Todd Snider
The Excitement Plan’s laid- back groove and top- shelf lyrics are being called Snider's best work yet. "This music is sorta JJ Cale meets Jerry Jeff Walker sounding with words that would hopefully impress Shel Silverstein, Bobby Bare, Chuck Berry, Kris Kristofferson or Randy Newman,” Snider said. With his contributions of stellar guitar, piano and harmonica, his musicianship shares the spotlight as easily as his treasured lyrics.
Snider is a vociferous musician whose fans know him to be quite the workhorse. His acclaimed 2006 release, The Devil You Know found the barefoot troubadour performing live on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and Late Night with David Letterman and the CD appeared on numerous year-end Top 10 lists including Spin, Blender and Rolling Stone. More recently, last year’s Peace Queer EP--a concept record featuring all the peace, love and anarchy Snider is known for--inspired Blender to say he “morphed from a wisecracking country-ish journeyman to the sharpest and funniest protest singer working today." The EP spent five weeks at number one on the Americana chart and Spin Magazine dubbed him, "One of roots music's slyest, smartest songwriters."
In addition to the new album release, this year also finds Snider doing what he does best: playing live. With a 30-date West Coast tour already under his belt in early 2009, he will spend the spring and summer criss-crossing the Midwest and East Coast with notable festival stops at Bonnaroo (6.14)--where he will be joined by Don Was--Allgood (7.10) as well as at 10,000 Lakes (7.25) with more to be announced.