Comments on: You Know Who Doesn’t Suck? The Vines!

By: MrStarhead

MrStarhead — Tue, 27 May 2008 02:41:29 +0000

To add to the chorus, the Vines were absolutely, positively abysmal live, and I am convinced to this day that Nicholls was trying to piss off the audience intentionally.

By: TheMojoPin

TheMojoPin — Wed, 14 May 2008 03:37:58 +0000

These guys tricked me into liking them for about a month. I saw them at the 9:30 Club on their first go-around and they had OK Go opening up for them. That shit isn’t fair…booze and OK Go makes ANYTHING coming afterwads look infinitely better. Especially when OK Go decide to cover the Specials. Lord, that was awful.

By: Al Shipley

Al Shipley — Tue, 13 May 2008 01:57:10 +0000

Wow, never made a connection between The Vines and Jesse & the 8th Street Kidz before seeing the picture at the top of this post, but now it all makes sense.

By: Richard Dipper

Richard Dipper — Tue, 13 May 2008 01:03:52 +0000

You know who does suck? The Vines!

You know whose writing is filled with unfounded and unnecessary half-thought out declarations in a floundering attempt to stir up controversy and maybe get more page views? Anthony Miccio!

Someone get rid of this guy and get Jess back to writing regularly. At least his posts made sense, even when I didn't agree with him.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Mon, 12 May 2008 11:53:04 +0000

The original version of “Factory” was far and away the best thing they ever did (ripping off Shaun Ryder ripping off Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da), but there’s three or four tracks of theirs that still hold up, plus that hilarious Spin interview where the grand profound conclusion is that Craig Nicholls is… Evan Dando??

By: Chris Molanphy

Chris Molanphy — Mon, 12 May 2008 09:43:02 +0000

@AquaLung: Actually, I would mostly agree with this comment. And I'm the one who defended the first album, above. Well put.

By: HUGE_Hefner

HUGE_Hefner — Mon, 12 May 2008 09:26:21 +0000

I was gonna say The Vines sucked and all that but it doesn’t seem necesary anymore. Someone even said the thing about the VMAs and The Hives.

By: Homage

Homage — Mon, 12 May 2008 09:19:51 +0000

I can’t WAIT till the Vines set up a transcendental-meditation mecca in partnership with… David O Russell, maybe? That’s a toughy.

By: AquaLung

AquaLung — Mon, 12 May 2008 08:58:45 +0000

The Vines were an okay pop-rock band with a promising debut album that got blown out of proportion by an early decade media hungry for the "Return of Rawk!" trend story (THE strokes! THE hives! THE vines!) that got written over and over and over.

For their part, The Vines didn't help with horrible and dispassionate live performances, second only to their even more disappointing follow-ups.

Most of the blame fell on Craig Nichols' Asperger's diagnosis, but that doesn't explain his bland work since.

And I'm pretty sure The Vines have vowed to never tour again, which may actually help their cause.

By: TheRunningboard7

TheRunningboard7 — Mon, 12 May 2008 08:53:04 +0000

When I hear musicians, I do not expect them to live up to someone else, I just expect them not to repulse me. The Vines failed me, there.

Of course I'm not one to understand the ebb and flow of music: 80s rock left rock inflated and over the top, but the solution everyone seemed to cling on to was Kurt Cobain and assimilating his ethos. Which to me said "what the world wants is to be mundane." Muddy boring music, muddy personalities, muddy tone... muddy.. banks of the wishkah.. It was a time of change, man! people heard that music and thought: I don't have to get a job! I can mumble and feel bad for myself.. by rocking out... to some 90 bpm jams.. about being sad... and stuff.. um..

Yeah, I hope that frames my view of it all and anyone who may put out similar music. I bitch not to say I'm right on this one (as cannot be: opinions/assholes/etc.), but because I think a few more people felt the way I did than they care to admit. The bands that stuck out to me from the 90s were bands that sounded much clearer and interesting: Alice in Chains, STP.. um... STP.. RATM.. they just seemed to (musically only, of course) have their shit together.

By: PeterBjorn&Yawn

PeterBjorn&Yawn — Mon, 12 May 2008 08:28:15 +0000

I’m all for re-evaluation of brushed-off bands, but had to attend some Vines concerts back in my label days and they were easily in the top 5 worst bands I’ve seen, opening bands and house parties included.

By: Clevertrousers

Clevertrousers — Mon, 12 May 2008 08:14:33 +0000

@RaptorAvatar: How did I know that this thread would end up being about Vampire Weekend?

And to be fair, we wouldn't have had Riki Tiki Tavi without Rudyard Kipling, not Donovan. Which begs the question - how come no one has ever put "The White Man's Burden" to music?

By: Chris Molanphy

Chris Molanphy — Mon, 12 May 2008 07:55:57 +0000

I'm not sure I see the Donovan conncection entirely, but I'll get on board Anthony's bandwagon that the Vines, at least on album one, were far from sucky. That first record's a garage-pop hook-fest, with an interesting post-Britpop sound on a number of tracks that made it stand out from all the Class of '01-'02 "The" bands.

The only trouble is, albums two and three had nothing nearly as catchy and were kind of dull.

They were blown away live by the Hives, and by pretty much every other band of their ilk. But if we're just talking about recorded output, Highly Evolved is a minor (very minor) gem.

By: Audif Jackson Winters III

Audif Jackson Winters III — Mon, 12 May 2008 07:50:46 +0000

@RaptorAvatar: "I can't rememeber a good lyric they wrote .."

Aww, come on, I think one of their albums had a track called "Fuck the World" and, separately, a song that featured the line "Fuck the world."

By: Camp Tiger Claw

Camp Tiger Claw — Mon, 12 May 2008 07:45:43 +0000

Did this aforementioned Hype fellow write their terrible, terrible songs?

By: TheContrarian

TheContrarian — Mon, 12 May 2008 07:44:55 +0000

@Mick Kraut: Sigh. Yeah. I suppose it was. But that doesn't forgive their asinine, overproduced, gimmicky "originals."

By: TheBeard

TheBeard — Mon, 12 May 2008 07:38:46 +0000

I’m just mad about Saffron.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Mon, 12 May 2008 07:35:22 +0000

That dude shouldn’t be allowed near a microphone.

By: Anthony Miccio

Anthony Miccio — Mon, 12 May 2008 07:35:02 +0000

@Jack Fear: My dirty secret is that I've been making the Donovan comparison since the release of Winning Days. And I saw Don't Look Back well before then (before owning a Dylan album, actually).

By: RaptorAvatar

RaptorAvatar — Mon, 12 May 2008 07:32:31 +0000

They had hooks, even a few songs. However, they just weren’t very good or compelling. Plus, there was no intellectual or emotional center to what was going on. I can’t rememeber a good lyric they wrote and Nichholls was just moaning a spaced out version of another generation’s angst anyhow. That said, he can totally start mining 90s nostalgia by the end of the year, especially now that Vampire Weekend has proven that real feeling can afford to be a null quantity in the current indiesphere.