Flush It Friday: This Is So Sacred
And it sets the tone…
25 years ago this week, Buffalo hardcore legends Snapcase released Designs for Automotion. Earlier in ’99, the video for “Typecast Modulator”—my introduction to the band—was getting a little airtime on MTV and MTV2. I had not yet been Bar Mitzvah’d, though I would be soon, but this was its own kind of introductory rite. Snapcase made waves in the Buffalo scene by what to me is still an almost singular style of hardcore. You can hear the resonance with Refused, to be sure, and the syncopation of chunky, start-stop guitar riffs with infectious drum beats was rooted in the early ’90s sound a la Undertow and Quicksand. And yet, maybe owing to Daryl Taberski’s unmistakable vocals, there remains something entirely unique, uncommon, and rare about Snapcase, even if you can hear quite clearly how they’ve influenced a band like Drug Church.
Designs for Automotion balanced the band’s earlier more aggressive sound on Lookinglasself (1993), Steps (1995), and Progression through Unlearning (1997), with an emergent melodic sensibility and a distinctly ’90s sound. “Are You Tuned In?,” “Break the Static,” and “Energy Dome” could absolutely be from any of those earlier records, but there’s a catchy, hooky, punchy alt-rock quality to much of the record that marks it off as of a different type or class. It’s exciting, intense, animated, passionate, and full of verve, but you wouldn’t necessarily call it heavy. (Classics such as “Zombie Apocalypse” and “Caboose” are heavy.) It’s not for nothing that this slight change has made the album so memorable for me. Snapcase was always galvanizing and propulsive, plosive and spirited, but Designs for Automotion turned it into something akin to beautiful.
The other reason, perhaps the main reason, I’ll always celebrate Designs for Automotion as my favourite Snapcase record is “Ambition Now.” I’m not unconvinced that the real reason I became a posi kid was the transcendent, nigh spiritual quality of this song. “This is so sacred / and it sets the tone / for the rhythm of your life / live your life!” It’s like the first time you hear “Breaking the Cycle” or “First and Ellen” or “Destination: Death or Better Days” from Modern Life Is War. You’ve found an anthem. You’ve found a way to elevate yourself “no matter where you’re at now.” You’re more connected, living more vibrantly, more attuned to the ecstatic nature of the quotidian. Life is brighter, richer, more full of possibilities. You know, on some level, that all the ambition in the world, all the faith in the path that’s growing narrow, all the demand for better days, might not get you everything you want, but it might get you enough. There’s something immensely beautiful about enough. I often tell students that Robin Wall Kimmerer is a theorist of enough-ness. “Ambition Now” is a song of enough-ness, a driving paean to getting enough to live a life you want to live.
I still get goosebumps. I’m still electrified. I’m beaming from ear to ear. Amidst it all.
Oh, huh. It looks like Joe just put up a “Best of Victory Records” mixtape up on the Patreon. Sign up for the Patreon. Listen to it. (Spoiler: he picked “Typecast Modulator” and not “Ambition Now,” but I get it.) Let’s flush.
Roldy, who is a blessing in human owl form, organized a GoFundMe for someone who needs help. It’s just shy of the goal. If you can give, contribute. If you can’t, that’s okay, too!
TMP with Stick and TTT with Roldy. It just always feels right.
Toilet Radio 540 is about the documentary Why Should The Devil Have All The Good Music. I moshed to so many Christian metalcore bands in high school.
Toilet Radio 540 – Why Should The Devil Have All The Good Music?
Hans shrugged his way through a premiere of a great new track from Ritual Ascension.
Track Premiere: Ritual Ascension – “Kolob (At the Throne of Elohim)”
Falxifer got freaky with the absolutely bonkers new record from Délirant.
It’s always a great week when 365 drops a Shirt Stains. In this installment, he steals my rant that it was never ever cool to trade on the MAGA slogan, even if, I would argue, it was pushing back against the very idea. I hate it. Get it outta here.
That looks like a fine week in the Bowl to me. Read through all the posts, show love to the contributors. Hit the GoFundMe if you can. Sign up for the Patreon because I said so. Do all that stuff and drop your GBUs in the comments. I love you all. Smooches!
