BRB, starting an egg punk band as soon as I can buy all my ideas readymade.
A Case for Hatching: My Eulogy for Egg Punk Explained by Martin Meyer
I like Prison Affair fine, and, yeah, they were really good live. But I started to see them getting hyped in non-punk circles, and that was a bit of a head scratcher. Like why them over the other bands doing roughly the same thing? It’s gotta be their branding, right?
Also, that first Snooper record is good.
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jm You are rad and do more for music in 2025 than most. Just from where I sit egg is not such a threat, but possibly I am wrong. Are the LES far right kids rocking out to egg punk?
There was also a movement called "indie sleaze" ten years earlier than shitgaze: strokes, yeah yeah yeahs, tv on the radio, oneida. Nobody called it that then though. There will be an official statement on this soon.
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whatever ya think of the article or egg punk in general, I just think it's sick that people are talking critically about punk again.. it's interesting to see where everyone's heads are at with this kinda thing, and I think the whole egg/chain spectrum notion, even though born as a joke, has at least gotten people thinking and wanting to expand on ideas around punk which can only be a good thing...
I see what Martin's saying in the article, and I really like the guy and the Dumpers (was lucky enough to get to support them on their last show in st louis!) but ofc i disagree with the notion that bands have to try harder, especially in the realm of DIY and punk... there's just as many instances of bands trying TOO hard and having to release a heavily worked on LP retrospectively after the 5 year DIY band timespan passes haha -- how many great live songs have ya seen ruined by overworking them in the practice room over the years?? or great bands who took way too long to record and then got in a fight and left the recordings on a hard drive somewhere...
with martin's example of RMFC, the early records may be very influenced by egg punk world, sure, but the new LP is also heavily influenced by serious contemporary post-punk. i agree that the LP is put together better, but it also lost a lot of the spark and excitement of the early stuff. both phases of RMFC are interesting in totally different ways imo, and being prescriptive about "working harder" would erase so much thrilling music from being created (RMFC may not have existed if it was being drafted for eternity for example)... a good healthy punk ecosystem needs bits and pieces of everything, and i'm personally pumped to hear some new flash-in-the-pan exciteable kids make music, and i'm pumped to hear this hard-worked, highly constructed project martin's working on whenever it surfaces, sounds sick!
sorry for this essay length response, but it's a pretty interesting topic i reckon... and as someone in my late-30s (i assume similar age to martin), i can see myself falling into the same trap of trying to tell the next gen how to do things. i think there's lessons to pass on about staying within the realms of DIY practice and not falling for music industry tricks, to be autonomous and build a community rather than trying to become the ~ next great artiste of the punk world ~ , but that's besides the point... if the young kids (egg punk or no) are worth their salt, they'll read this and do what we all did at 19, and what all the punks thru history did too: which is to tell the older heads to fuck off and build their own thing their own way, with sounds that they love and appreciate.
(but i do hope bands of the future ditch the one-note high-pitched synth, turn the bass channel up, and write songs about more than just crayons or whatever!)
jm he says interesting things, but you could honestly replace egg punk with any other genre and most of it would still apply. There will always be people in every genre that don’t do anything different and rip-off other bands. To talk about egg punk like this always exaggerates how big of a genre it is. Snooper and Prison Affair are probably the two biggest egg punk bands right now and they’re really not even that big of bands.
I can't remember anyone complaining about the hundreds of bands that started playing 'no-fi trash punk' in the wake of Supercharger, The Rip Offs, Teengenerate, Registrators, The Motards and so on. On the other hand, 90s garage punk was my coming of age-music and I swallowed most of it with a good appetite. If I had been a grumpy 40-something in the 90s, I probably would have dismissed most of the bands of that wave as boring copy cats. But I think a lot of garage punk from the 90s still holds up, although there can be a certain amount of nostalgia involved. In any case, originality and putting a lot of time and thought into writing music was not really the focus, quite the opposite.
PS: I appreciate some bands that play so-called egg punk, but most of them sound pretty stale in my opinion. Full circle I guess.
Saw Snooper live last year and must say they were really good. I'd listened to them a bit beforehand and wasn't particularly impressed, but they were playing on a Monday and as I'd worked all weekend and had a few days off, it was a no-brainer to go. Especially considering they were playing a venue 15 minutes walk from my flat.
Had no idea of their popularity though, turned out to be a sold out gig but managed to get a spot on the guest list via the support band. Mostly late teens and 20-somethings in the audience, plus a handful of the 'usual suspects'. Not a big place, holds about 150 people, but I was expecting maybe 30 - 40 people in the crowd.
Anyway, the kids went nuts when Snooper played and it was nice to see so many young people at a punk gig. Usually the average age at these kind of gigs in my city is close to 40 years old.
Gimmie Sopor That pretty perfectly describes my experience seeing Snooper last year.
