East Coast Clothing Favourite Food example essay topic

Benji - Vocals & Guitar Nickname: Kid Vicious Birthday: March 11, 1979 Star Sign: Pisces Chinese Zodiac: Sheep Sheep Horoscope Says: "You like nice things and may become and artist or musician. You " re very religious and have strong beliefs. Yet you may be shy, timid, and somewhat puzzled by life. Your abilities make money for you. You get along best with: Hare, Boar, Horse".

Hometown: Waldorf, Maryland Status: Single Pets: Cash Height: 5'7 Eye Colour: Brown Hair Colour: Black & pink Clothing: Bondage pants / t -shirt, east coast clothing Favourite Food: Free food, pizza Favourite Colour: Black and baby blue Things He Loves: '63 Chevy impala, punk rock shows, punk rock girls, girls with tattoos and piercings, Goth girls, old clothes, old junk stores, his bicycle, Cash Things He Doesn't Love: Humidity, politicians, food poisoning Billy - Guitar Nickname: Lil' Billy Birthday: June 15, 1981 Star Sign: Gemini Chinese Zodiac: Rooster Rooster Horoscope Says: "You " re a deep thinker with much ability and talent. You like to keep busy, you try hard and you hate to fail. You'd rather work by yourself than with others and your fortunes can swing high or low. You get along best with: Ox, Snake, Dragon". Hometown: Naptown Height: 5'11 Eye Colour: Blue Hair Colour: Black Clothing: Dickies, Puma, East Coast Clothing, Volcom, Tribal Gear Pets: 3 dogs, 3 cats and 127 hamsters Favourite Food: Pizza, food with peanut butter in it, sushi, bean burritos Favourite Colour: Black Other Things He Loves: Drawing, comic books, cartoons, girls, going online, music in general, sleeping, tattoos Things He Doesn't Like: People who don't use their blinkers, really lazy people, meat, annoying people, turtlenecks, snakes Joel - Lead Vocals Nickname: Sick boy Birthday: March 11, 1979 Star Sign: Pisces Chinese Zodiac: Sheep Sheep horoscope says: "You like nice things and may become and artist or musician. Hometown: Waldorf / Naptown Height: 5'9 Eye Colour: Brown Hair Colour: Black Clothing: Diesel, Dickies, Docs, studded jewelry and belts, t shirts, east coast clothing, evolve clothing, boxers Pets: Cash Favourite Food: Cookies and anything else home cooked Favourite Colour: Baby blue Other Things He Loves: Anything Star Wars, going tot he movies by himself, cooking, toys, sushi, girls, spiked hair, tattoos, piercings, the east coast, the west coast, clean socks, jewelry, getting mail, shopping malls, veggie burgers Things He Doesn't Love: Waking up, wasabi, rainy days, humidity, every math teacher he's ever had, manual labor, 6th and Main, bitter ex-football players Paul - Bass Nickname: St. Paul Birthday: October 5, 1980 Star Sign: Libra Chinese Zodiac: Monkey Monkey Horoscope Says: "You " re apt to be clever and may have a bit of genius.

You like to invent things, solve hard problems and think up new ideas. You " re a good thinker and want to know all about things. You may become famous. You get along best with: Rat, Dragon".

Hometown: Waldorf Height: 5'9" Eye Colour: Brown Hair Colour: Blonde Clothing: Docs, East Coast Clothing, Dickies, Band T shirts Pets: Max, Sweat Pea, Cash Favourite Food: Anything Italian Fav Colour: Black or gray Other Things He Loves: Reading Shakespeare amongst many other awesome authors, his family, is bed at home that he never sees, his GC scooter, and his pets Things He Doesn't Like: Being homesick, not having enough underwear and socks on the road, dumb muscle heads, his high school math department, and the fact that he can actually miss Waldorf From the official site: It's not often that a young band of Cure / Clash/Beastie Boys-loving barely-twenty-something's comes tumbling out of virtually nowhere, well, Annapolis, Maryland to be exact, to drop the year's most fiercely melodic and garage-gritty debut album. Good Charlotte is a brash young quintet whose killer first single, a hit bound anthem of high school angst called "The Little Things", announces the arrival of a unique, genre-jumping rock band. Yet until just four years ago, 21 year-old lead guitarist Benji had never strummed a single chord and front man Joel, his identical twin brother, had never sung a note. Toss in their equally precocious high school buddies, drummer, Aaron, and bass player, Paul, plus recent recruit Billy on guitar. This is Good Charlotte: a hard-driving, fun-loving band that has rocked Washington, DC radio station WHFS' famed HFStival for the last two years and built a devout following in the Baltimore metro area. Their self-titled Epic debut album is a triumphant, raucous celebration of high school kids who found a way through music to talk back to their tormentors and survive troubled times.

