Live music review: Nashville’s Snooper at Radio East with Tear Dungeon and Font leads to wild night

January 31, 2024 Case Cockrell 818 Views buzz band, Font, live music, metal, punk rock, Radio East, Review, rock n roll, Snooper, SXSW, Tear Dungeon

In Austin, nothing ever slows down for the music scene. After New Year’s Eve, we plunge right into Free Week, and then it’s back to business as we know it. Which means non-stop live music. Saturday night at the brand new South Austin outdoor venue, Radio East, was a front-to-back freak fest that featured some of Austin’s best talent, as was necessary to build all the hype for the evening’s headlining act, the Nashville punk band Snooper—stylized as SNõõPER. Armed with socially aware lyrics, a caffeinated vocal delivery from frontwoman Blair Tramel, and a zest for life in the fast lane. The group was supported by performances by Austin acts, Tear Dungeon and Font.

SNõõPER has gained the punk underground’s attention and also received accolades from the likes of Henry Rollins. “SNõõPER is a band who, in a 33 ⅓ RPM world, make 45 RPM music and play it at 78 RPM, which completely works,” Rollins said about debut full-length Super SNõõPER. For Saturday night’s gig, SNõõPER induced a top-to-bottom rage session at supersonic speed from every which way. Presented by world-famous concert photographer Pooneh, a carefully crafted bill stacked up to be an early, massive statement for the Austin music scene in 2024.

Austin’s Radio East is off the beaten path, in the industrial area far out of the clutches of Dirty 6th St and the music venue district located on Red River. Radio East recently opened, and it stands out as one of the two notable venues in the Southeast Austin area, the other being the electronic music-focused, The Concourse Project. Upon arrival at R/E, the vibes were at an all-time high, as it felt like the whole town showed up to see the killer lineup in Austin on the chilly Saturday night.

Local post-punks Font were the first to take the stage, with their double percussion and synth-ridden madness all present for the evening’s beginnings. Font’s instrumentation is dark and abrasive, but with a touch of captivating technicality that makes each tune a thought-provoking piece. This firing-on-all-cylinders with deft capability often makes audience members watch each band member individually, as they burn through each tune with precise instrumentation that shows the Austin act carving out their niche with a unique, inspired sound.

Since forming in 2022, Font has stayed busy with shows all over the Austin area and has since caught fire, scoring an opening slot for soaring British post-punk stars Yard Act, an opening slot that subsequently got the band a call to open for them on their upcoming West Coast tour. Font is only two singles deep to date, but the live sets prove they are a force to be reckoned with.

The hardcore punk slaughterhouse was open for business as Andrew Cashen’s Tear Dungeon took the stage next. The backwoods, ax-murdering vibes of the Austin heavy metal/ garage punk act have been gracing the smallest of rooms in Austin the past couple of months, wreaking havoc with their onstage antics, which usually include the spitting of blood that creates a river of makeshift gore that makes every venue appearance a river running red.

When Tear Dungeon finished sound-checking, frontman Andrew Cashen, also of A Giant Dog/Sweet Spirit, donned a ski mask with the rest of the band following suit. If you’ve never seen a Tear Dungeon gig in Austin, you should know it’s a sea of blood that makes for an eardrum-rattling, clothes-soaking presentation of thrashing punk rock that contains abrasive riffs, growled vocals that push the hardcore envelope, and a fierce rhythm section that comes with bone-crushing instrumentation that should leave your ears ringing for days.

This set was no exception; with an audience so big, Cashen had to make the rounds by walking through the crowd and spitting blood all over the audience. Tracks like “Pizza In A Can” off the side project’s lone LP are indicative of the heavy music blends of the Austin band, as some points showed the shredding guitars and d-beat drums felt like that of a thrash metal act. In the set’s final moments, drummer Chris Prorock chucked his drinking can-o-blood out into the audience, making for one last red liquid blast of the performance.

SNõõPER doesn’t fuck around. Okay, maybe a little. As the audience eyed the stage in anticipation, the band and their crew began assembling their instruments while also bringing on props and toys that proved to be the ultimate party favors for SNõõPER’s set. These giant stage pieces included a foam dumbbell, a massive number eight pool ball, an old-fashioned person-sized brick-style phone, and more comical absurdity to throw around during the impending punk rock onslaught.

When the Nashville punks took the stage, the crowd and band alike were all juiced up and ready to bask in the musical hail storm with a rapid-fire delivery that allowed over 20 tunes to be played in less than an hour of stage time. The songs came with blistering, unrelenting, full-throttled intensity. Tracks like “Powerball,” “Bed Bugs,” and “Pod” all came from the punk rock turret, only stopping for harrowing soundbites that also acted as reloading sessions for a frenzying crowd who didn’t stop thrashing around and stage diving for the entire duration of the performance. Despite the unbridled frantic pace of the music, the crowd was all smiles, singing along to every alliterated cadence with limb-swinging, stage prop-throwing enthusiasm. The Tennessee-born band gave homage to Texas by closing their set with Butthole Surfers cover “Human Cannonball,” which put a homegrown bow on a special treat of an evening in the ATX. We were also told that the Nashville band ran families out of the Austin joint during the evening’s soundcheck at 4 pm with the Surfers tune, resulting in a last minute addition to the evening’s setlist.

SNõõPER will return for more mass chaos for South by Southwest, as was announced in the most recent wave of SXSW artists announcements. Near the performance’s conclusion, Tramel told the audience, “We play in Austin so much that it feels like we’re from here.” The welcome mat is always open, dudes—special thanks to Pooneh for curating such a tremendous bill. Catch Pooneh’s next Radio/East showcase on March 6, featuring Detroit post-punk berserkers Protomartyr along with local staples TV’s Daniel and Wet Dip.