Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4).
Plenty for All (2004)
Some artists are just reliably excellent. You can play just about any song of theirs and you know it's going to kick ass. The many bands/projects of John "Speedo" Reis and Rick Froberg fall into that category for me. Rocket from the Crypt, Obits, Drive Like Jehu, Night Marchers, Pitchfork. Some of those are better than others, but all are really good. There's one more to mention: Hot Snakes, a blistering post-hardcore combo that destroyed everything in its path.
Hot Snakes were formed in 1999 by Reis and Froberg in San Diego. The two had played together in Pitchfork from 1986 to 1990 when they were in their late teens/early 20s. They then formed Drive Like Jehu, a juggernaut of a band that somehow was signed to a major and released one of the great unsung '90s albums in 1994's Yank Crime. But the band split up when Reis started focusing more on his other band, Rocket from the Crypt, which had also signed to Interscope and was blowing up (in an indie way) with its slightly more commercial punk/rockabilly sound.
Hot Snakes began as a side project when Reis was taking a break from RFTC. Reis recorded a bunch of songs with Delta 72 drummer Jason Kourkounis and then asked Froberg, who was living in New York working as a visual artist and illustrator, to provide vocals. The recordings made up the first Hot Snakes album, 2000's Automatic Midnight.
The band's members were spread across the country, with Reis in San Diego, Froberg in NYC and Kourkounis in Philadelphia, so recording and touring (with Gar Wood on bass) happened in fits and starts. Reis went back to RFTC full time, but in 2002, the band recorded the album Suicide Invoice and toured again. Kourkounis left to join the Burning Brides and when Hot Snakes got back together in 2004 to make another album, Reis brought RFTC drummer Mario Rubalcaba on board to play drums.
The resulting album, Audit in Progress, found the Snakes ratcheting up the aggressive punk fury, just end-to-end pummeling of the ear drums. The whole album crushes, but the closing song, "Plenty for All," is an all-timer and is actually kind of catchy, which is not a descriptor often used for Hot Snakes.
"Give notice, give away/Your personal property/Your illusions killing you dead/You deserve peace of mind for yourself/Southern California/Let's go!/There's room for us all."
Froberg's patented yelp is in full throttle as the band chugs away behind him.
"There ain't nothing for it/What else can you do/Nothing to work with/Nothing to lose/It is what it is/It ain't gonna improve/Nothing to work with/Nothing to lose/Take it or leave it/Do both if you choose."
The engine of the band is the slashing guitar interplay of Reis and Froberg, whose tightly wound guitar lines and riffage create an unrelentingly heavy barrage of awesomeness. Notch Brewing in Salem, Mass., released a "Plenty for All" pale ale about a decade later.
"Your patrons, your guests/Manufactured phonies/Hung up on themselves/Bring 'em all with you/It's all for the best/'Cause we got space out here in the West/Southern California/Let's go!/There's room for us all."
The Snakes toured the U.S., Europe and Australia for this album, recording a live in-studio performance for Australian radio station triple j, which became the live album Thunder Down Under. When the band returned to the U.S., Reis announced Hot Snakes were splitting up, and not long after, that RFTC was done as well. He devoted his time to running his Swami Records label. In 2008, Froberg formed Obits while Reis, Wood and Kourkournis started the band the Night Marchers. Both bands played together in San Diego in 2010 and for the encore, Reis, Froberg, Wood and Kourkournis played three Hot Snakes. They reformed the band in 2012 and played a bunch of festival and tour dates.
In 2017, Hot Snakes announced a fall tour and plans to release a new album in 2018 on Sub Pop. Having missed the boat on them the first time around, I was psyched to see them play an amazing show at the Middle East on that tour. They released Jericho Sirens the following spring. The band was close to finishing a new album in 2023 when Froberg died of natural causes at age 55. Hopefully, that album will be released someday.
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