HOT SNAKES c/d

WHAT genre, though? They've never had a rhythm section swinging enough to be a good garage band. Is that what they were trying to revive? (If so, the Nomads were reviving it way earlier and way better. So were Foreigner, in "Dirty White Boy," for crissakes. Or Ted Nugent in "Wango Tango." Or the Knack, even.) RFTC were (and are) four-square hardcore hacks PRETENDING to do the boogaloo (or the jerk. Or whatever.) Just like the New Bomb Turks. (Plus, it pisses me off how whenever I mention Rocket From the Tombs, stupid little hardcore shits think I got their name wrong. Jesus fuck.)

Plus, nobody lisps more than Kix.

hot snakes are a jehu cover band fronted by members of the original

YES.

Can somebody please explain Rocket From the Crypt to me? They're so generic.

Well, I can't add anything to this beyond noting that you're right on the one hand (they have a format they follow and all, they know their history perhaps to a fault, etc.). But I think they put it all together with style, visual and, I'd say, otherwise. Sure that's a generic/lazy description but sometimes that's the extra kick that you need -- and ultimately they might be a band where the whole is greater than its various parts (Speedo's rasp -- I admit I don't quite get the minstrel comparison -- and entertaining stage banter being two of the most solid).

And hell, I dance to 'em. If asked why, well, because, that what they make me do! No more rationale needed. :-)

Yank Crime is pretty spectacular, yes. You don't so much dance to that as wind yourself up tight and then jerk or scream along.

I have no idea if RFTC are consciously avoiding being "Too Rockabilly or Too Garage or Too Punk or Too Boogie or Too Ska," but maybe they're trying to be, to paraphrase F. Scott Fitzgerald, a "well-rounded" band, which is ultimately way too limiting. Oh, and their fans do get excited about them, obviously, as the whole Rocket tattoo deal shows.

John's motif of "taking the rock n' roll ride to the edge of explosion only to take a step back when it beckons" has been a cursing and blessing, I think. We've gotten a lot of different side projects and a lot of great music out of it, I believe. (Why does no one mention the Sultans or Back Off Cupids?), but perhaps sacrificing making that one little dent that no one will ever forget?

Why Chuck doesn't like RFTC: 1)he don't wanna 2)bassist Petey X is indeed the least effective musician in the band, a big qualm for Mr. Wiggle Hips 3)their rhythm is closer to (in Chuck's Stairway words) Big Black's "jerking" of the beat than most garage rock. It's headbanging music, up-down-up-down. Like Ned, I have to MOVE to it when I hear it, usually by headbanging, pogoing, air-guitaring or pummeling my legs with my fists (leg-drumming?). But I can't really twist to it. But I can't twist to White Light/White Heat either, and he claims to like that...

Easy-way-out-don't-know-what-they're-talking-about critics oft mention bands that LOOK like RFTC when detailing the band's "influences," which is likely to piss off a real hep-cat-the-groove's-where-it's-at guy like Chuck. If the band didn't dress like a soul revue, he'd probably leave 'em alone (in fact, he might like 'em more if they looked like Die Kruezen but had a horn section, just cuz it'd be so perverse). I appreciate Chuck pointing out the lack of BOTTOM in RFTC's stuff, but I think he misses how much they've got on the TOP. There's treble hooks flying ALL OVER THE PLACE in their music, and Camp X-Ray, like Yancey said, is where they finally get as much meat in their lyrics as in their sound (though "Outsider" is painfully incoherent). Though I still feel Chuck would also give them a break if their lyrics were sex-slobber or life-gets-you-thoughtfully-cranky Dag Nasty/Everclear stuff, you know, something he could IDENTIFY with. RFTC may just be too inchoate-or-welladjusted for him p.o.v. wise.

And I did some J. Geils vs. RFTC spinning yesterday. Freeze-Frame holds up ("Centerfold" is a fine example of how UNSTOPPABLE RFTC would be if the rhythm section was swingier - THE BEST band rather than one of the best), but RFTC wipes the floor with the Atlantic best ofs. Punk inspired, well, BOTH bands to tighten up. And your unproven claims of minstrelsy seem pretty weird coming from a guy who'd rather have us listening to Peter "Whammer Jammer" Wolf.

