Todd Snider returns to Lake Tahoe on Saturday. It’s a place he’s well-known and he’s been coming for a long time.
“It’s been too long,” the singer-songwriter said. “I’ve always liked that area — Reno/Tahoe. I always have fun when I play there.”
He performs at Montbleau Resort Casino & Spa at 8 p.m. on Saturday in Stateline.
The area is such a memorable place for Snider that he has a song relating to an incident while driving from Lake Tahoe to Reno. The song “45 Miles” on the album “The Storyteller” tells what happened. Snider describes taking the trip and hitting a patch of ice in a rental car.
“We were coming over that Donner Pass, and it was snowing, and we hit the brakes. We went into the other lane and crashed,” he said.
NEW ALBUM
Snider kept busy during the pandemic and released “First Agnostic Church of Hope and Wonder." It’s sort of a funk album he said.
“I’m the whole band on the record. That’s what I really want to do,” Snider said. “I wanted to be Prince, but not as good, but still be able to play everything.”
Snider said when he first got into music there were two types of troubadours. He said there were those who sold stickers and T-shirts and those who got better at playing music. He wanted to be the latter.
“Now 30 years later I can play all the instruments pretty good,” he said.
His friend Dave Schools (Widespread Panic, Hard Working Americans) told him he played guitar like a bass player, so Snider took that into consideration when making the album.
He said he didn’t have a bass guitar and while in Florida he saw a kid selling an acoustic bass. Snider bought the guitar on the spot and wrote all the songs from the album with that guitar. And then played the rest of the instruments to complete it.
He said some of the songs from the album will make it into rotation during his tour. They’ll also be working on another recording this tour as songs from these shows will be picked out for a live album. Some of the songs on Saturday could be on that album.
HIS SHOW
Snider’s shows are solo, with him playing guitar and telling stories along the way. He compares his show to Arlo Guthrie.
“If you like that song ‘Alice’s Restaurant,’ then you’d probably like my gig,” he said.
He says his music is folk music for hippies with a lot of storytelling, which is his favorite part. Heroes of his are storytellers like Mark Twain, who sought out adventure and reported back. He says he does the same thing.
“I got out and live a song and try to write about it when I get home,” he said.
He said he’s recorded probably 250 songs, but he’s probably made up 800-1,000. He doesn’t mind having as many songs but it makes it harder to figure out which ones to play.
“I just made up lots of songs — way more than I sing,” he said.
He hasn’t been writing as much music lately, but the pandemic break has him thinking with more ambition.
“The period helped me to relax on myself a little bit,” he said. “I started taking the alphabet too seriously.”
He makes a habit of playing guitar every morning. He said he wakes up and drinks a coffee and smokes some weed and sees if anything comes out.
“I check the heart and see if there’s anything in it,” he said. “It’s what I would consider yoga. It helps with my meditation.”
IF YOU GO
WHAT: Todd Snider
WHERE: Montbleau Resort Casino & Spa, Stateline
WHEN: Saturday, Oct. 23. 8 p.m.
MORE INFO, TICKETS: Find more info about Todd Snider and tickets to the show online at: https://toddsnider.net