Good Charlotte, The Album, is a collection of explosive modern-rock gems with deeply personal and often very funny lyrics. There are powerfully crafted declarations like the kick-ass "Motivation Proclamation" ("Motivate me / I wanna get myself out of this bed / Captivate me / I want good thoughts inside of my head"); and songs with haunted, autobiographical overtones, like "The Little Things."Me and Benji have always written from personal experiences", says lead singer Joel. "You " ve got my brother on guitar, he's got that punk-rock aggression, and you " ve got me singing". He gestures to his heart: "Everything comes from here". Most of Good Charlotte's songs resonate with a heartfelt but humorous sense of personal triumph over some pretty bad luck.

Others, like "Waldorf Worldwide", take a social-political slant: "All I wanna do is kick the welfare / All I wanna do is get my share / I don't wanna run for President / I just want an honest way to pay my rent."We want kids to come to our shows and forget about everything", says Joel. "Whatever their problems are, we want them to be focused on the energy, have a good time, and then go back to their normal life tomorrow". The brothers, who hail from Waldorf, Maryland, were avid baseball players throughout their early teens and had never contemplated playing music until one extraordinary day. During what Joel calls "a weird time" when they were 16 and dealing with some serious family problems, the brothers attended their first rock concert, the Beastie Boys' "Ill Communication" tour, and felt the earth move beneath their feet. "It changed our lives totally", says Joel. "We were both freaked out and knew this is what we were going to do".

Benji went home and dug a cheap guitar out of the closet, one that the brothers had never touched before. Their good friend and future bassist Paul taught Benji a few basic chords, igniting a lifetime obsession. Another high school buddy, Aaron, quit the football team to play drums and supply studio space in his house. "We had our first band practice maybe two weeks after I started playing guitar", laughs Benji. "I knew three chords: D, G and A!

I became fascinated with all of the late-Seventies punks. There was something about those old recordings, those seven-inch singles... There's no music that sounds like that today because of the raw quality."I love the chaotic, wild way the guitars sound on 'The Little Things,' " he enthuses. "And some of the sound on our song 'East Coast Anthem' comes straight out of the Clash handbook". By their senior year of high school, the brothers' musical obsession had become all encompassing. "We totally withdrew from everything else", says Joel.

"Our whole life was this band. Every weekend we had a show. We were totally blind, all we could see was the big picture: We were going to make it". In 1998, the twins along with Paul and Aaron moved to Annapolis to join its thriving music scene.

Skipping college, Joel and Benji decided, was a risk they had to take. Economically, they barely survived, working a series of low-paying jobs as stock boys, waiters, and ("our best job") shampoo boys at a beauty salon. "We made a name for ourselves in that town because we played out everywhere", says Joel. "Every party, every bar. People knew us as the twins that play". Joel befriended Billy when the guitarist showed up to see the twins play an acoustic set at a local hangout.

"I thought, wow, these are really good songs", he recalls. "There were a lot of local bands doing their own things, but these songs... every one of them could have been a radio hit". Billy was playing with his band Overflow at the time. After the twins got kicked out of their apartment, they moved into Billy's house. One day, Good Charlotte coaxed him into joining in an impromptu practice. A week later, Billy played his first show with the band.

Things moved fast for the young group. Unsigned Good Charlotte played with Blink 182 and Bad Religion, and opened for Lit on a sold-out East Coast tour. They found local champions in the dee-jays at their beloved radio station WHFS, who began hiring Good Charlotte to play station gigs and finally asked them to play the local stage at the HFStival. In the spring of 2000, Good Charlotte made a bold career leap to HFStival's second stage, sharing the bill with Eve 6 and Nine Days.

Good Charlotte played charity gigs with equal fervor, ranging from benefits for the Annapolis Rape Center to the Leukemia Foundation. A demo of "The Little Things" made its way to Philadelphia modern rock station W PLY (Y 100) and broke a record on the station's show of dueling songs. "For fifteen nights we won 'til they had to retire us", says Joel. The buzz around Good Charlotte was deafening. After being courted by a variety of labels, they finally signed with Epic Records this year.

Producer Don Gilmore (Lit, Eve 6) was recruited to guide the quintet through their debut album. "What drew me to the band the most was their personality", says Gilmore. "There's a lot of pop-punk rock bands that have gotten record deals, but these guys are doing something really different". Benji looks around the New York studio where Good Charlotte is recording.

A sheet of recorded tracks hangs on the wall with titles like "I Want To Stop,"Complicated", and the tentatively-titled, still-developing "Thank You Note to Mom."Sometimes it doesn't feel real", he says quietly, running his hand through his shock of pink hair. "Then I realize that it is, like when I'm walking home from the studio to the subway at night and I realize that we " re in New York making a record."We " ve been doing this for four years, and there were all those times when we were crammed into a car, driving three hours home from a gig and we hadn't even made enough money to pay for gas. It's thinking of those times that it really hits you". Benji pauses, shakes his head and smiles, "We daydreamed all this stuff and now it's all happening.".