Mako1972 on Snappy Little Numbers Records

My yardstick for screaming style vocals and complex intricate guitar lines at deafening volume is At The Drive In. Mako1972 feel like they also remember the massive void left by those guys years ago on this Hubba Bubba color vinyl from Snappy Little Numbers.

A-Side's "Cannonball Lecture" immediately reminded me of those odd, hyper high melodic cycles that ATDI would pull out of some dexterous progression which had no sense of order, just looping chaos. Luke on vocals here has a pretty insane style of straight hardcore screaming and controlled vibrato so completely different it has me wondering if another band member wasn't backing this up anywhere. The high power phrases work on layers of chunkier palmed power chords and the bass and guitar seem to be following each others lead. It's post rock that works out the equations beforehand in long form on the chalkboard to get controlled bursts of instrumentation that go off in succession taking down that abandoned casino with a plunger. Dissonant chords are stacked up and time signatures are halved into weird fractions. It's that new math that these guys must have went back to school for because from here it sounds impossible to figure out.
B-Side's "Even Ghosts Perish" takes a slower trudging approach to this fingerpicked cycle over far off drums in a cave. This could be an example of working with their various influences and incorporating them as a group coming from all sorts of places. It's something of an instrumental Planes Mistaken for Stars melody that suddenly gets muted into low end chunks and Luke appears from some kind of lofty reverb place this time with more of that controlled warble like late '70s metal. This keeps climbing onto an epic plateau above the huge landscape. Not so concerned with precision this time more like hitting the open road where you don't ever see speed limit signs or people for days.

Pick this up from Denver, Colorado's own Alan Lomax, Snappy Little Numbers Records.

SPELLS on Snappy Little Numbers Records

In the same tragic way that Mammoth Cave Records folded recently I'm trying to imagine what it would be like if the rest of the labels documenting their own regional scenes also suddenly also disappeared. I don't think I would have come across SPELLS for one thing. Snappy Little Numbers just released this second single from the Denver, CO band and I'm trying not to mention Hot Snakes or The Obits anywhere - fuck.

A-Side's "I don't want a legacy" opens with a rising guitar line hanging out there by itself with the cycles of the open waves of the "At Sea" side. This quickly escalates into a nervous kind of punk thanks to Stevie Shithead's vocals who sounds like Bob on later Husker Du records, it's gravelly and direct over this distortion buildup. The rest of the band is on garage pop duty layering in their two cents behind shithead (that's never going to get old, especially in the liner notes for song credits) repeating '...Don't wanna...'. It's a balance between a tough front vocal, piles of distortion and excavating a real catchy sound. "En Vogue" has the guitars lead things off again and Shithead has a layered vocal sound here in the middle of power chord riffs and explosions of 'oooh!' in the chorus filled with the rumblings of tom bashing. Ramped up these guys are hell bent on getting four tracks of this EP in at 45. This takes a quick veer into later sounding Sugar tracks from Copper Blue for a second and suddenly they've reference the entire Bob Mould arc in just a couple of tracks. A punk caveman sound with those ooo's and ahh's figures perfectly into the stomping primal stuff.
The "Land Locked" B side opens with "Outta Control" it's shakers and running bassline tearing open a punk take on a leather Motorhead sound with lyrics about the road. Heavy distortion chugging away, it's a biker rock sound mellowed out with power punk as if that makes any sense. "I Want Fun" are these guys lightening up? Well you wouldn't know it from shithead's growl but he does seem to be telling an audience to have some god damn fun and stop standing there with your arms crossed. I'm starting to hear a Fucked Up sound here in it's catchiness in spite of itself. The same sort of misdirection here too, I wouldn't expect these guys to be singing about having fun, but then why even play music in the first place?

On purpley-grey vinyl from Snappy Little Numbers.

