Artist description Brooklyn-based group spacepup, writing off-world pop rock songs since 1997...

Music Style Pop Rock, Indie

Artist History Peter and I have been playing together for about 12 years. For the first 6 or so, we weren't allowed to write songs and certainly weren't ever allowed to sing. We were the dutiful rhythm section of a great modern rock band called When I Woke. Unfortunately, no one had told us that modern rock was dead and soon we would all be in flannel, drinking lots of coffee and listening to grunge. We played hundreds of gigs up and down the East coast and got really good at both playing and avoiding caffeine-induced obstacles on the road. After a while, we had built up a core following who we promptly alienated by changing our style almost overnight from danceable modern rock to stand-and-brood grunge and moving to Washington, DC. There may have also been some growing of hair, a scary van and questionable grooming. But alas, despite the donning of flannel and the purchase of Marshall amplifiers, we were not a good grunge band and that made us fight, and not in a good sideshow kind of way. So Peter and I stole the rest of the rhythm section (ok, just Ben) and formed Wepplo Snow Pup. The Snow Pups played around DC and NYC for a while until we got a mean letter from the attorney representing a Mr. Mike Wepplo. Apparently he didn't like the free advertisement our very popular alt-pop band was lending to his line of endangered-species-inspired dishware. (Ok, so we named our band after a Franklin Mint plate featuring a wildlife scene by the artist Mike Wepplo. We had seen it in Parade magazine and thought it was funny and it was a much better name than the runner-up: The Napkinos) Anyway… it was too bad because the Pups were finally getting some credibility with our 'California' EP playing on college radio and several singles featured on local labels like DCide and Deep Reverb Records. Sadder news still for the Pups when Peter took a hiatus to get a degree in natural medicine from Bastyr University. While at school, Peter kept his chops up by recording the POP album for Electro Kitty. He also fully embraced flannel, forsook his umbrella and learned the important lesson that Dunkin Donuts coffee, while certainly convenient, has more in common chemically with water than it does with good coffee. But through it all, using digital technology, the fine postal service of these United States and a bunch of questionable connectors from Radio Shack, the Pups were able to continue recording their very own album. In order to escape possible litigation, the Snow Pups had to dump the Wepplo part, and while we were at it, decided to switch from snow to space. After all, many of the songs seem to indicate a yearning to travel beyond this world and into the stars, while hardly any of them seem to be about snow. So this year we're finally releasing our first album. It's a collection of a few old snow pup songs we didn't get to finish and some new stuff. After that we're going to follow it up almost immediately with another CD of all new stuff and then we're thinking of hitting the road, this time with meticulous grooming, sans flannel and in a safer, more environmentally friendly conveyance. And we're definitely switching to decaf… or possibly some sort of herbal tea with anti-oxidants.

Group Members Bill VanWart - bass, guitars, vocals Peter Bongiorno - drums, vocals

Instruments drums, bass, guitar

Albums spacepup

Location Brooklyn, New York - USA

Copyright notice. All material on MP3.com is protected by copyright law and by international treaties. You may download this material and make reasonable number of copies of this material only for your own personal use. You may not otherwise reproduce, distribute, publicly perform, publicly display, or create derivative works of this material, unless authorized by the appropriate copyright owner(s).