Yeah, let me second all that. Been a denizen of the RFTC mailing list that Donut Bitch runs for years now, and they're a fine and dandy bunch over there, passionate about their music (including a lot of the bands that Chuck likes in comparison!) and friendly as hell at the shows even while everything's going nuts. Never had a mosher land on my head at one of them, for a start.

i mean fine whatever but the first release single from the new album didn't sound like hot snakes, it sounded like one of the post-hot snakes bands like obits or something, and i just want a hot snakes album that sounds like and looks like hot snakes

There've been a couple of new singles so far. I liked "Sick Wave Hold-Down" but didn't care as much for the other one.

New album is streaming at NPR. Sounds like Hot Snakes to me!

https://www.npr.org/2018/03/08/591500184/first-listen-hot-snakes-jericho-sirens

album is predictably sick. recommended for fans of john reis yelling the name of the song at you over and over

yeah ok this is great so far

John Reis doesn't sing in Hot Snakes, btw

i should get some hot snakes. i would like them i think. i still need copies of yank crime and that first DLJ. i got rid of my copy of yank crime in the 90s. i was JUST listening to his stuff last night on Youtube. i still have never listened to that Pitchfork album. i'd probably like that too. i still adore Circa:Now! but i never heard any RFTC that i liked as much as that album. the later stuff always sounded a little corny to me. there is probably good post-circa:now! stuff though. i realize that.

John Reis doesn't sing in Hot Snakes, btw

― Paul Ponzi, Friday, March 9, 2018 9:12 AM (twenty-seven minutes ago)

Actually, *tips fedora*...

https://i.imgur.com/7p05rgv.jpg

fuck I always mix up Reis and Froberg

psyched for this

i didn't care for whatever that first single was. kinda bland. album's good though! some scorchers on here.

we got this promo in at my radio station and I was gonna play it but every single song is a no-play cuz of cuss words

https://www.discogs.com/Hot-Snakes-The-Incomplete-Hot-Snakes/release/11384475

many xp meant lead vocals, obviously

I like the new album. No surprises, picks up right where they left off, which is OK with me.

"Death Doula" is a jam, and worthy of its title

seeing these guys tonight, stoked~!

"I considered stopping playing guitar on a social media poll after I completely mastered the instrument," Reis writes in a press release. "But so many people kept sending me letters and voicemail messages, asking me at the dry cleaners, or the butcher shop to bring back Hot Snakes. They were missing rock and roll music. I've always considered Hot Snakes to be more in the vein of the proto-Vog movement of the early '70s. But to these people, this is their rock 'n' roll. I understand that. I totally understand people's desire to be controlled and humiliated by my guitar. Anyone can play the stupid guitar. What they want is for me to use it as a branding iron."

otm

I have a circle of friends for whom Hot Snakes is kinda the godhead modern rock n roll band. Froberg album art tattoos and all. Always been a fan, but man, there’s Real Srs fandom out there.

I have seen this, too. Mass pilgrimages to gigs and such, and yes, tattoos.

Of course, I'd take Yank Crime over any of the 4 Hot Snakes albums, but what do I know

Yeah that’s how I feel about Jehu. I will always take more Hot Snakes but I’ll take either DLJ album over any of the Hot Snakes records.

john reis holy shit

i've never seen anyone play the guitar like that

For being a non-technically proficient son of a tuna fishing Portuguese immigrant from the wrong side of the San Diego docks, he does play himself a mean guitar. Almost up there with the LA rocker hotshots that San Diegan rockers feel intrinsically inferior to.

This was with Drive Like Jehu, but still worth posting here I think:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AlDJuvHwzjM

and it may interest Hot Snacks fans (and long-time Rocket from the Crypt fans for that matter) to know that during the midst of the recording sessions of the new album, John's trusty Les Paul was stolen and subsequently recovered. When it happened, I'd read something about street justice, like straight up fisticuffs, but apparently that's not exactly how it went down

https://www.nbcsandiego.com/blogs/sounddiego/Swami-Gets-His-Guitar-Back-429116473.html

the Suicide/Wipers simultaneous riff tribute moment on the last song on the new one is pretty neat.

the LA rocker hotshots that San Diegan rockers feel intrinsically inferior to

Who are you referring to?

xp i was at that show!

Who are you referring to?

I am referring specifically to none other than Tracii Guns, who owes me $700 btw.

i was at that show!

I love the small world in which we live.

I'll take it you don't have a serious answer Del

that's seriously how he spells his name - look it up

I woulda said Rikk Agnew, but he's Orange County.

You from LA, Del? Just talking trash?

The idea of John Reis feeling inferior to Traci Guns is the most hilarious notion.

"Hot Snacks" is a great band name

i hear jericho sirens

You from LA, Del? Just talking trash?