Glass Hits / Accordion Crimes split on Snappy Little Numbers Records

Snappy Little Numbers has outdone themselves with this one...a three color screened 1/4" thick plywood cover of a sad bee specimen, heavy and imposing, a real work of art. Then they carry the bee colors into the vinyl pressing of yellow/orange with black and yellow center label. Chuck and Cause Medic Ink sent the interns to Home Depot and had them cutting up 7" size squares long into the night. They went a little nuts with the amount of time and effort put into each single but then these two Denver bands aren't exactly new to getting attention but usually it's just for the tracks inside. Both of these guys opened for one of my favorite bands of all time A Minor Forest recently

Glass Hits side "Action Potential" opens with a heavy gravely guitar quickly joined by another layer of pushy compressed distortion with the vocals doing their best to match with raw throaty screaming the crunch of these two guitars tracked together. Truly aggressive At The Drive In sounding dense layered stuff that must take everything out of all involved and be an insane live show - there's no way you could just stand back and witness this. He's got one of those high register deliveries while the instrumnetation is winding a complex heavy mammoth trail, plowing over anything in their way like a sharper take on Red Medicine. "Dying on the vine" is another guitar driven number where they seem to zoom in on a looped fast tempo riff that winds in around itself and squeeze like that (hot) snake. This time Greg is slightly going easy with his voice, with a Suicide Invoice feel the big jagged stuff that hits the glass. These drums are played in a huge cathedral right against a wall, the bass is in the opposite corner like Steve Albini a shallow reverb peaking out and it's the thing that overwhelms. You're never really ready for it. No matter how many times you put the needle back at the beginning.

Accordion Crimes "New Technique" has a disjointed murky beat, an unsettling loop for bass or low tuned guitar to force this single note down like some kind of audio foie gras, in the way they become a post punk combination of Shellac and Gang of Four and hit those perfect references for me. The line stuttered in perfect time with the spastic chord bursts I...am not...Jackson Pollack with nimble stops and starts, perfect control over huge tough sounds. The vocals drop way out into that room underneath the floorboards like Mr Pollack himself chained up in the basement.

Get this from Snappy Little Numbers direct.

Friends of Caesar Romero on Snappy Little Numbers Records

J. Waylon Miller or Joseph Kerr is the only consistent member of this pop punk one man project, Friends of Caesar Romero based out of Arizona. Changing aliases like rock styles, J. is doing whatever he wants sounding like a split with himself on this latest single from Snappy Little Numbers Records. A-Side is a tight psych garage pop tune while the B-Side goes for a harder decades earlier straight up rock.

The quivering hammond organ on A-Side's "The Hold" is playing under this hyper pop beat like that piece of Elvis Costello's "This Year's Girl except J. Waylon Porcupine (?) is delivering layers of vocals in his falsetto belting high above the jangly warm tremolo and perfect garage stomp drum sound. I can hear that Paul Messis psych pop done with a contemporary slant like the Ar-Kaics. They have a crazy attention to detail in the slight changes between chorus and verse with a labored over pop that belongs on an A-Side. 'The Hold' is the thing a girl has on him in traditional pop 45 style.

B-Side's "Teisco Telestar Stomp" is named after a cheapo japanese guitar company but this is far away from the twang and jangle of the A-Side or the garage Teisco sound. J. is in hard rock snarling mode here but not without those harmony layers to smooth this out like Joan Jett's Bad Reputation asking if what they say about you is true. The rest of the Friends are coming on heavy emphasizing that lower end lead by thick distortion breaking into a solo and bashing away at the drums. Completely different side of the project so you won't presume to have any idea about what J is going to come up with next.

Get this from Snappy Little Numbers, clear jukebox version or black.

The Knew on Snappy Little Numbers

Maybe I've been listening to a lot of Warm Soda lately, but The Knew out of Denver have a lot on common with that bands fist in the air bubblegum garage sound combined with an after school basement glam sound that's accessible and near impossible to duplicate. It's no surprise that neighbors Snappy Little Numbers were there to scrape together the sticky confetti into the squished grooves of mixed color vinyl on their latest single.

A-Side's "What's Hip (Long Walk)" opens up on crunchy riffs that expand into an orchestral epic sound that includes a sax, another impossible element you wouldn't set out to try and incorporate. I think I read some reference to Springsteen and you get that ensemble rock sound for a few seconds until the vocals hit and they become more like Nude Beach. A casual tried and true rock sound is at the core of the layered theatrics, like the way The Annuals take the simplest melody and expand it into an anthemic ROCK. The track drops down to the bass and a piano takes over plowing up and frown the keys. They can't wait to build this back up bigger than before with a bit of Love is All manic energy or Andrew WK spotlight. "The Long Walk" call and response lyric from the band and Jacob Hansen has a tiny bit of Sandanista in here and the Clash's willingness to go wherever to song led them while squeezing in ska and rockabilly along the way, hell anything they felt like cramming in.

