Jun 30 : "Strong Foundation" - The Snails (Philly)

Philly Music!

TENUOUS POSITIONS

Last week I went to Kung Fu Necktie and this was the first time I heard Philly band "The Snails" perform. I liked their sound. What stood out was the different textures in the music. They describe themselves as "an eclectic act specializing in various forms of Jamaican music, blended with ragged 50's rock "n" roll and the sweet sounds of American soul." This comes across in their performance as always refreshing always unexpected in what comes next.

They have a sizeable amount of music on their web page, and when I started to look and listen more closely to their lyrics, I thought more about the tenuous positions in life in which we frequently find ourselves; a large undercurrent in the band's lyrics is about life's uncertainties and the decision about which way to go, to keep moving along the same path or try something new and what kind of foundation do you need to make that move.

Perhaps the most explicit description occurs in their song "Walking Down Broad Street" where we seem to have started walking as if we have some purpose but realize we can or should do it for only "so long", which is repeated multiple times. Maybe this is a metaphor for doing something over and over again until the action that once had meaning no longer does.

"Liberty Street Lights" talks about the changes that occur through the span of one's life and where to go from here:

"Give me the bricks and the mortar
I'll build this wall around my heart
And as I'm growing up older
I'll watch this wall fall apart
...
"I've been climbing up this mountain for years
And I still haven't reached the top
Should I struggle to find all my fears
Or look for something I have not got"

And probably the song that has the most uncertainty as well as the most choices is "Many Roads", which appears shortly after the middle of the album "Songs From The Hydrogen Jukebox Vol 1 & 2 ".

But all this leads up to their album's final song, "Strong Foundation", which tells the broad brush strokes ways of dealing with the tenuous positions previously described. Here is "Strong Foundation":

If you would like to hear The Snails live, they will be back doing a show at Kung Fu on Aug 18. Here is the click to their Facebook page so you can keep track ::: The Snails on Facebook (CLICK HERE). And if you want to check out more of these songs along with their lyrics, here is the click to their Bandcamp page ::: The Snails on Bandcamp (CLICK HERE)

p.s.... I like it when bands print the lyrics.

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8/2/16 - - - UPDATE : The band took down that whole album from their page. Strange! So there is now no link to the featured song.

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7/5/20 ::: UPDATE : The band seems to have deactivated all its pages that I can see.

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