what’s a yellowcard?

has it really been 5 years since our first video?  for those of you who don’t know, my good buddy, matt dinh, and i used to be known for our incredibly craptacular yellowcard cover videos.  today, as i was prepping my guitar for a studio recording session with The Looking Glass (more on that later), i decided that i would cruise on over to our old youtube channel and relive the past a little bit.  besides, if it weren’t for these videos, i probably wouldn’t be doing what i’m doing now.

a brief history:

for those who have seen us perform before, this story is probably nothing new…but since a lot of you didn’t go to college with us, i’ll tell this story again!

when i was accepted to uc riverside, i was convinced that i could try to change my personal image.  back in high school, i was always known as that band geek with a bowl cut who could play sad songs on his acoustic guitar and do a few tricks on a skateboard.  i wanted to leave that image behind start a new.  i worked at tapioca express, drove a rice rocket and hell, even spiked my hair up real high for good measure. i put away my guitar, started listening to a bunch of kpop (i know, what the hell) and did nothing but play counter-strike (haha).

everything was going as planned until i found myself in loni’s dorm room, just hanging out and eating her food, as usual.  on one particular day, i found an acoustic guitar just sitting on the side of her desk.  i hadn’t played guitar in quite a while so i asked if i could play around with it.  i started playing some nsync or something when this random guy named matt walks by and goes “DUDE, DO YOU KNOW HOW TO PLAY YELLOWCARD?!”  i was like “UH, YA I DO ACTUALLY.”  he then ran off down the hall and in about .02 seconds, came back with his violin.  we played a song called “cigarette” and the rest is history.

we played at some talent show during our first year, took a break in the summer and then finally moved out of the dorms into our first apartments.  matt and i didn’t live together, but i would go over to his place pretty often to crank out some yellowcard covers just for fun.  i guess matt had gotten a pretty nifty little webcam for christmas 2003 or something so we decided to test it out.  it started as “hey, wouldn’t it be funny if we made a video of ourselves playing covers” to strategically planned videos to be released to fans of yellowcard around the world.  we recorded a song called “avondale” with a special guest, alex.  he would just pop in every so often, singing a lyric or two.

we posted it on some yellowcard fan website and within a couple of weeks, it found its way to the front page of the official yellowcard website!  keep in mind that this was all before youtube, vimeo or any other video sharing website were available.  it came to a point where people on campus would recognize us…we were sort of internet celebrities for a while — and it was pretty damn cool.

so we made video after video, trying hard to get more stuff posted on their website.  even though every attempt was basically a failure, we slowly started gaining a little fan base.  people would request songs to be done and we would do them.  once youtube started, we literally started filming EVERYTHING.  we eventually got another video posted up on their site.  it was a cover of their classic “cigarette” and was filmed while matt and i were down in new orleans.

after this video, we decided to up our musical value a little more and add an extra guitarist in the mix.  we met this guy named tom after he heard us practicing in the dorms one day and decided to give him a call to do a song or two.  we filmed “gifts and curses” and “october nights” in his garage.  “gifts and curses” is probably one of my favorite videos, only because it took SO LONG to get it right.

after tom, enter won.  i had known him since high school but never really got to know him until he came to riverside.  i had always known that he was an amazing guitar player and singer.  we had jammed with him way way back in time for an unreleased video of “one year, six months” but with all of us being so busy with “studying,” we never really got a chance to really play together.  we decided to play a little show for our “fans” at won’s dorm.  surprisingly enough, a good amount of people showed up.  here’s a clip:

we got to a point to where we could basically learn and play a new song together whenever we wanted. it was pretty cool.  we decided to try and tackle another challenging yellowcard bside called “firewater.”  we always tried one upping the entertainment value in every video so we thought of the best way to up the value: bring back alex.   this is by far my favorite video by us.  not only was it fun to watch, but it was twice as fun to film.

as time went on, yellowcard’s popularity slowly started dying and we started running out of material to cover.  they were releasing a new album at the time so we decided to cover one more song and call it quits.  we recorded and released a video for “how i go” on the day of the album’s release. it’s the only video to feature a piano!

when we thought we were done as a group, matt’s club was doing a culture show that revolved around musical performances and acting.  we decided to do one last show with a melody of 3 songs.  we were supposed to have an HD recorded version of this performance but the camera guy’s computer exploded or something and all the data was lost so all we got was this version. this would be the last video that the 3 of us would record together.

well, this was definitely one of the posts that i had a hard time writing.  there were so many things that we did together that i couldn’t even imagine writing without writing a novel.  i just like to remember it as one of the most influential and fun times of my life. we’re all doing our own separate things now but this is one thing we’ll always have!  who knows, we may even do another video in a couple years.  if this was the first time you’d ever heard of these videos, just go to youtube and search “jon hom matt dinh yellowcard” and you’ll find all of our videos.  gah, i don’t even know how to end it so i’ll end it with this:

“i only need one more day, just one more chance to say, that matt and i really aren’t that gay.”

2 people like this post.

Unlike