An organ and snare trade beats on B-Side's "World War Ay Ay Ay (Alright​)" in a faster tempo, a morning sounding power pop with layers packed into glam pops and bursts with a watery phase on these vocals. The rest of the band riles up Jacob with every HEY they can fit in edgewise. When they get this up to full gallop speed you realize this was that big race for all the chips. They aren't saving anything for later, completely going for it so however it plays out it doesn't really matter, it's going to stand. They were given a bit of rope and ran away with it, exploring every dense melody of power pop. It's all been pulled out of the closet. The stuff saved up for years laid out on the sidewalk one weekend. A garage sale from former roommates Marc Bolan and Paul Westerberg. They're finally moving out of this dumb town and going to make it big.

Get this one from Snappy Little Numbers on randomly mixed color vinyl.

Empty Palace on Snappy Little Numbers Records

There are some musicians who aren’t intimidated by any instrument. You can put them in a studio filled with tools they’ve never seen and they can pick them up and write something immediately. Density and studio console programming is their second language, they’ve been compelled to study ancient synth manuals and track down functioning archaic equipment on ebay just to hear it. Not that any of those things ever make it into their sound, it’s just a constant desire to experiment and figure out what makes it tick. Electrical engineers built things with no intention of them ever being used that way.
Empty Palace, a five piece out of Los Angeles sounds like one of those bands. How the five of these guys found each other has to be because no one else could keep up with their individual references of glam, metal and progressive rock.

"What do we tell the family" opens on atmospheric synth that harkens back to Journey or is that Judas Priest? It’s a produced towering prog rock - dare I mention Rush? Shades of that hard rock combined with a heavy dose of mechanical skill. A subtle bass line and wheezy organ with glam that’s decades beyond T-Rex. They want you to get used to their '70s progressive sound of piled on effects and theatrical changes embellishing every measure, like some kind of fancy museum of how the other half lives past the velvet ropes. Guitars line up layers of distortions to get a synth crazy future sound, like pieces of Queen’s stiff operatic stuff. I get the impractically ornate peacock on the sleeve now.
"Human Trampoline” is some sick medical doctor’s idea of sewing people together to jump on them. I think I just heard the lyric ‘laser fight’ as drums go onto a hyper jagged rhythm. With this metal scream, they change tempos and compact melodies at the drop of a hat. This can’t be related to by mere mortals, no wonder Rush started dressing like weird aliens from outer space. That's exactly where these guys have to exist - piling on concepts and untried hypothesis over one another. Their angelic epic prog has a metal foundation of screechy chords and harmonized distortion elements trying to sound as otherworldly as possible. This kind of thing can almost be offputting the way it's so impossibly technical but then no one can help but stare at an accident either. It’s a spectacle in the form of a 7” single.
B-Side" I Liked The Old You Better" and I like their equally epic song titles. An organ rises out of the mist, the bass and kick line up in an odd tempo with a vocoder twisting up space. That instrument (?) was invented for this kind of sound. You have to commit to their ride, it's not going to be easy to bang your head to, but it’s appreciated by people who can work on this level. I definitely respect the amount of production that goes onto this. There's no way you could tell me this was recorded in someone’s parents basement with garageband, there's no setting for this overwhelming density. They seem to drop back out to nothing and let their main melody reemerge in bizarre ways like these vocalizations off in the echo of toms and swirly synths. Maybe I'm getting that grandiosity of Rush from the pieces of lyrics, they're really going for this whole ornate package, leaving nothing to be misinterpreted. A guitar solo peaks out of the sludgy metal opera and these tracks could evolve into a concept album about an alien planet where rock didn't exist so Empty Palace got together but were hunted down after one show. They were exiled to earth and recorded a record.

The End?

They’ve actually just finished recording a full length but this red marble single will be your introduction to these guys from Snappy Little Numbers Records.