Sir, I grew up in El Cajon, California (maybe you've heard of it it? it's rough) and I currently live in San Diego, California.

I just wanted to say, as a result of my birthright I've been a huge John/RFTC fan since my formative teenage years, but it wasn't til my early twenties, when I really gave a good hard thought about music, that I realized I really fucking loved the Hot Snakes.

Mostly this love was expressed through my consistent consumption of everything Reis/Froberg-related: RFTC albums and tshirts ordered online, all-ages tix to Rocket shows at the now-defunct Empire Club in North Park or Street Scene gigs by the C Street trolley stop downtown, appearances at mid-afternoon all-ages shows at Off the Record (where I'd show up scared of being beaten up by older, more drunken, more tattoed bros, for some reason).

I'm already weirding myself out just posting this post, but I'll save it the unsavory middle. It mostly involves absolutely loving the goddamn shit out of Automatic Midnight and Suicide Invoice. Who wouldn't? Idiots, that's who. People whose blood has never pumped at the same pace, for the same reasons. But anyway, the point I'm making is, has anyone outside the digest-it-and-forget-it world of print media bothered to take a second sonic glimpse at this Death Camp Fantasy? Eh? Really listened to it in 2019? Because yeah, the album itself is not the best thing they've ever done, but fuckin' a, have you listened to this song?!

Here's the album version (for curious people with weak blood):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vCH9zKFw954

Here's a live version (for people with blood rich with disinfectants, who currently are NOT inconvenienced). You'll notice the beauty of this particular song, based on how they all start to play it. First of all, Jason Kourkounis starts the song. This was the guy who played on Automatic Midnight, not Suicide Invoice. I'm not good at describing the visceral differences you get from different drummers, but I think it makes a difference. I've watched live videos and this guy does something with crossing his arms during cymbal contact that simply makes it better, I don't know. He just, rules. Anyway, one of the many reasons this song absolutely kicks ass is the fact that it's just Jason and John doing drums and guitar. For several bars, like a minute. Rick sings over it, cause he's just that kind of guy, of course he does. Then, at precisely the right time for this sort of song, Gar comes in. Of COURSE he does. "Have I been preyed upon / have I been prayed upon?" is sung before Rick lets the single-coil treble attack into the mix, into what I guess could be called the third pre-chorus? The part before the Big Chorus? I don't know what you call it at this point. It's just the point before the Big Chorus. I'll let it Rick take it from here. By the way, his lyrics are my favorite for those designed to be matched with guitar parts this loud. I loved every word of Drive Like Jehu, but this is some special stuff:

(the moment the bass kicks in for the first "have I been preyed upon"? the point of having fucking ears)

Death, you read the Bible
Death, you read the lease
Assuming your survival
Depends on things like these

Have I been preyed upon
By Darwin, Disney and Freud?

You know I rest it on the scaffold, baby
I look for greetings to avoid

Have I been preyed upon?
Have I been prayed upon?

I feel preemptive forces
Standing in my way
Here it comes
My death camp fantasy

best live version I could find!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rbeg8KK4tig

good post, del

Couple new tracks and a new album on the way

https://hotsnakes.bandcamp.com/track/i-shall-be-free
https://hotsnakes.bandcamp.com/track/checkmate

oh that Poison Ivy/RS Howard guitar always works for me

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hS1nvjW-7DM

here's the bag digest of what John, Rick, and Jason (Gar had something more important to do) slipped into their bags when they visited the now-closed am03ba h0llyw00d in early M@rch.

• James Brown Love Power Peace: Live at the Olympia, Paris, 1971 (1992)
• Bo Diddley Another Dimension (1971)
• Battalion of Saints Second Coming (1984)
• Ethnic Folkways Library Music of Indonesia (1950)
• Freddie King Let's Hide Away and Dance Away with Freddie King (1961)
• Bert Jansch Rosemary Lane (1971)
• Bert Jansch L.A. Turnaround (1974)
• Parliament Osmium (1970)
• The Parliaments Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (2018)
• Träd Gräs och Stenar Gärdet 12.6.1970 (1996)
• The Taj Mahal Travellers July 15, 1972 (1972)
• Ali Farka Touré Savane (2006)
• John Prine Sweet Revenge (1973)

Stoked that Reis gave such gushing love to Bo Diddley. I love Bo and love when other people love Bo.

when rick pulled out those bert records i was like oh man you are in for a treat

one of the greatest bands of the 21st century. this is one of those groups where i absolutely remember being stopped dead in my tracks the first time i heard them ("Our Work Fills the Pews", on KXLU.)