The Snubs
With the 96th Academy Awards ceremony coming up Sunday night, my attention turns as always to the stack of records accumulated during the five years my record player was broken.
The refrigerator got traumatically bashed apart at that same time-- also the stove, hotwater heater and CD player. Those were all replaced lickety split-- but the turntable gathered dust, must and disgust until recently.
By way of perspective, the academy awards for best actress and best actor that year (they’re called Oscars) went to two actors (we can just call them both actors) who portrayed actual historical figures. We call them biopics (it’s OK to call them bi AH pix. I do).
Green Book winning the Oscar for Best Picture that year was an outrage, particularly ironically since it was Black Panther that got most conspicuously beat. In early March, that’s something we call THE SNUBS.
Equally ironical, then, that there was a record waiting for me by a band of that very name.
Week #7: The Snubs. Gift from Hartman, 2021. Favorite side: B
If the Dead Kennedys had a recessive Dead Moon gene and wore disguises like Deadmau5, that band would be The Snubs.
Fast and funny, The Snubs don’t get cheated when it comes to content. When you’re getting 15 songs on a 20-minute record, you are not getting cheated. Or snubbed for that matter. It’s impressive what you can accomplish when you play fast and don’t solo.
OK, there is a guitar solo on “Washed Up Diying [sic] Fish” but it doesn’t exactly bog the song down. “Dump Run” crams 200 words into a 45-second song. Some of those words are “… found a bloody knife in an old leather pouch.”
Singer/guitarist Tommy De Nyd’s lyrics are quite hilarious and are in fact printed in unredacted form on the insert. Pearls like “Fake Mustache,” “Growing a Tail (True Tale of a SWM)” and of course “My ‘Punk Rock’ Parents Raised a Republican Kid” explore themes of isolation, neighborhood contempt and generally low aspirations-- just like their heroes. Or at least as much as any theme can be explored in 1:15. “We Suck at Partying Now” has a Monday Night Football reference, which I particularly appreciated.
It looks like The Snubs are from Seattle. They made this record in 2016 at Egg with Conrad and there appear to be several subsequent releases at least on BandCamp. I’ve never heard of them playing at Daryl’s, though, so maybe they gave up.
If they felt like they weren’t getting the respect they deserved, they’d be in good March company. Just ask Greta, Scarlett or Sofia. Shit’s tough all over. Happy National Women’s Day!
(Coming this spring: Growing up Jeff)