Interview with Chuck from Snappy Little Numbers

Darren and I talked to Chuck from Snappy Little Numbers Records this week. Chuck has sent me records from his very first release. It's a great label that's been documenting the scene out in Denver and always introducing me to new stuff. We talked about the pronunciation of The Resonars, Trouble In Mind sleeves, Total Punk, Wax Trax, Record Store Day, cassingles and his own review site: The Tight Globes. Somehow he interviewed us about our own stuff and how Darren and I ended up on the show together.

Go subscribe / listen over here at iTunes. No idea what happened to episode 16. It's out there.

Snappy Little Numbers has a label showcase coming up at The Sidewinder in Denver March 7th. Every one of their bands will be there, should be awesome.

THE SPELLS on Snappy Little Numbers

Chuck Coffey at Snappy Little Numbers has been busy not just supporting other Denver area bands by pressing up their releases on his label but playing a bit on the side with The Spells who are opening for The Jacuzzi Boys the 23rd at Denver's Larimer Lounge. Living the dream - after a hard day coming up with new vinyl variations and press releases at the SLN offices, Chuck and friends go down for some hard rocking and drinking opening for Iggy Pop's favorite florida band. Damn you Chuck.

A-Side's "Slice Away" has a heavy, thick and clean Obits sound with a bit more of a glammed up polish. Vocal attitude? Check. It's not you're fault you're awesome. They include a real party chorus rising at the end of this snarly baritone with a Bosstones/Rocket from the Crypt drunken angry sing a long sound. Clear and super technical they speed up the changes and Little Stevie Shithead on vocals yells this to the limits. Song break down, who doesn't love just a bass line and drums all alone before those guitars roar back in. I've been rediscovering the Jawbox back catalog and this seems to fit right into a fictional few years later with more polish.

"Take Time" is also the A-side? Alright Snappy, I'll bite, you don't have to decide. Right off the bat, fast as hell stomp hardcore sound with all hands on deck for this all chorus no verse song. When you have a track with everyone coming in like this you have to stick to it. Deeper growly vocals from Little. This one is a wall of party that you just aren't going to make it over or escape. You just thought you'd try to get close to the stage, maybe see the band a little better. But now they're moving, the whole floor is shaking. Say goodbye, don't fight it.

Get this from Snappy Little Numbers on dark red /orange vinyl with their big jukebox hole.

You can hear a podcast with Chuck over at the Literati Records site.

Friends of Caesar Romero on Snappy Little Numbers Records

Snappy Little Numbers are extending their reach from Denver to Friends of Caesar Romero who started out when Joseph Kerr of relocated to Phoenix, AZ withand borrowed an 8 track cassette recorder. I love those giant unweildy machines, there's just something about hitting record and the wheels turning. I'm betting these couple of tracks were from some of those very sessions. Like Adam Widener, Joseph is whittling down huge barren chunks of gleaming pop punk into these under two minute bursts.

"Red Headed Strangler" on the A-Side kicks off with a heavy metallic strum, keeping things all up in that treble side of the EQ. Joseph's vocals have this manic, high register layered quality that's just due to the bursting energy of this thing. I'm also kind of hearing that Matthew Melton layered harmony rising above the ham fisted power chords. It's all warm reverb and mad punching of these strings. Could have been a distant Hot Snakes cousin or going further back to that Rocket From the Crypt shiny chrome plated feel.
The B-Side, "Tammys of Tomorrow" fades in some backmasked melody, is this the devil poking his head on that 8track cassette? This time FOCR is slowing things down a bit and getting into that way back garage sound...not in texture, though things are slightly peaking out, more in that chorus harmony. Still jabbing at chords, violently bobbing, but this high harmony stuff keeping it way away from anything sinister, or biker movie related. Throbbing kick and snare caveman style huge pounding, I can almost even hear a Kurt Heasley vocal thing going on here, but he's on my mind lately. That melancholy of unrequited garage love, surf guitar solo panned across the stereo field. I know how you feel.

Snappy's signature factory sleeve on sort of a blue grey vinyl...that United Records mud color with messages in the gutter from Snappy Little Numbers Records.

