Snooper at Eastside Bowl, 10/3/2025
Everything about Snooper is unlikely. The group started during COVID lockdown as a bedroom creative project for video artist Blair Tramel and her partner Connor Cummins, who’s been in a variety of punk and punk-adjacent bands like Spodee Boy and G.U.N. The duo turned into a band, and their relentless high-pitched pulsating chaos is the kind of music that seems intentionally designed to annoy all but the coolest parents. Tramel’s brilliant video work uses ultra-low fidelity as a tool. Reminiscent of 8-bit video games and Sid and Marty Krofft puppet shows, it bursts through the screen into the live show via an array of homemade costumes and props.
At a time when even the rawest moments in the most commercially successful music feel polished to the extreme, none of Snooper’s DIY ingredients seem like they’d lend themselves to the band building and growing an international fan base. Yet Tramel, Cummins and company tour abroad frequently. In the wake of the aptly titled Worldwide, their second LP on Third Man Records, they’ll be skipping across the pond again for a tour with ultimate rock ’n’ roll showmen The Hives. The Snoop troupe is much loved at home too, and they packed the house at Eastside Bowl for the album release celebration Friday night.
Pressure Heaven at Eastside Bowl, 10/3/2025
One cool thing about the venue: If you show up early for a show, there’s plenty of ways to keep yourself occupied, and it doesn’t have to be bowling or arcade games. A good half-hour before the Snooper show in the main venue space, I plopped down on a bar stool in the vicinity of ESB’s Low Volume Lounge and caught The Lilliston Effect, a local blues-rock band I’d never heard of. They were fantastic and reminded me a lot of Faces.
As showtime neared, my showgoing partner and I strolled into the main venue to catch Pressure Heaven. The last time I saw them, opening for Fotocrime at Drkmttr two years ago, their sound was more minimal, with airy synthesizers and what felt like a lot of cues from ’90s dream pop. In the interim, they’ve made the sound fuller and heavier, playing up the industrial elements as they put together their 2024 debut record Head Start. It made me think back to the big-pants-wearing mall goths of the Y2K era, and a look around the room confirmed that this aesthetic has made a full comeback.
Massie99 at Eastside Bowl, 10/3/2025
Having never seen massie99 before, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I listened to a few tracks from their LP Alpha Beta Omegle, so I knew they’d bring something fun and catchy, with a sweet-and-sour attitude. Their lyrics about clothes, jealousy, crushes and so on might have been lifted from the diary of any 14-year-old, but they present them in a way that makes the stuff that makes us all cringe relatable while offering critical distance — think Pen15. A friend said massie99 reminded him of ’80s Bay Area rap punks Yeastie Girlz, the first time I’ve heard anyone compare a band to the storied Gilman Street feminist trio. M99 came prepared for the high-octane crowd of a Snooper gig, dancing and making jokes, rotating instruments and forming a human pyramid. In the best possible way, they made the set feel like a high school house party.
Poking around the merch table, I noticed Snooper’s Worldwide was being sold on an exclusive Nashville pressing in a Vols-tribute orange and white, continuing their recent run of sports-themed special colored vinyl. (When they joined several other Nashville bands in playing the recent Gonerfest in Memphis, there was a small supply of blue Grizzlies tribute editions, and when they played a record release show in Los Angeles, there were Lakers gold-and-purple pressings on offer.) The album is fantastic warp-speed choppy punk. The mechanical vocal hooks bounce along over analog drum machines and Cummins’ laser-precision guitar riffs, giving the record the kind of retro-futurist feel you’d find on late-night MTV in the Reagan years. For Worldwide, Snooper’s jittery New Wave sound was filled out by bassist Happy Haugen (with Meredith Hanscom playing in his stead on Friday), drummer Brad Barteau and guitarist Conner Sullivan. There’s even a cover of The Beatles’ “Come Together” that feels like a sequel to Devo’s cover of the Stones’ “Satisfaction.” Throughout the night, fans lined up to buy a copy.
Snooper at Eastside Bowl, 10/3/2025
The stage was set up with Tramel’s signature art, including a giant papier-mâché traffic light and two matching enormous speakers, all of which were illuminated with blinking lights. At the back of the stage was the enormous brick-style cellphone that has been a mainstay on the Snooper stage for years. Hanging behind the band was a massive black banner with the cover illustration from Worldwide printed across it. This dedication to making the visual components of their work be just as crucial to the experience as the music is one thing that sets Snooper apart from other art punks on the road today.
Snooper at Eastside Bowl, 10/3/2025
The band took the stage with relentless velocity, barely speaking a word between songs. Their entire show always feels hypercaffeinated, but they’ve found a new gear with their latest material. They hardly seemed to have time to catch a breath, playing most of the new album with a few gems from their debut Super Snooper spliced into the set list. The crowd was enthusiastic, bouncing along as the rapid tempo ratcheted up. Late in the set, the band’s insectoid mascot The Bug made a cameo, barreling through the crowd. There were barricades, and a security guard crawled over one to yank down a crowd surfer, putting those kinds of shenanigans to an end.
In many ways, Snooper’s overstimulating live show is like electro punk for now-grown-ups whose preschool media diet was heavy on Yo Gabba Gabba. The Hives are one of a limited number of bands that can follow a spectacle like this, but if this is a preview of what Snooper will do in Europe, the Swedes would be well-advised to start their warmup stretches. While Snooper has refined and expanded their show considerably, it feels like they’re just getting started exploring full extent of what they can do.
The Spin: Snooper Album Release at Eastside Bowl, 10/3/2025
With Pressure Heaven and massie99
Snooper at Eastside Bowl, 10/3/2025
