The Gamits - Endorsed By You LP - Yellow Vinyl (/200)

Snappy Little Numbers / Fail Harmonic / Bearded Punk (2025, Reissue)

Endorsed by You was originally released back in the year 2000 and was The Gamits debut full length.  I know this, because i looked it up.  I've never been all that familiar with The Gamits.  I have a split 7" with them on it somewhere in my collection (I assumed filed under "G" or "M"), but I really don't remember it as it was part of a 7" subscription series I was in over a decade ago.  Before that I did know their name, but mostly from hanging around the Vinyl Collective message board in the mid 2000s.

Putting on this album is the first time I've heard much of anything by The Gamits.  I wasn't going in with any idea of what they sounded like, aside from the fact that I knew they were pop punk and I do have a good record by Discreature Comfort, the newer band fronted by The Gamits' Chris Fogel.  For whatever reason, despite my unfamiliarity with them, they kind of sounded like I thought they would.  Pretty good pop punk, with the occasional song or section of a song that has the sort of drumming that makes me nuts.

There's this galloping, super fast drum beat in pop punk that I most closely associate with NOFX, but creeps out into many, many bands (even ones I love like Snuff).  It's one of those things that immediately makes me tune out and think, "oh, it's this kind of pop punk."  And while that is definitely not the case for the vast majority of this Gamits record, when it does pop up, I immediately get frustrated.

And that frustration is mostly because I do like the bulk of this album.  The guitars have the big crunchy sound that I dig.  The vocals and choruses remind me a little bit of Hospital Job (though, due to when each of those bands were releasing records, it's actually the other way around).   At its core, it's a well done pop punk record.  It's just at its best when they slow things down just a bit and lean into the pop side of pop punk.  And if the occasional drum gallop isn't a weirdly specific pet peeve for you like it is for me, I think this is a record worth checking out.

The Gamits - Endorsed By You:
https://snappylittlenumbers.bandcamp.com/album/endorsed-by-you-reissue

Discomfort Creature - S/T LP - Orange Vinyl

Snappy Little Numbers  Bearded Punk / Monster Zero (2022)

Discomfort Creature is a new project spearheaded by Chris Fogel, who was a part of the early 2000s band The Gamits.  Having spent time on the Vinyl Collective message board during this time period, they came up a lot due to their affiliation with Suburban Home records.  I own exactly one Gamits record, their split 7" with The Murderburgers that was part of an All In Vinyl subscription series.  But I have no memory of it whatsoever.

Because of that, I was pretty much coming into Discomfort Creature with a limited set of expectations or preconceived notions.  I'm not really expecting it to sound like anything specific and there's nothing for them to live up to because of my unfamiliarity with prior works.  The good news is, that it's a pretty fun record.  The band that I really keep hearing echos of for some reason is Armchair Martian.  I'm not exactly sure why as vocally, Chris has more of a Billy Joe style than a Jon Snodgrass one, but there's an air about the songs that puts me in a similar place as I was when I heard Armchair Martian for the first time, even though Discomfort Creature plays things a little faster for the most part.

There isn't a bad song in the bunch with the bulk of the proceedings being fast paced affairs with just the slightest bit of twang creeping into their predominantly pop punk stylings.  This came in a little late to be in the running for my best of 2022 list, but I definitely would have had to make a place for them if I had a bit more time to spend with this record.

Discomfort Creature - S/T:
https://snappylittlenumbers.bandcamp.com/album/s-t-sln-233