The Manxx on Snappy Little Numbers Records

Denver's own, Snappy Little Numbers put out this single from The Manxx (just double x, take it easy) who are a power punky trio from around the Colorado neighborhood because this is after all, like the best micro 7" labels, documenting their own scene that would otherwise probably go completely overlooked. You can see how it makes sense on this level to have that third entity between the listener and artist. Someone to facilitate the details of the pressing itself, getting the word out. No band wants to write 3rd person press releases. It's easy to see these labels are just as important as the bands going out every night, loading gear, and playing for beer. It's a combination of the two working independently and together. You worry about the music, I'll make sure the inserts are xeroxed, and all the promo's get mailed out. How to resolve this when you're spreading the music around to millions becomes problematic for a lot of reasons, but I am always happy to buy and talk about labels like this. Seven inch records are inherently about this kind of a scene. Impossible to mass market, or even press in huge quantities.

So what are The Manxx putting on the A-Side? "Messin' around" has got a booming kick drum going at a real frantic pace with simultaneous tambourine smacks... reminiscent of Frankie Rose, without so much attack with the toms. Sara on guitar and vocals is way up front in the mix, all kinds of clean treble distorted with winky attitude. This undertow of organ and her energetic delivery has the whole track going a little bit cutsey...something like the pop beatings of Bratmobile or Bunnygrunt, with punk spikes...this three piece has a jumpy jangle guitar with a spazz garage edge to the whole thing.

"Hard lessons" serves up more of this soft edge fun loving twee garage....it's sort of reminding me of that Ronettes sort of ramma lamma ding dong... laid back handclaps and backbeats, the oooo's under a thin layer of distortion. Imagine the demo's from the Go Go's via The Midnight Snaxxx (ok that's a full on triple x). Always keeping it brief and to the point.
"Goodbye to you! Goodbye to You!"

On marble dark grey vinyl in Snappy's one size fits all sleeve. Check it out:

Hooper on Snappy Little Numbers Records

This on came in from Denver's own documenters, Snappy Little Numbers, and Chuck is up to his fourth release already, taking a page out of the Trouble in Mind book, printing up a bunch of gold sleeves with the label info and using them across the next pile of releases. Step by step instructions on the reverse of this 45 are there in that '50s way of saying 'Don't worry... hide under your desk, the fallout won't get to you there!'
This one from SLN is from a trio, Hooper, and their track, "The shallows" immediately reminds me a lot of Atombombpocketknife, a little bit punk with a lot of polish, they have a hardcore spazz sound, all speed and harmonies. Utter and complete stops, you can hear that moment of complete silence before they drop back in. The best parking garage skate music. It won't even let you stop, take their poppy punk, it's coming for you. The trio manages a pretty serious, big sound. A camera would be shaking all over this video.
B-Sides' "100 acre slingshot" starts out with a sad sounding a capella vocal and a muted distorted strumming.... Christ, I know they've become a dirty word but this just reminds me of the hours spent listening to the Kerplunk and... Tilt? I remember the sticker a girl had on her artbin during this entry into hardcore period. An exotic band from the West Coast? Couldn't get enough of this California sounding slick punk, making hardcore pop in some twisted way. And at the same time still sounding like some kind of sad bastard music, just at a crazy tempo. It didn't make sense...is it inherently a part of that sound, or is it just still working like nostalgia...and does Promise Ring still exist? I guess that's where emo comes from right? This slick fast punk about the usual depressing things that happen to jerks like me. Too much energy to ever give up, they must be kind of propelling themselves towards some kind of punk future all freaking punked up.

On marbly mixed wax from Snappy Little Numbers, with super secret message in the gutter, just barely scratched on the surface...you tell me...

