Snapcase

     The band Snapcase has been invading my thoughts a lot lately.  They had recently reconvened for a few West Coast shows and a few test pressings of their Steps EP popped up on Discogs (both of which I have given a proper and loving home to.)

     After watching the shaky cellphone videos from these shows, I was sent running to my record shelves and gave the band a listen for the first time in a long time and haven't been able to stop since. I forgot how many layers there were to Snapcase's music.  They were much more than the overindulgent thumping double bass drum sound of their peers.

     The band hailed from Buffalo, NY and due to the proximity to Pittsburgh, Snapcase always seemed to either begin or end a leg of a tour in Pittsburgh because the city was either on the band's way to or from wherever they were going.  This gave me the chance to see the band play so many times that I lost count and I am so grateful to have taken every opportunity to see them that I could.

     I always stood in the back or off to the side with someone in the band that I used to lug gear for at the time and we would stand there slack jawed with envy over how good Snapcase was.  You'd have a hard time finding a tighter band that never seemed to have a bad night.

     Lyrically, Darryl Taberski went deeper than the “I hate my mom/I hate my dad/My girlfriend betrayed me” content of other hardcore bands of that time.  His vocal approach was more of a shout instead of the yelling like a barking dog of other bands.  This way you could actually hear what he was saying and learn a thing or two from what he was putting forth.

     Snapcase always threw a curveball at the meatheads in the pit that rolled up in their gym clothes to perform their version of rugby meets interpretive dance.  They had no idea what to do with their lawnmowers and windmills during the musical ebb and flow of a Snapcase set.

     I will forever be grateful to my friend Dave Hummel for putting a Snapcase CD under my snout when he did.  Progression Through Unlearning was one of the most jarring first listens to a record that I have ever had.  My late adolescent brain was stopped in its tracks and I was incapable of doing anything other than listening to that record all the way through and then doing it again and again.

     The hook that made me an instant fan for life was the song “Harrison Bergeron.”  Not only was it named after my favorite Kurt Vonnegut short story, it's also one of Snapcase's best songs.  If you haven't read the story or heard the song, do yourself a favor and do both.

     Snapcase had one of the strongest album arcs I have ever heard, going from Lookinglasself through their final album End Transmission.  Each record was better than the one before and they continued to build and further push the boundaries of what “hardcore” could be.  I have always been curious to know what direction they would have gone to next if they didn't hang it up in 2005.

     The basketball shorts and hoodies end of the hardcore spectrum left me behind around the same time that Snapcase broke up.  The shows started to feel like they were more about everyone taking pride in hurting each other in the pit than they were about the music.  Without Snapcase around to keep things from getting boring, I stopped going to those types of shows.  The bands all started to sound the same and I really couldn't tell the difference between one band and the next.  The music stopped moving forward and there didn't seem to be a band that was willing to give it a push to keep it from growing stagnant so I gave up on it.

     I really wish I had taken my camera to at least one Snapcase show but I never did.  Since the shows were always ticketed events, I never thought to do so.  Witnessing that band while hiding behind the stage right speaker stack would have been one hell of a way to spend an evening.