Description

Midnite Snack came together in June 2009 to play the music of Denney Yoints. Trevor Hope, (of The Vox Jaguars) and Sam Copperman, (also of The Vox Jaguars), are both full-time jazz musicians and students, Sam at Michigan and Trevor at Cabrillo College where he, Denney, Shaina Elster (synth/vocals 2009-10) and Cody Hallenbeck (bass 2010) studied music, the former three all having sung in the world-renown Cabrillo Symphonic Chorus and Cantiamo! Cabrillo. Drawing influence from 1970's-80's British and American punk and alternative rock of every flavor, southern blues and american/teutonic choral music, Yoints' vision has a lot to do with the snappy percussion in reggae, electronic and even industrial music as well as 80s punk. The band strives for high contrast and forceful, austere textures, with the rhythm section discreetly keeping a soulful American feel and dynamic. They compare their sound to the Wipers, Smashing Pumpkins, Joy Division and Creedence Clearwater Revival, among others.

In December 2010 the lineup changed to Nick Overhauser on drums, Mason Rosenberg (also of The Vox Jaguars) on bass, and Alex Jestice on second guitar.

Denney Yoints recorded "Slowdance" (September 2007) on 4-track cassette, naked in Mammatus' Corralitos studio while they were away on tour in april 2007. The famous cover features Yoints hanging over an analog synthesizer like it were the edge of a swimming pool or a pillow, against a black background.

"Autumn City Limits" (February 2008) was recorded on a pre-protools PC with no sound hardware interface by Yoints in his dilapidated house in Santa Cruz during autumn of 2007. The album features 9 songs written by Yoints in his late teens, part of a huge collection of material that never saw the light of day. The first three songs, "Ashes", "Dark Eyes" and "Sleep" were written when Yoints was 17 years old, "Ashes" still frequently played live by the band. "Every Day" from this album is the first example of Yoints' inclination toward choral music, dating back to 2004, four years before Yoints' formal music training began. The cover of this album features a photo of a dashboard in a dark car, taken by "Slowdance" photographer Daren Stottrup in the fall of 2002.

In August of 2009 Yoints, Hope and Copperman went into Nick Overhauser's studio with a rock n' roll set that Yoints hadn't tried yet and produced Soup Samwich. "Ghazal 46" is an acoustic-soul rendering of a translated text from Hafiz adapted by Yoints. "Pancakes" is a rerecording of a minimal song on "Slowdance." "Calm Yourself" is a spontaneous favorite at live shows, featuring the restrained, soul-tinged verses and changes marred with a guitar freakout at the end of the song. "Pickin up Trash" was recorded on the porch with recyclables where Yoints, Overhauser and Jestice live. "Shows Fled From Me" is a Happy Meal song about being too poor to be part of the local SC scene, which by 2008 had lost most of its underground opportunities, having 'grown up and cut its hair' with the rest of the town.

In 2010 Yoints and Nick Overhauser recorded "Bedtime", a Joints-masterpiece that began in 2006 and has served as the basis for Midnite Snack's music. Various demos have been online since 2006, including "Hi Life" (an early Who-wave rocker, most recently available on a live Midnite Snack rehearsal demo from july 2010) and the original "Cookin" demo, regarded as the trademark "Denney Joint". "Day of All Souls" features "Happy Birthday To You" rearranged into a dark, discordant moan, the text being "Jacoba", a joke-holiday coinciding with a friend's birthday that falls on halloween.

Bedtime was released at The Crêpe Place April 21, 2011, five years to the week from the beginning of the Denney Joints writing period. Opening were Ship Of The Sierras (Overhauser's recent solo project), featuring Yoints on guitar/synth/backup vocals. Rachel Fannan, formerly know as Birds Fled From Me, was the second act. The last song before the encore was "Shows Fled from Me". To cover costs to produce CDs of Bedtime, the Snack started a subscription service to pre-sell the album. For US $8, subscribers get a CD and T-shirt, a $40 value at a corporate rock concert only ten years before.

As of July 2011, two years into a rigorous schedule of snacking, snuggling, and studying, and beering, The Snack have done about 35 shows mostly in and around Santa Cruz, some of the best being at The Catalyst Atrium and The Poet and Patriot with the Hope/Copperman/Elster lineup in 2010, and with the Overhauser/Rosenberg/Jestice lineup at The Crepe Place and Metavinyl Records in 2011. They also got wild at many house shows along the way, which, in their opinion, is or was the main reason to play in Santa Cruz.

Live Shows

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7F2lt-4Nmgw

Upcoming Shows

Past Shows

Releases

• Soup Samwich (2009) Exitos Gnosis Records

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