Bob Schneider

One Liner:  An Austin institution still churning out great lyrics and well-crafted little pop rock songs

Wikipedia Genre:  pop, rock, folk, country

Home: Austin!

Poster Position: 17
Weekend Two Only.
Saturday at 2:05.

Tito's Tent.

Thoughts:  Actually really interesting to me that he is this low on the poster.  I know he isn't selling out stadiums or anything, but from an Austinite's perspective he is a big name to me.

This may be an incorrect recollection, but I feel like the Ugly Americans played my prom.  He was also the frontman of the Scabs back in the day.  But for the last 20+ years, he has just been Bob Schneider, making excellent soft rock folky tunes with clever lyrics.  He has won all of the awards in Austin - Best Album, Best Songwriter, Best Musician, Best Male Vocals, etc.  And the funny thing is now that I look at his catalog, I know several of these songs, but it was only Lovely Creatures from 2009 that I ever owned and really dug in to.  But it is cool listening along and realizing that I know songs from the 1999 album and the 2004 album without really knowing that I knew songs from those eras.  I am going to end up spending days listening to this discography.

If you look for information on the guy, he is pretty frequently discussed as the musical patron saint of Austin.  Some people will say (not named Willie) or something like that, but he gets a lot of respect for being the Austinite's musician.  Part of that comes from playing all the time - he still holds the Monday night residency at the Saxon Pub - and part of it comes from being ingrained in the local action.  I mentioned it above, but he has 55 Austin Music Awards, ranging from 1992 through 2016.  He's here.  

Originally from Michigan, but mainly raised in El Paso.  His father was an opera singer/ musician who took the family to Munich for additional training, but his son had a withering recollection: "his parents "had this big plan, but my dad just didn’t have the voice"."  Ouch.  He was at UT El Paso and playing in some bands, before he dropped out to go for it.  His first major band was Joe Rockhead, and then next it was the Ugly Americans.  They got big enough to open for Dave Matthews Band and sign with a label.  Later, Schneider co-founded the Scabs - if you never heard them know that they a funk band who were kinda nasty.

Strange factoid I did not know - he dated Sandra Bullock from 1999 - 2001, and although that didn't work out in the end, his songs have appeared in many of her movies.  Wikipedia mentions Gun Shy, Miss Congeniality, Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, and All About Steve, for Bullock flicks, and then several other soundtracks where he nabbed a spot.

He is insanely prolific - not just albums, but for a while (and maybe still currently) he had a songwriting e-mail game group who would challenge each other to write a song per week.  He talks shit about how some members (Jack Ingram for one) couldn't hack the commitment and got kicked out of the group.  But he also releases extra singles with a lot of regularity, records and archives every live show, and publishes piles of demos.  He also has a bunch of books, according to Wikipedia.  Dude is busy.

His first album is very folky - 1999's Songs Sung and Played on Guitar at the Same Time.  The version of "Big Blue Sea" on there is definitely more raw and DIY sounding - this whole album is a singer-songwriter, guy-and-his-guitar thing.  Like, covering "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" type old school guy-and-his-guitar thing.  His next disc really cemented him in the world, with 2001's Lonelyland boasting multiple hits that still get played on Austin radio.  "Metal and Steel" and "The World Exploded into Love" for sure, "Bullets" and "Round and Round" to some extent, but it is "Big Blue Sea" that is the most popular still.  1.1 million streams.

Great tune, and definitely better with all of the organ and other additions over the original version.  2002's The Galaxy Kings is not as good, IMO.  It is fine, but nothing on there stands out so clearly as the songs on Lonelyland.  And some are downright strange as hell - "Blood" - for example.  Not many streams on those songs either, so I'm not alone in my estimation.  2003's I Have Seen the End of the World and It Looks Like This is also weird.  What the heck is "Moneyonion" like a terrible rap track?  What are we doing here.  "Dolphins" is an autotuned mess.  Not many streams here either.  This one can be left behind.

2004's I'm Good Now is the next top tier disc with several enduring songs on there.  Also, I had never known what Andy Langer's Twitter avatar was before pulling this one up.  Learn something new every day!  "Come With Me Tonight" is a great one, and "A Long Way to Get" is also good.  "Cap'n Kirk" is one of those that sounds familiar even though I'm not sure why.  The title track is the top one though, with just over a million streams.

Sort of an odd one.  Less lush than a lot of his best stuff on here, and more of a rockabilly loose freakout.  Next album is 2006's The Californian.  None of these songs feel familiar, but "Mudhouse" boasts 2.2 million streams which is a lot for this fella.