I've seen snooper 3 times (superfan?!?), they came through montreal twice and asked simps to play and at goner fest. they are great for whipping up a frenzy, the work involved in bringing all the cool peewee style papier macher props, etc. I think their visual components are more interesting than the music, but what irked people most, myself included, is the athleticism element. It feels like a pseudo christian track meet, and i'm not so into that. I think the puppet theatre influence is cool and if they found a way to pursue that like Quintron and Miss Pussycat, or expand their stage set to psychedelic heights it would be interesting, but being subsumed by music industry will inevitably force them to stream line their act and the music left barren will speak for itself (and it'll say do jumping jacks!)
Kevin E Gimmie Sopor That pretty perfectly describes my experience seeing Snooper last year.
Talked to the venue's band booker after the gig. He was also surprised by the turnout and told me that they had received lots of emails and requests on the Facebook event for extra tickets and spots on the guest list. He was expecting a slow night but took a chance because he likes Snooper. It should be said that this was in the middle of summer, during the holiday season, when many people are out of town. So the conclusion is that Snooper are by no means a major league band, but they are much more popular than most of the acts discussed on the Total Punk Forums.
Gimmie Sopor I'm guilty of it as well, but there's certainly a 'bubble' I find myself in, and I have no idea what 18-25 year olds are legitimately into - as it should be haha
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I finally got around to listening to Evinspragg (the band that prompted Martin’s eulogy), and it just sounds like a Lumpy records band trying their hand at a Straw Man Army record. Maybe the rest of the record will be mind blowing, but—I dunno—seems like none of this was all that warranted. To echo @Uptown ruler 666 420 I just find the whole thing embarrassing (including the fact that, I, a man in his 40s, feel the need to weigh in on this shit).
sixbigboys I was joking on a discord yesterday that it's refreshing to have a punk drama that doesn't involve abuse (morbid)
sixbigboys I just find the whole thing embarrassing (including the fact that, I, a man in his 40s, feel the need to weigh in on this shit).
I'm 40+ too, but I appreciate input on this hot topic from fellow nerds who weren't born yesterday. It would be great to hear what youngsters deeply involved in egg punk/devo-core or whatever you want to label it have to say, but I think and hope they'll dismiss us as a bunch of pathetic old farts if they see this thread. And so it should be!
Mama Goblin where art thou?
sixbigboys I finally got around to listening to Evinspragg (the band that prompted Martin’s eulogy), and it just sounds like a Lumpy records band trying their hand at a Straw Man Army record
yeah its funny because in his attempt to distance this record from eggpunk, a sentiment I get, it seems like this band and their music has taken a backseat and now they are the posterchild for the to egg or not to egg conversation.
I think the only way for this to be resolved is for Marty and the European fellow who performs in the giant egg costume to have a televised debate.
connie v each of mine i spend i dunno lets say 10 to 15 years.....
SAME. Like, literally.
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Randall Oh god, you’re talking about this German band Egg Idiot. Was unlucky enough to see them last year and I don’t really have the words right now. « Pathetic » comes to mind, though. It felt like someone hard forced a bunch of very depressed looking German adults to read the « egg punk » guidebook and to start the most « egg punk » band ever or something. Why, but why?
Randall Would probably want to see that debate, though. Just once. Before burning it to the ground.
YES! Egg Idiot.
YOLK FOR THE FOLKS!
CNN TOWN HALL
Egg Idiot VS the Lump Grump
moderated by weird punk elder statesman Mr. Blank Dog
lol, I actually did the Bandcamp write-up for that Egg Idiot record as a favor to that label. I didn’t love it, but the music honestly isn’t the worst. The shtick on the other hand 
Egg killed punk
[
Where the fuck do the Mcrackins fit into this mess? 
Chad Collins Where the fuck do the Mcrackins fit into this mess?
Or Protes Bengt. They got plenty of songs about eggs
Äggkopp (Egg Cup)
The rest are not available as seperate tracks on Youtbe but they got tracks like Ett Sex-Pack Ägg (A Sixpack Egg), Slicka Mina Ägg (Lick My Eggs), Manglar Som Ägg (Mangles Like Eggs) and the aptly titled Eggs (Ägg)
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Pile of Eggs and The Mad are the only good egg bands
Edith Massey was the original egg punk in Pink Flamingos and with Edie & The Eggs
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Do we finally have the answer to the age old question of which came first?
Is this proto-eggpunk
Psycho Chicken
God, I'm so invested in this thread. Geza X could be considered ground zero if DEVO is out of the equation.
The glory days when eggs were cheap and disposable
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I think this article is kind of interesting if you read it as a psychological portrait. The main thing driving it seems to be the author's insecurity about his image and fear that his current musical project doesn't speak for itself or live up to the lofty ideals he's putting forward. (It does sort of gesture in the direction of maturity, but since it's a pretty shallow indistinct take on TV Personalities etc., it really depends on the listener appreciating that he's doing something more adult than what they might associate him with, put-on aesthetic naivete and all.) "I listen to the Red Krayola now" seems interchangeable with "I don't watch baby stuff like Power Rangers anymore." I also like that it starts with him scolding Snooper, "who should know better," and then ends with, "My friend from Snooper said something really profound, which is that things are real real bad nowadays and art has the responsibility to be important."
I like the internet again
if most of the self branded "egg punk" bands tried to flesh out there songs more they'd probably be even worse