Snuff - Green Glass Chippings (Live Version) 7" - Red Vinyl (/300)

10 Past 12 / Formosa Punk (2022)

I own quite a few Snuff 7"s.  This is the newest one.  I can't say that for most people it will be essential, but for the collector nerds like me, of course I have to buy it.

There are two songs included.  The A side is is a live version of what I think is probably the best song of their most recent full length, "Green Glass Chippings."  The live version isn't wildly dissimilar from the album version, other than the fact that it's a live recording.  But it is a lively, energetic take on the song and is a great example of how impressive it is (at least to me) that Duncan is able to put forth such a strong vocal performance while simultaneously playing the shit out of the drums.

On the B side we have an acoustic version of the song "EFL vs Concrete."  The original version of this song was on the Numb Nuts album that came out back in 2000.  It seems kind of absurd that was so long ago as Numb Nuts still feels like one of the newer Snuff records to me.  While I do typically like the acoustic takes of Snuff songs and would go out of my way to recommend Duncan's Honkypingpongseijinattack!! CD, I can't say that this is my favorite acoustic version I've heard.  I tend to find the double tracked vocals a little distracting, but the violin/fiddle in the background picking out some of the organ parts of the song is quite excellent.

Snuff - Crepuscolo Dorato Della Bruschetta Borsetta Calzetta Cacchetta Trombetta Lambretta Giallo Ossido, Ooooooh Cosi Magnifico! LP - Green Vinyl (/100)

10 Past 12 / SBÄM (2022)

Along with Rocket From The Crypt and Leatherface, Snuff always ranks as one of my top three favorite bands of all time.  They've put out so many wonderful records over the years and are responsible for some of the greatest songs I have ever heard.  Here we are in 2022 and Snuff is still cranking out records.  Crepuscolo (That's what I'm calling the record in the body of this, I am not typing that insane title more than absolutely necessary) could be anywhere between their ninth and sixteenth full like album, depending on how you want to count a few really long EPs and a live album, but the point I'm trying to make here is that they've got a lot of records.  Crespuscolo fits in nicely with the rest.

If I'm going to make a comparison to earlier records, I feel like this one seems to fit pretty snugly next to Tweet Tweey My Lovely as far as an overall vibe goes.  There's some spectacular pop songs like "Green Glass Chippins" and Lemon Curd."  We've got a 'Nick' style song in "Hard Times."  And there's a few of the really fast shouty ones that aren't usually my favorites, but you can't really have a Snuff album without one or two of them at this point.

This version is on green vinyl, with 100 copies made available on Snuff's website.  There are several other colors out there and I've got some en route, while others I'm still trying to figure out the best way to get my hands on.  But I figures, I'll start with this one and then later on I can take a full family photo when I track down the rest.

While I can't say that I'll probably ever love a new Snuff record as much as I love older ones like Reach or Demmamussabebonk, those records have an unfair amount of nostalgia built into them.  It's hard to match up with albums you've been living with for over twenty five years.  But if you look at Crespuscolo on its own merits and listen to it without trying to make it be a 90s record, you'll find that this is a band still firing on all cylinders and is putting out records that I'm exceedingly happy to purchase. 

Snuff - Crepuscolo Dorato Della Bruschetta Borsetta Calzetta Cacchetta Trombetta Lambretta Giallo Ossido, Ooooooh Cosi Magnifico!:
https://snuffuk.bandcamp.com/album/crepuscolo-dorato-della-bruschetta-borsetta-calzetta-cacchetta-trombetta-lambretta-giallo-ossido-ooooooh-cos-magnifico

Snuff - Potatoes & Melons, Do Do Do's and Zsa Zsa Zsa's LP - Cream w/ Red Splatter Vinyl (/252)

10 Past 12 / SBÄM (2021)

Let's get this out of the way.  Yes, this is only one of way too many versions of this LP that are available.  And on top of that, I can't get them all at one place and on top of that all places to get them from are in Europe.  It makes it somewhat expensive to try to be a completist, something that I've always tried to be for Snuff.  This looks like is the album where I may have to finally give up.  I picked up this version from the Snuff webstore and I have another version with different cover art preordered from the SBÄM store.  The other vinyl variants are just going to have to elude me for now.

On to the record itself, this is a compilation of Snuff songs, primarily from the old Potatoes And Melons At Wholesale Prices Direct To You The Public (or Straight From The Lockup if you have the Fat Wreck version) EP.  It also adds in songs from the Do Do Do  and Gandara 7"s among others.  There are a lot of cover songs in here along with Snuff originals of varying seriousness.  That's always been what I like most about Snuff, their records and shows are always so much fun.  Do they have great songs with no comedy elements? Of course.  But what's better than sandwiching those in between commercial jingles?

