In the pre-YouTube era it would've been passed between friends on a well-worn videotape: a three-minute clip from 2002 of the Australian rock band the Vines demolishing the set of David Letterman's show following -- well, during -- a performance of the group's hit single "Get Free."
Today it's easy to find -- just search for "Vines live meltdown" and you'll pull up footage that's been viewed more than 250,000 times since it was uploaded in 2006.
Part of the neo-garage scene earlier this decade that made stars out of the Strokes, the Hives and the White Stripes, the Vines -- and, in particular, the group's frontman, Craig Nicholls -- nearly instantaneously established a reputation as out-of-control bad boys known for combative interviews, chaotic live shows and a marijuana-and-McDonald's diet that might've given a young Mick Jagger pause.
The Letterman video seemed like solid evidence of Nicholls' desire to join rock 'n' roll's hall of shame. Yet in 2004 the singer-guitarist revealed that he has Asperger's syndrome, a form of high-functioning autism characterized by "deficits in social interaction and unusual responses to the environment," according to the Yale Developmental Disabilities Clinic.
"The guy who diagnosed Craig said his life consisted pretty much of the worst things you could do for someone in his condition," says the Vines' manager, Andy Kelly. "Being in a different place every day, meeting new people, just having everything be totally unstructured. Things went downhill very quickly."
At the time of Nicholls' diagnosis, Kelly and the band's other handlers expressed doubt that the Vines would ever tour again. Soft sales of the group's last album, 2006's "Vision Valley" -- which to date has sold just 25,000 copies in the U.S, according to Nielsen SoundScan, compared with almost 700,000 for its 2002 album, "Highly Evolved" -- lent weight to the idea that perhaps the Vines' moment had passed.
But after Nicholls began treatment for a disorder that many think goes a long way toward explaining his volatility, the Vines are back with a new album and a small-scale series of live dates. Last week the quartet played the South by Southwest conference in Austin, Texas, and tonight it has a sold-out show at the Troubadour. Nicholls calls the activity the beginning of a new chapter in the Vines' story.
