Snax

Sometimes linked to Peaches in presiding over Berlin’s electro-decadent-funk-cabaret-club circuit, Snax—also known as DJ Snax and Paul Bonomo—offers a more soulful, introspective counterpoint to that notorious figure, though his raw edge surfaces at moments, as the John Waters-ish video for the single “No Dancing” makes plain. Like Peaches, Snax is a transplanted North American of young-middle age who actually plays instruments; sexual deviance shapes both oeuvres, yet Snax’s persona leans toward the defiant, bruised neurotic gay male rather than the assured provocateur. His earliest recordings also leaned more organically funky than most early-21st-century dance music, carrying audible traces of Prince, solo George Clinton, and other 1980s funk acts, while incorporating studied references to techno and acid classics born of nearly two decades spent as an underground journeyman fronting, supporting, and collaborating across multiple genres.

Raised in the Washington, D.C. suburbs amid the hardcore era of the 1980s, he first surfaced as frontman of the gay punk outfit Bonomo’s Fagbash, which issued several cassette-only releases. Long beforehand he had absorbed Prince, R&B radio, and the city’s go-go acts such as Trouble Funk and the Junkyard Band. When the local scene faded in the early 1990s, he moved to San Francisco in 1993, reconstituted the band—now simply called Fagbash—and put out one cassette plus one 7-inch before the group disbanded in New York in 1995. Bonomo next worked with performance-art rapper Tara Delong, adopted the DJ Snax moniker, and launched Captain Comatose alongside Turkish/Finnish producer Khan. After touring Europe with Foetus and witnessing its more open climate, he grew increasingly hemmed in by post-9/11 New York culture, prompting his definitive relocation to Berlin in 2002. Not long afterward, Comatose issued the semi-hit “$100,” featuring vocals from both Snax and Khan. His debut solo album, From the Rocking Chair to the Stage, arrived in 2004, led by the single “No Dancing.”

He spent seven months touring Europe behind Rocking Chair in a one-man show that rejected the typical electronica-producer archetype. The opposite of the detached, ironic producer/vocalist Jamie Lidell—on whose Multiply he appears as a guest and with whom he would later tour—Snax held nothing back, dancing, gyrating, shaking a tambourine, delivering synth solos, and flinging shirts and big hair across stages without a hint of smugness or self-consciousness. The follow-up, 2006’s Love Pollution, mirrored this shift toward electronica popstar territory in an era lacking such figures. While the 12-inch “Immer So” could have fit on Rocking Chair, the remainder of the album is melodically richer, elevating vocal and production standards; real instruments appear throughout, with Snax contributing live guitar, bass, and drum performances, and he began traveling with a backing band. Still, it was Konrad Black’s minimalist remix of the second single, “Honeymoon’s Over,” that captured electronica critics and club audiences in 2007, supplying momentum for a tour that reached venues in the U.S., Turkey, and Australia. Growing demand for his DJ services further expanded his work to locales well beyond his European base.

The subsequent release was the compact four-track 2008 EP Trouble. Snax performed nearly every part himself, framing the effort as a return to the electronic funk of his earlier output. Remixes for artists including Peaches and Gus Gus were slated for later that year.