Funkaaaaaaaay.  Unexpected to take that detour into the land of the funky time.  Goofy ass lyrics though.  This whole album feels like a detour - I'm trying to think what else was hip in 2006 that would have informed the sound here.  A little harder edged on the rock songs, a little hip hop influenced on others, it just doesn't really fit with the rest of his stuff to me (I mean, its not as weird as the 2003 album, but definitely a different vibe here).  2008's When the Sun Breaks Down on the Moon is pretty forgettable and no one has been streaming it.  2009's Love Is Everywhere is similar.  

2009's Lovely Creatures is where he nails it.  John Mayer vibes.  The hit from that one is still a lovely love song with an impeccable chorus.  “40 Dogs (Like Romeo and Juliet)”  Full of a million little nuggets as the lyrics spill out of him, like "you're the color of an undercover cop in a comic book," but I love the line "turn a close shave in to a woohoo!"  Second biggest streamer at 4.6 million.

Oh, I love the old Austin scenery in that one.  Back when dogs could swim in Town Lake and not die.  Not sure what the "40 Dogs" part of that is about - someone on a lyrics interpretation website says 40 dogs is a 40 ounce beer and this is about a 40 ounce going well with cigarettes?  Whatever.  Lovely tune.  Very good album.  "Tarantula" is another hit on here, and one that he frequently plays at his live shows - Tropicalia vibes.

2011's A Perfect Day has a few recognizable tunes on it as well that must get radio play, as well as his top streamer overall, "Peaches."  5.3 million streams.

Another nice little love song to go with "40 Dogs" and again with the kind of listing things to explain his love.  Nice enough, I sort of wish it would actually kick in instead of just sticking with that super basic bit.

2013's Burden of Proof opens with a song called "Digging for Icicles," which has a must darker hue to it than most of Schneider's other tunes.  Sounds like that Leonard Cohen song "First We Take Manhattan."  That track was on the Natural Born Killers soundtrack and has always stuck in my brain.  Not the whole album, but the general vibe of the album is depressing.  There is a cover of the Annie song "Tomorrow" that is pretty bleak sounding to close it out.  You can hear lyrics in here like "my heart is broken beyond repair" and whatnot, so maybe this was the breakup album.  

2017's King Kong got more streaming attention than most of his albums.  Not sure why.  Relatively forgettable after a few streams.  "Ready Let's Roll" kind of makes me think he was trying to make a cool Ed Sheeran track.  "Han Solo" sounds pretty classic for him - cleverly weird lyrics and a pretty tune.  I read an interview where he talked about writing "Into the Sun" and how excited he was to have written "the song," but it appears to have missed the mark as it is in the bottom five of stream count for this disc (and I don't love it either).  "Montgomery" is really nice.

2018's Blood and Bones was apparently gifted to Patreon backers prior to being released to the public.  Sounds like all of his recent albums went a similar route.  That is an interesting thing.  It is, like the predecessor, fine.  I'm not saying that as a negative - it really sounds nice and has a good groove to it.  I'm just saying that I didn't hear anything standing out from the crowd and demanding attention.  And the stream count agrees with me.  Same for 2021's In a Roomful of Blood with a Sleeping Tiger and 2024's The Human Torch.  That last one appears to have been released one by one via singles and then packed together for an album.  None of those really land, but I will fully admit that I laughed out loud during "Wasting Time" when he sings about the house crushing the witch in Wizard of Oz and how people just started singing a little song anyway.

He does have a random "In Appreciation of Austin Fc" [sic] release from 2023 that has a really bad pump-up song for the local MLS team.  I'm sure he was hoping it would catch on with the team and become the anthem, but it is so generic and lame.  8k streams, so no one fell in love with it.  Oh, and another, called For Austin F.C., and no one listens to these crappy songs either.  SO MANY SINGLES in 2023 and 2024.  SO MANY.  Looks like his songwriting game is still going strong.

After writing all of the above, I managed to talk my wife into a Saturday night show to see him play at Antone's, which was a classic Austin kind of night.  We went to the new East side bar Busty's beforehand - freaking rad vibe, good prices, sketchy neighborhood - I loved it.  Then met up with some friends at a hotel bar across the street from Antone's and went to the show.  The opener was a super cool blues guitar guy which was fun, and then Schneider was exactly what you expect.  Kinda sloppy, overly loud, making that little room burst at the seams.  My wife was ready to go almost immediately, but I got her to hang on for a good hour of the show and it was a lot of fun.

But yeah, I'd definitely go see this versus some of the other goofy stuff in the small type down here.