The Truth Is Out There
Welcome to 'The Snider Files'
By Daryl Sanders
You’re probably wondering WTF are The Snider Files? Think X Files, but instead of aliens and FBI agents, there’s an iconic stoner hippie folk singer and a music journalist who has covered his career for nearly two decades.
I first met Todd Snider in late spring 2006 just a couple months before the release of The Devil You Know. I was supervising a photo shoot for a magazine at his house in the Little Hollywood area of East Nashville. After the shoot, Snider invited the photographer and me to stick around and have a beer with him at his covered rooftop bar. The photographer couldn’t stay, but I did. As we drank beer and talked, we discovered we had some common interests, especially an interest in the history of popular music.
As our rapport grew over the next few years, Snider began to let me peek behind the curtain so to speak, inviting me to rehearsals, giving me backstage passes to shows, sharing rough mixes of new recordings with me, and even at times inviting me to recording sessions.
I’ll never forget when he stopped by the house in the fall of 2007 and gave me a CDR of “Juice,” which finally was released this year on Crank It, We’re Doomed. It was fucking brilliant — the funky, strutting, distorted guitar riff, the Ringo-esque drum groove and the East Nashville references and insider jokes KOed me. I put it on repeat and listened to it for hours.
Speaking of Crank It, We’re Doomed, although Snider talked with me about that record for a decade and a half, I was never able to hear it until earlier this year because the stereo master had been lost. But I have heard two other albums that Snider shelved — Take the Blind Lemon Pledge and Stick It to the Man and The Ghost of Johnny Cash. Blind Lemon Pledge and Stick It to the Man is a brilliant, yet flawed work that includes the original recordings of much of the material on the Hard Working Americans album Rest In Chaos. The Ghost of Johnny Cash was to be HWA’s follow-up to Rest In Chaos, but was not released due to creative differences within the band. Snider re-recorded many of the songs on that album for The Cash Cabin Sessions, Vol. 3.
Over the last decade, Snider has enlisted me to write a number of bios for his record releases, as well as the liner notes for three albums — HWA’s live double album We’re All In This Together, The Cash Cabin Sessions, Vol. 3 and Crank It, We’re Doomed. I also have written multiple pieces about him for The East Nashvillian and the Nashville Scene. At the end of 2019, Snider and I began work on a musical biography that would tell the incredibly fascinating story of his career, but that project was derailed by the pandemic. As a result of all of the above, I’m sitting on hundreds of hours of unpublished interviews with not only Snider, but also many of the other key figures in his story that spans more than three decades. We inevitably will revive that book project at some point, but in the meantime, I’ll be drawing on those unpublished interviews for pieces that will be published in The Snider Files.
The Snider Files will publish from mid-December 2023 through December 2024, so it’s a limited, one-time opportunity to take a deep dive into Snider’s career.
Here are some of the stories you can look forward to in The Snider Files:
• A three-part series about the early days of Snider’s time in San Marcos, Texas, with details about the first original song Snider performed live “Bus Tub Stew,” Kent Finlay’s mentorship and Snider’s residency at Cheatham Street Warehouse, his incarceration in the Hays County jail for refusing to pay a fine for violating the state’s seat belt law, and the live album he recorded that has never been released.
• A three-part series about “The Memphis Years,” with details about his residency at The Daily Planet, his first unsuccessful recording contract with Liberty Records, meeting John Prine for the first time, and his deal with Jimmy Buffett’s Margaritaville Records.
• The never-before-told story of why at a showcase for Viva Satellite in L.A. in 1998 Snider told a roomful of MCA execs to fuck off.
• “The Ballad of Elmo Buzz,” Snider’s arch enemy/alter ego.
• A two-part series “The Life and Death of Blind Lemon Pledge.”
• The story of how Sir Tom Jones came to cover “Talking Reality Television Blues.”
The Snider Files also will feature the following recurring “files”:
• “On This Day In Stoner Yodel History” will revisit pivotal moments in Snider’s life and career, such his first “open mike” night at The Daily Planet in Memphis, the first time he met his hero Jerry Jeff Walker, his network television appearances, and his introduction into the Oregon Music Hall of Fame.
• Featured photographs from throughout Snider’s life and career, the majority of which have never been published. This will include photographs from photo shoots and live performances shot by Stacie Huckeba and other longtime Snider chroniclers, as well as more personal photos taken by Snider’s friends and family. In many instances, subscribers to The Snider Files will have the opportunity to purchase framed copies of these photos.
• The Snider Files also will present previously unpublished poetry and prose written by Snider. These will include “The Rules for Bored Game USA,” Snider's 11-part poetic dissertation that will provide further insight into the Blind Lemon Pledge and some of the more esoteric references in his songs.
There also will be an interactive element to The Snider Files. Subscribers will be able to comment on the stories, as well as submit requests for topics they would like to see explored. They also will be able to participate in discussion threads on topics related to Snider’s career.
So welcome to The Snider Files, your backstage pass to the life, the times and the music of one of America’s greatest songwriters, Todd Snider. I hope you enjoy your subscription.
© 2023 Daryl Sanders
Thanks to you all. Let me know if you have any specific story ideas you would like to see "The Snider Files" pursue.
Thanks for letting us in. This is going to be fun.