Everything on here is fun, but the Do Do Do 7" songs stand out to me in particular as it was among the earlier Snuff releases that I picked up when I first got into the band.  The covers of "I Will Survive," "Standing In The Shadows Of Love" and "Soul Limbo" are just so great.  There are actually two versions of "Soul Limbo" on here, I prefer the Do Do Do one.  There are also two versions of "Theme For Whatever Happened To The Likely Lads," for these I prefer the one that was from the Deceptive Christmas 7".

It's great to have all of these songs on one LP.  Of course I have the original 7"s, CDs, 10"s and LPs that originally contained these songs, but it's nice to have one record that I can pop on to hear them all.  If there's only one complaint, it's that I wish the Long Ball To No-One songs were also on here.  After all, "Dow Dow Boof Boof" is my very favorite Snuff song.

Snuff - "Soul Limbo" (Do Do Do Version):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LziwhD8J1Ow&ab_

Snuff - "I Will Survive":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7d9Kp8ezVs&ab_

Billy No Mates - S.F. Sourdough LP - Green Vinyl (/100)

10 Past 12 / Unless You Try (2021)

You may or may not know that I am a gigantic Snuff fan.  They are one of my very favorite bands in the world and I usually mention them, Leatherface and Rocket From The Crypt as the three most important bands to me.  Like John Reis from Rocket and Frankie Stubbs from Leatherface, I tend to follow Duncan Redmonds from Snuff to whatever other project he has brewing.  Guns N Wankers is probably the most famous of his other bands, but Billy No Mates is the one that has the most non-Snuff records out.

S.F. Sourdough is the fourth Billy No Mates album and this time Duncan is joined by luminaries of the US punk rock scene.  On this recording are Joey Cape from Lagwagon, Sergie Loobkoff from Samiam/Knapsack and some guy named Chicken.  He's from a band called Dead to Me that I'm not familiar with.  I have to say, I was especially intrigued by what Duncan and Sergie would do together as they both have some much great work under their belts and both have a really distinct point of view in their punk rock.  In that regard I was a little let down.

This album sounds pretty much like the other Billy No Mates albums.  That's not really a bad thing or a complaint, but I mostly hear Duncan's point of view on these songs.  I like his point of view, so that's good, but unless you told me Sergie was on this record, I would have never known.  That said, we have a bunch of nice melodic punk songs that have similarities with some of the more modern Snuff albums and some others that are more unique to what Billy No Mates has cranked out in the past.

It's a good record and it's nice to have something new that has come out in 2021 that I really dig.  Even though this is technically from 2010...

Billy No Mates - S.F. Sourdough LP:
https://snuffuk.bandcamp.com/album/s-f-sourdough-2

Snuff - The Wrath of Thoth 12" - 3 New Vinyl Colors

10 Past 12 / Unless You Try (2020)

Several weeks ago I received an email from the Snuff mailing list alerting the world that they had pressed 2 more color variants of the Wrath of Thoth 12".  I will admit that I swore a little.  Having already purchased 6 different versions of the LP, I was not really up for buying more right at that moment in time.  But, as I read through the email, my concerns dissipated a bit. There was a note acknowledging that some people were buying all of the versions and it wasn't their goal to get these duplicate sales when they repressed the records.  So the deal was this, if you had all six prior versions and you took a picture of them and sent them in, they would send the two newest variants for free to the first six responders.

Very luckily, I was one of the six.  To my surprise, I actually received three new records.  I have the new splatter variant (/295) and the silver/white split color variant (/105) and these both look great.  Split color vinyl is my person favorite color way and it's always nice to add more of those to the collection.  In addition to those two that were advertised, I also received one on orange vinyl.   This orange is darker than the orange one I have from the first pressing, so I'm not really sure of the story with this one.  I'll have to dig around and see what I can sleuth out.  It may just be a transitional color, but maybe not.

As far as the music goes, I wrote more about that in my write up of the other six colors here.  The songs on here are great and it makes me eager for another Snuff full length, even though they did just put one out last year.  Snuff is an all time favorite band and I love buying their records, but I will definitely be content if the variants for this release end here.

Snuff - The Wrath Of Thoth (This is a link to one of those link tree things that take you to a bunch of places you can stream the record, but really you should just go buy the vinyl, shouldn't you?) https://ditto.fm/the-wrath-of-throf

Snuff - The Wrath of Thoth 12" EP - Six Different Colors of Vinyl

10 Past 12 / Unless You Try (2020)

I don't know what's wrong with me.  I don't know why I need six copies of this 12".  But I do.  The first pressing of this EP occurred pretty much right as the pandemic was getting underway and my record buying income was reduced to essential nil.  I watched as the orange and green vinyl pressings of these albums sold out without me having bought them.  I scraped together enough cash to at least get the version that Unless You Try was selling, but I felt sad and incomplete.

