanks to pressure from Atari, purchased all of their inventory for 1982 in advance. With tons of unsold inventory that wasn't moving, Atari made the decision to bury the unsold cartridges in a landfill in Alamogordo, New Mexico. Wintergreen's video follows three of the intrepid band members on a journey to recover the lost cartridges for seemingly nostalgic purposes.
Directed by Keith Schofield, “When I Wake Up” was released in January 2006. It is available in several formats including an iPod/PSP format. [1]
Although the video is a fun trip down memory lane for many people in their late-twenties, it is historically inaccurate. In order to prevent looting of the landfill, Atari had the cartridges crushed with the tracks of a Caterpiller track loader before being covered with cement after insertion into the landfill.
[edit] The Extended Play
Wintergreen's first EP entitled The Extended Play was released on January 24, 2006 and contains five tracks. It was released on the Indie label Mt. Fuji Records. It is available on Apple's iTunes music store or through the band's website.
- Tracklist
- "Waste of Time"
- "When I wake Up"
- "Hard to Be Cool"
- "Last Dance"
- "You Belong to Me"
[edit] (Around &) Around Again
In July 2007, Wintergreen released their first LP, entitled (Around &) Around Again as a free download from their MySpace. It contains four of the five track originally available on "The Extended Play" (with "You Belong to Me" being omitted), in addition to seven other original tracks. The download features all eleven tracks, an official lyrics PDF, album artwork (closely resembling the box art to an Atari 2600 game), and the video for "When I Wake Up".
- Tracklist
- "So Long"
- "Too Late"
- "When I Wake Up"
- "Last Dance"
- "Hard to be Cool"
- "Fall Apart"
- "Can't Sit Still"
- "Waste of Time"
- "Tomb"
- "Ulysses"
- "ROYGBIV"
[edit] Can't Sit Still
Following the band's release of their online album "(Around &) Around Again", Wintergreen created their second music video, this time for the song "Can't Sit Still". Directed by Keith Schofield, this video features an instructional "how to" on the creation of several different substances. Included in the video are instructions on the creation of dextropolamine 22-B (aka "Egyptian Meth"), pentocyclene (aka "Hillbilly Qualudes"), and an unnamed hallucinogen. The video also features the band members shopping for the necessary household ingredients, creating the drugs, and allegedly doing and subsequently experiencing the effects of the substances. It is important to note that these substances do not produce a high when ingested and may be fatal[citation needed]. Since the video's release it has suffered from criticism on YouTube, with users demanding that the video be removed. However, it is not in violation of any YouTube policies because the substances and their creation are both entirely fictional[citation needed].
[edit] MySpace
Wintergreen has made nearly all of their songs available on their MySpace page.