25 Rifles -History of Flags EP - on Snappy Little Numbers Records

Snappy Little Numbers Records sent in another release the other day, this one from 25 rifles, also out of Denver, with a three piece of drums, bass and guitar sounding an awful lot like Mission of Burma or Husker Du's frenetic post punk. A similar straight ahead rock that doesn't have some of the theatrics or extremes of punk, but that early '90s adherence to a real structure and basically.... songwriting, which all comes across on the 4 song History of Flags EP.
In A-Side's "Episode", after checking out the lyrics on the reverse of the sleeve, it's taking me back to Unwound's "Laugh Track" and how their collective heads would explode today given the saturation of reality TV, where Unwound was referring to the idolatry of professional actors, 25 Rifles is marking the famous-for-15-minutes evolution with todays idea that some people will "...always need and audience to know / to know who you are". It's that weird increasingly self centered pressure to post minutiae on Facebook or Twitter. You know who you are. Musically, the steady 4/4 rhythm supports a distorted climbing scale, the vocals are understated, barely a melody until that last line has the rest of the band out of sync joining Jason in unleashing the chorus. It's all delivered with a deliberate energy, never out of control, just barreling along with a seriousness and real attention to songwriting. This track barely pauses and "Summer Fades" immediately takes over, Jason has these great Bob Mould style vocals, a little raspy, when he's drawing out the end of a chorus. It all comes down to the energy these tracks have, with all the nostalgic early days of this indie power pop, The Promise Ring, Rites of Spring, Nation of Ulysses, continuing a little piece of each of those bands through to get here.
The B-Side, "All Else Fails", even goes Replacements, that jangly distortion, the heavy melody, but did I mention that Jason has some serious guitar playing? Going from that agressive strumming to working in a separate single note melody in the middle of the speed, you wouldn't notice except this is a three piece that comes off sounding much bigger, when the band echo's those call and response vocals in the middle of this dense framework. In "History of Flags", they don't shy away from the politics of punk and hardcore, when it's done in a slightly abstract way, you get a classic track like this. You don't even realize where this is going before it's already there. A band that you want to get into that lyric sheet. The doublestrike typewriter font places it squarely into DIY punk and their sound is really classic. I'm going to finish that Andrew Earles Husker Du book and play this a few more times.

Check out their bandcamp tracks, this one is on marble purple vinyl, with download card from Snappy Little Numbers Records, documenting the underappreciated Denver scene.

Eyes & Ears / Snake Mountain split on Snappy Little Numbers Records

Chuck from Snappy Little Numbers Records sent in his latest recently, a split single from Eyes & Ears and Snake Mountain, two Denver Bands united in tracks based on local institutions. Like the "Bloodstains across ...(pick a Canadian province)" series from Mammoth Cave Recordings, or Fort Lowell Records they're documenting not only a local scene but helping to inspire tracks that otherwise wouldn't have existed...what singles do best. Can't say I know anything about the Denver scene, but here's a couple bands and a label making a go of it. Makes the 7 inch scene feel a little bit smaller.

First up, on the S-Side, is Snake Mountain, and their rocking take on, "Defend Colfax", what sounds like a pretty notorious street in Denver. The guitar distortion is big with a respectable amount of echo on the vocal blasting away from the first cymbal crash. Definitely in the party rock feel of things, plenty of attitude, having a good time with massive chords and heavy pounding drums. Singing about giving the honeys a piece of his mind. I could see these guys scaring the locals, cruising JSBX-style down the sidewalk, messing up everything in their path, right into the camera. Engineered enough to be on the garage/punk fence, with back and forth "come on!" vocals with room for a blown out solo.

The E-Side has Eyes and Ears doing, "I Buried My Heart Under Bar Bar (Then Burned It Down To The Ground)",rough and raw, they sound the feedback alarm then pound this track into a weird time signature, with a repeated collapsing riff. The main vocal is loud, peaking out distorted, and the rest of the band is constantly on response duty, having nearly as good of a time competing for vocal lines. As punchy and fervent as the Hot Snakes, they lay this one down as fast as they can keep up with it. A garage blues punk headbanger with jagged Drive like Jehu stabs of melody. Do they like this bar? Did they accidentally spell it wrong on the center label? Bar Bar? No, and hopefully they get to play it, at least on the jukebox, to have their efforts appreciated before they set it on fire.

Get it from Snappy Little Numbers who says:

We are proud to announce our first release, a split single 45 featuring Eyes & Ears and Snake Mountain. Both groups provide songs that pay homage to a couple of Denver institutions. Eyes & Ears' "I Buried My Heart Under Bar Bar (Then Burned It Down To The Ground)" is about, well, Bar Bar. Bar Bar is a classic dive that plays host to many killer shows and provides questionable allowances to patrons. What's not to like? Snake Mountain's "Defend Colfax" is in honor of the most famous street in the greater Denver metropolitan area. Why is it famous? Well, aside from it's vast array of car dealerships, restaurants and hookers, Colfax is lined with bars and clubs that provide many of the same attributes as Bar Bar. So now this blurb has come full circle. At $4.00, this is a hot deal. 300 on randomly mixed color vinyl with download code.