Now Hear This - Awesome Snakes

I'm trying out a new feature on the ol' blog today in an effort to keep it from becoming a gallery of my latest toy purchases. My intent from the start was to share all kinds of interesting things so I'm going to expose you to music you may not be aware existed...

Have you ever thought to yourself, "Man, I wish there were more songs with snake lyrics."? Even if you haven't, you should still check out the band Awesome Snakes.

Awesome Snakes were a two person punk band from Minneapolis that put out one CD (Venom) in 2006. The members were Annie Holoien (aka "Annie Awesome") and Danny Henry (aka "Danny Snakes") who did this as a side project while they were both still in another band called The Soviettes.

One of the things that bums me out about the slow death of music stores was the ability to walk in and just browse album covers. There are more than a few bands I "discovered" back in the day by seeing a cool album cover and deciding to check it out. You can argue that the internet has made this easier but it's nowhere near as much fun as physically flipping through those cardboard sleeves. And its nowhere near as satisfying when you find that one kick ass cover that you can bring to your friends and introduce them to it.

Why did I decide to give Awesome Snakes a listen?
The answer is in their CD cover

If that still doesn't answer the question for you...

It's not really something that's come up much, but I am a huge fan of hair bands from the 80s/90s.

 They even used umlauts in their band name! The band's sound is very simple: drums and a bass run through a fuzzbox. What really grabbed me about them is their use of snakes, sound clips and the random change up between song styles.

It's nothing world changing but I think it's straight out fun. I seem to take an instant liking to bands like this including Cake, They Might Be Giants and The Aquabats because of their original, off-beat lyrics. Like a lot of punk, most of the 15 tracks on this album are under two minutes long. Unlike most punk, just over half the songs have the word snakes in the title!

If you have Spotify, you can listen below.
You can also hear clips on the Venom Amazon page
Just be aware there is the occasional droppage of swear words

S.L.U.G. Zombies Series 4 Hunters

 
If you've got swarms of little green zombie figures, it only stands to reason they need someone to fight against, right? Here are the remaining figures from S.L.U.G. Zombies Series 4: the humans! Please excuse my playing with the photo filters.

Buckskin Bill

He's stopped on a dime because that's the only way he'd stand up

 Survival Skill: Wrote the book, "Survivial Skills"

 Likes: His trusty sidekick, Rascal

Dislikes: When Rascal has an accident

Favorite Quote: "Who waits 'til you see the whites of their eyes? Just shoot!"

Ah, another zombie hunter out of time. It only makes sense considering the wide variety of time periods the zombies are coming from. Bill's decked out in the standard Daniel Boone frontiersman gear, complete with flintlock rifle. He's also got a coonskin cap, except his isn't dead! That's a great example of taking the figure just a bit further to make it funny.

Johnson

Survival Skill: Sure fire aim

Likes: Unloading two guns at once

Dislikes: Cleaning out her hamster's cage

Favorite Quote: "They call me...Johnson."

Twin pistols, fingerless gloves, tiny backpack, ponytail. There's no question what video game vixen inspired this character! I have no idea why they went with the name Johnson though.

Sawblade Sampson

Survival Skill: A saw for a hand, a shotgun in the other!

Likes: Sharpening his sawblade

Dislikes: Being asked to carve the turkey every Thanksgiving

Favorite Quote: "How about a haircut? I'll start just below the chin."

I hesitate to even say this is "inspired by" because the resemblance is dead on. Sure it looks more like a giant electric carving knife than a chainsaw but I'm not telling him! 

Hail to the king, baby!

Play-It-Safe Sammy

[No photo on record]

Survival Skill: Run & hide

Likes: His industrial strength hazmat suit

Dislikes: Sharp objects

Favorite Quote: "Don't forget to wash your hands!"

Sammy is playing it so safe, I don't even have a photo of him! He's the only figure from series 4 that I don't have but I'm not concerned. As you may guess from his bio, he's decked out in a full body hazmat suit and is toting a machine gun. Personally, when I think weapons and hazmat suits I'm thinking of a flamethrower. But that's just me.

And that wraps up Series 4 of S.L.U.G Zombies! Will there be more? The site's poster checklist shows graphics for Series 5 and 6. Hopefully we'll get some news on the future of S.L.U.G.s from New York Toy Fair later this month.

 

Monthly Movie Recap - January 2013

Here we are kicking off another year of watching movies!

Tangled (2010)
I really liked this one. It's a lot of fun and the songs are worked in well. The look of it is a little different from the usual CGI animated movies, in a good way. Even though Rapunzel loses her "power" at the end, I wouldn't mind seeing these characters in another movie.

Cool: The chameleon and horse steal their scenes; Zachary Levi is great
Lame: Sometimes it seems her hair is prehensile and sometimes not?
Rating: 7.5