The Awesome Snakes were a two-person punk rock band from

Minneapolis, Minnesota Minneapolis () is the largest city in Minnesota, United States, and the county seat of Hennepin County. The city is abundant in water, with thirteen lakes, wetlands, the Mississippi River, creeks and waterfalls. Minneapolis has its origins ...

, featuring Annie "Sparrows" Holoien (

The Soviettes The Soviettes were a punk rock band from Minneapolis, Minnesota, founded in 2001. The group is composed of Annie (guitar), Sturgeon (guitar), Susy (bass guitar), and Danny ( drums), all of whom share singing and songwriting duties. History Anni ...

, The God Damn Doo Wop Band) on bass and Danny Henry (The Soviettes, France Has The Bomb, International Robot) on drums.

History

The Awesome Snakes grew out of the Soviettes as a side project in 2004, when the Soviettes were touring nationally and earning increasing critical buzz. Holoien and Henry, renaming themselves "Annie Awesome" and "Danny Snakes", started the duo as a way to ease the pressure by making what Henry described as a "jokey" and "free and loose" set of punk songs, spiced with audio samples from Henry's collection of odd self-help and how-to tapes. The instrumentation is deliberately simple, just Holoien on bass and Henry on drums, with the bass played through a Fender Blues Deville amplifier on high distortion. The lyrics are also highly focused;

A.V. Club ''The A.V. Club'' is an American online newspaper and entertainment website featuring reviews, interviews, and other articles that examine films, music, television, books, games, and other elements of pop-culture media. ''The A.V. Club'' was cre ...

writer Christopher Bahn noted that the song topics revolve around "two subjects: snakes and/or things that are awesome." In 2004, the cassette-only indie label Home Taping Is Killing the Record Industry released the band's self-titled debut. Their second album, '' Venom'', was released July 17, 2006, on Wisconsin record label

Crustacean Records Crustacean Records is an independent record label in Wisconsin, United States, that was founded in 1994. History The label was founded by Chris Langkamp. Chris Langkamp is majority owner and Rory Nienajadlo is co-owner. The debut release was ''F ...

. It featured fifteen tracks recorded in much higher fidelity than the debut cassette by their friend Ross and mastered by Dave Gardener, and features a guest appearance by Twin Cities MC P.O.S. The band appears on the 2008 Crustacean Records double-disc DVD retrospective ''Drown Out the Daylights''. In 2009, the band released a four-song digital EP, ''Snake Cake'', on Minneapolis' Ass Records. The duo's last show as Awesome Snakes was on March 19, 2010, at the Turf Club in St. Paul, Minnesota; the same night as the release show for The Soviettes' retrospective '' Rarities'' album. On October 15, 2021, ''Venom'' was re-released on vinyl by

Stand Up! Records Stand Up! Records is an American independent comedy record label founded in Minneapolis, Minnesota, by Grammy-winning producer Dan Schlissel. It has been called "the country's most respected indie comedy label." Stand Up! has released more than 20 ...

, with the four songs from ''Snake Cake'' included as bonus tracks.

Successors

Holoien's post-Snakes groups include The Horrible and the Miserable. In 2019, Holoien and Henry formed a new rock quartet, Green/Blue, with former members of two other Minneapolis punk bands,

The Blind Shake The Blind Shake are an American punk rock band formed in Minneapolis by brothers Jim (vocals/guitar) and Mike Blaha (vocals/guitar), with Dave Roper on drums. They have released four albums and featured as a backing band for a number of artists, ...

and Birthday Suits. The band released a self-titled debut record in 2020.

Critical reception

''Venom'' enjoyed great critical success in the band's home state of Minnesota, being named one of the best albums of 2006 in the

Star Tribune The ''Star Tribune'' is the largest newspaper in Minnesota. It originated as the ''Minneapolis Tribune'' in 1867 and the competing ''Minneapolis Daily Star'' in 1920. During the 1930s and 1940s, Minneapolis's competing newspapers were consolida ...

's annual Twin Cities Critics Tally and also making the best-of lists for The A.V. Club's Twin Cities edition and ''Pulse''. The band's deliberately silly moniker also earned it a spot in the 2006 edition of The A.V. Club's tongue-in-cheek feature The Year in Band Names. Andrea Swensson of ''

City Pages ''City Pages'' was an alternative newspaper serving the Minneapolis–St. Paul metropolitan area. It featured news, film, theatre and restaurant reviews and music criticism, available free every Wednesday. It ceased publication in 2020 due to a ...

'' said "they play with a seriousness that sharply contrasts the silly nature of their music." Stephanie Soucheray, writing for ''Sliver Magazine'', said "''Venom'' may be self-referential, vulgar, goofy and weird. But it is never pretentious. The album is the sound of people having fun, and people being honest about their musical intentions." Tim Thompson of Wisconsin's "Local Sounds Magazine" praised ''Venoms "huge, manic, underground sound ... delivering an almost disembodied psychedelic freak-out in the middle of a garage-punk record." The album also received critical praise from several national publications, including '' Alternative Press'', which called it "lo-fi, furious, primal garage-rock voodoo"; '' Maximumrocknroll'', which called it "smart-arsed, snotty, arty and funny;" and ''

Punk Planet ''Punk Planet'' was a 16,000 print run punk zine, based in Chicago, Illinois, that focused most of its energy on looking at punk subculture rather than punk as simply another genre of music to which teenagers listen. In addition to covering music ...

'', which called it "a fuzzed up and confrontationally comedic dose of garage bangers and pogo punk punishers." Punk zine ''

Razorcake Razorcake is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that publishes the Razorcake fanzine, a DIY punk rock fanzine published bi-monthly out of Los Angeles, California. It was co-founded by Todd Taylor (former Flipside managing editor) and Sean Cars ...

'' praised two early demos, 2006's ''The Stupid Demo'' and ''The Cheap-Ass Cassette Demo'', calling them "low-fi garage punk that is poppy yet very psychedelic in a go-go kid way." The publication was less impressed with ''Venom'' itself, saying: "Overall, this seems like a joke band that must be really funny for the people who made it, but for the rest of us it's worth listening to maybe once at the most." Reviewing the 2021 re-release, Jake Austen of ''Roctober Magazine'' said "This reissue of an early 2000s Midwestern ridiculous riff rock relic proves that nothing is as timeless as lo fi, stripped down, absurdist snake songs."

Discography

*''Awesome Snakes'' (2004, Home Taping Is Killing the Record Industry, cassette-only release) *'' Venom'' (2006,

); re-released on vinyl by

in 2021 *''Snake Cake'' (October 12, 2009, Ass Records), digital-only EP; re-released on vinyl by

in 2021 as part of ''Venom''

In other media

The song "I Want a Snake" is featured in two installments of Electronic Arts' skateboarding video game series ''

Skate Skate or Skates may refer to: Fish *Skate (fish), several genera of fish belonging to the family Rajidae * Pygmy skates, several genera of fish belonging to the family Gurgesiellidae * Smooth skates or leg skates, several genera of fish belongin ...

'': '' Skate 2'' and the Wii version of '' Skate It''.

References

External links

Awesome Snakes on FacebookAwesome Snakes on MySpaceAwesome Snakes at Stand Up! Records websiteAwesome Snakes at Crustacean Records website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Awesome Snakes Rock music duos Punk rock groups from Minnesota Musical groups established in 2004 Musical groups disestablished in 2010 Stand Up! Records artists Indie rock musical groups from Minnesota