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I have no idea what Sno-Core is or was. It could be that Sno-Core was a precursor to Ottawa’s winter festival Winterlude, but I doubt they could go from a name as dumb as Sno-Core (what, you can’t shell out the money for a lower-case “w”?) to one as clever (if cutesy) as Winterlude.
Now that I look closer I see that Sno-Core was a tour of some sort presented by Swatch, but I don’t remember this being a multi-band travelling package tour or anything. As far as I’m concerned (or can recall) March 4th, 1998 at the Ottawa Congress Centre was an evening with Primus; no opening bands, no secondary stages, no Swatch (or otherwise) booths handing out free swag, just the wacky awesomeness of Les Claypool and the two other guys in the band whose names are known only to the most hardcore Primus fans (and the internet).
I was in a pretty wacky band at the time myself – a genre-blending quartet called Bob Loblaw – and our very excellent drummer Mike is the guy who got me into Primus. He left a copy of Primus’ Pork Soda at my place and I almost wore it out. Sometimes a single song will jump out at me and take hold; I’ll get enthralled and listen to the track over and over again. My Name Is Mud (the de facto opening track of Pork Soda) was such a song. From the first time I heard it the song stuck to my musicbone like a wet tongue on an ice-cold swing set. I bet I replayed that track a hundred times.
I don’t have a whole lot of crisp memories from this show but I do know I really enjoyed it. The band is just so downright unique (just listen to the theme song from South Park, I mean…wow) and chock full of Zappa-esque surprises it was impossible for them to lose my attention. Strange that it went down in a carpeted conference hall but I suppose it just made the experience that much more surreal.
But Sno-Core Tour? I have no clue.
Todd Man Out 