Then, it was repressed on three more colors of vinyl.  So, I sold a 1980s Rat guitar pedal on eBay.  This gave me the money to pounce on the Snuff website when they miraculously found a few more of the sold out first pressing copies.  So I picked up four copies in total from them and the last one I needed on blue vinyl from Dead Broke.  This was too complicated for me, but I just can't help how much I love Snuff and have for decades.

The songs on here are quite good too.  Every Snuff record has at least a handful of transcendently incredible songs and this one is no exception.  Opener "Drink Freely From The Chalice of Lunacy" is not only in the running for best Snuff songs of the past fifteen years or so, it's also a pretty good description of the year 2020 as a whole.  Yes, have some.  All of the songs on this EP are fun and provide an excellent follow up to the last Snuff full length, There's A Lot Of It About.  I like the idea of more frequent Snuff releases, but next time I would prefer maybe two versions instead of six.

Snuff - The Wrath Of Thoth (This is a link to one of those link tree things that take you to a bunch of places you can stream the record, but really you should just go buy the vinyl, shouldn't you?)
https://ditto.fm/the-wrath-of-throf

Snuff - Demmamussabebonk LP - Yellow Vinyl

10 Past 12 (2016, Reissue)

It's kind of crazy to me that Demmamussabebonk is twenty years old this year.  Snuff has been one of my favorite bands in the world for over two decades and this album has been in my top five albums of all time ever since I thought about trying to rank albums like that.  A lesser know fact about Demmamussabebonk is that there were two versions of it released back in 1996.  The version on Fat Wreck in the US and the UK version that came out on Deceptive records.  Fat Wreck rereleased their version as a limited colored vinyl run a couple of years ago.  For its twentieth anniversary, Snuff has rereleased the UK version on their own 10 Past 12 records.

In my opinion, the UK release has always been the superior version of the record.  For starters, the track listing is in a different order and the album comes storming out of the gate with "Martin."  If that's not a perfect opening track, I don't know what is.  For the life of me, I can't understand why Fat changed that.  Also, the mix of the record is completely different from the Fat Wreck version.  It's a rougher mix that doesn't sound quite as slick.  It just feels like it has more energy and really encapsulates what Snuff is supposed to sound like.  The new reissue also comes with a CD of the demos that Snuff recorded for the album.  It's an interesting listen for sure and contains all of the songs from Demmamussabebonk as well as demos of the B-sides from this era of the band.

When I first opened this reissue, I thought the artwork looked a little strange.  Sort of like when some band does a reissue and they don't have the original art files so they try to scan in a copy and use that.  I thought the pictures of the toys on the cover looked a little washed out.  Well, it turns out it's not from the pictures being reused, it's from the toys getting older.  They retook the pictures on the cover using the same toys 20 years later.  The clear plastic of the scooter has started to cloud up over time and Happy Clock is also fading a bit.  

Once I figured out what they had done, I actually really liked the concept of recreating the art twenty years later.  After all, we've all aged a bit since this record originally came out.  But even though Demmamussabonk is twenty years old, it still sounds as fresh and exciting to me as it did the very first time I listened to it.  My highest possible recommendation.

Snuff - "Martin":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOWsGdhg5mk

Snuff - "B":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmEwB6FzHIU

Snuff - "Sunny Places":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qg3NjrLA7aE

Snuff - No Biting! 12"

10 Past 12 (2016)

It truly warms my heart when there is a new Snuff record.  These guys have been one of my absolute favorite bands for over twenty years at this point.  They are essentially the only band that can give Rocket From The Crypt a run for the top spot in my heart.  The fact that the band is still recording and releasing new music in 2016 is something to celebrate. Also, the appearance of Happy Clock on the cover again is a nice touch.

The really amazing thing about Snuff is that the quality of songs they are able to pull off has not diminished at all over the years.  The EPs lead track, "Bob's Song," immediately pulls you back into the late 90's/early 2000's Tweet Tweet My Lovely era of the band.  Bouncy guitar riffs, catchy hooks and perfectly placed trombone accents make this on of the highlights.  As is usual for any Snuff release, you are going to get a variety of styles as each of the EPs seven songs unfold.  From the harsher, more hardcore leaning "Conductor 71," to the every so slightly metal guitar tinges on "Rue The Day" to the flat out wackiness of their cover of "Galloping Home (Theme From Black Beauty)," Snuff is firing on all cylinders and haven't lost a step.

No Biting, coupled with a recent reissue of my favorite Snuff album Demmamussabebonk, and a recent UK tour have Snuff front and center once again.  Hopefully this leads to more music, more touring (maybe America again?) and to a new full length.  I have a lot of Snuff records in the collection, but there's always room for more.

Snuff - No Biting 12":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbKQRYcYy94

(It's just a  little preview video thing with clips of each song, I can't find any whole songs streaming anywhere)