Wintergreen (band)

Infobox musical artist
Name = Wintergreen


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Origin = Los Angeles, California, USA
Genre = Alternative rock, Pop
Years_active = 2006 - present
Label = Mt. Fuji
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Current_members = Drew Mottinger
Trevor Sherwood
Todd Ramsey
Matt Casebeer
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Wintergreen comprises four young men hailing from the Midwest trying to make it big on the west coast. Although relatively unknown at first, the band's break out song “When I Wake Up” became popular on the internet in early 2006 when a music video was released. Thanks to the popularity of blogs and social bookmarking sites such as Digg, Wintergreen has gained an online following comprising many demographics.Fact|date=February 2007

Members

Wintergreen currently has four members including Jared Anderson on Bass, Lead Singer/Guitarist Drew Mottinger, Guitarist/Vocals Trevor Sherwood, and Todd Ramsey on Drums.

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 smash E.T.. Atari was hoping to cash in on the films popularity and rushed the game into development in order to have it out for the holiday shopping season. Because of time constraints and little manpower, the game was buggy and indeed, hard to finish most likely stemming from its awkward controls and little to no 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. [http://www.keithschofield.com/et/]

Although the video is a fun trip down memory lane for many people in their late-twenties, it is however 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. Even so, this little known fact does not diminish the video's sense of charm and adventure.

The Extended Play

Wintergreen's first EP entitled "The Extended Play" was release 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. [http://www.wintergreenmusic.com]

*Tracklist
** 1. Waste of Time
** 2. When I wake Up
** 3. Hard to Be Cool
** 4. Last Dance
** 5. You Belong to Me

(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". The album is still being given away, with the band urging people to download the songs and burn them onto CDs to hand out to everyone they know.

*Tracklist
** 1. So Long
** 2. Too Late
** 3. When I Wake Up
** 4. Last Dance
** 5. Hard to be Cool
** 6. Fall Apart
** 7. Can't Sit Still
** 8. Waste of Time
** 9. Tomb
** 10. Ulysses
** 11. ROYGBIV

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 nonexistent 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 any kind of high when ingested and may cause undesirable side effects such as nasal infection, esophageal damage, and stomach or liver poisoning. 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.

MySpace

Wintergreen has made nearly all of their songs available on their MySpace page. [http://www.myspace.com/wintergreen] Thanks to the popularity of their profile and video, Wintergreen's friend list has grown to over 54,822 at the time of writing, and profile views of over 203,148.

From The band's MySpace Profile:

“In today's music world it is getting harder to find a band that takes an honest original approach to rock n roll. It seems like it is been a while since a new band has come along with music really worth getting excited about. The four unknown Midwestern transplants that form Wintergreen are working to change that. Writing complex quality pop songs void of gimmicks and clichés, their sound is a balance of high energy and melancholy atmosphere. Wintergreen teamed up with producer/mixer Niko Bolas (Neil Young, Keith Richards, My Morning Jacket, Fiona Apple) to put the final touches on their debut EP. With their first release, Wintergreen showcase refreshingly elaborate guitar work, catchy vocal melodies, and strong rhythmic backbone. Creating a heartfelt sound that is truly timeless, original yet subtly familiar, every note is played with a precise passion that shakes listeners to the core. Hard working and humble, the taste and talent demonstrated by LA's Wintergreen is giving people reasons to remain in love with music. Give it one listen and you'll be hooked. “

External links

* [http://www.myspace.com/wintergreen Wintergreen on MySpace]
* [http://www.mtfujirecords.com Mt. Fuji Records]