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Goddamn, this is a rough one. Drive Like Jehu meant a whole lot to me and Hot Snakes was the last band I saw before the pandemic. When Yank Crime came out in 1994 I was working at a record store. Interscope sent this promo poster with Rick's artwork which I unbelievably still have, it's hanging on my bedroom wall right now.



A little Rick Froberg story, courtesy of my good pal Lana Rebel:

In the late 1990s/early 2000s my friends Lana and Johnny were in a band called Last Of The Juanitas (with guitarist Bryan Giles, now in Red Fang). They started here in Tucson then moved to San Diego where they were befriended by Rick Froberg, who joined the band for a brief time (he's on one of their albums as Rick Fork). Lana says Rick was friendly and super cool but when they went on a short tour, he changed. He clammed up and didn't talk to anyone. He played fine but wouldn't hang out after the shows, he just went back to the van and sat by himself or went to sleep. After the tour, Rick and the band went their separate ways: Rick joined Hot Snakes, the Juanitas moved to Portland and broke up in 2005.

Years later Lana is reading an interview with Rick Froberg and the interviewer mentioned Last Of The Juanitas. Rick said he loved their music and loved playing with them but just prior to their tour he contracted terrible hemorrhoids. He said every night was absolute agony, the worst pain he had ever been in. But he had agreed to the tour and didn't want to let the band down. He was too embarrassed to tell them what was wrong.

Oh yeah, this has been the screensaver on my laptop for years:

Only recently figured out YANK CRIME is an anagram of CREAMY INK (or inky cream), which of course goes with the artwork.

tonyballzee wrote: Mon Jul 10, 2023 7:19 pm
Years later Lana is reading an interview with Rick Froberg and the interviewer mentioned Last Of The Juanitas. Rick said he loved their music and loved playing with them but just prior to their tour he contracted terrible hemorrhoids. He said every night was absolute agony, the worst pain he had ever been in. But he had agreed to the tour and didn't want to let the band down. He was too embarrassed to tell them what was wrong.

Wait a minute, maybe it was never 'Luau! Luau! Luau!'
Maybe it was 'Loo-OW! Loo-OW!'....

One of my favorite Rick related stories (which has been confirmed by multiple friends who were there).

In '94 when Jehu was on their last tour, they played a 21+ show in Bellingham, and had a day off before either Seattle or Vancouver. They were already pretty legendary among the Bellingham hardcore and punk kids, a lot of whom couldn't see them since the show wasn't all ages. After the Jehu set, someone there asked if they'd be down to play a house show the next day since they had a day off. Either Rick or John asked if they had a washer & dryer they could use, they did, so Jehu played a basement the next day (in between doing laundry).

Great NYT article yesterday https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/14/arts ... -dead.html

Line from JR at the end was teary

There's a book of Froberg's art getting published late this year. You can pre-order just the book or get an extra print and zine:

https://www.akashicbooks.com/catalog/plenty-for-all/

https://www.akashicbooks.com/catalog/pl ... -preorder/

Does anyone have an update on if/whether or not the last Hot Snakes recordings will see the light of day?

pb183max wrote: Thu Jun 26, 2025 9:18 am Does anyone have an update on if/whether or not the last Hot Snakes recordings will see the light of day?

From this article:

That unfinished Hot Snakes material will someday see the light. “But it’s hard, man,” Reis admits. “Just hearing my friend’s voice … I know grief is a process. I feel very connected and close to Rick – we still have a dialogue in my head and in my dreams. But sometimes it’s just too real and heavy when I hear his voice singing. I just get really sad whenever we work on it.”

tallchris wrote: Wed Jun 25, 2025 1:04 pm There's a book of Froberg's art getting published late this year. You can pre-order just the book or get an extra print and zine:

https://www.akashicbooks.com/catalog/plenty-for-all/

https://www.akashicbooks.com/catalog/pl ... -preorder/

Got weirdly emotional going through this book last night. A very scant amount of writing, but what's there hits hard. Sohrab's piece was lovely, as was Rick's own 'artist statement' at the start of the book.

Super prolific. Don't know why that was a surprise, but here we are. Just so much work. Little nuggets of things that would show up earlier in his artistic life that would reverberate later on. Something of a feel akin to seeing old tatoo parlors from the 20's and 30's, or at times like Russian prison tats? But a lot more, of course. I don't shit about fuck when it comes to art, but it has HEART. All of it.

Anyway, only met the dude a couple times. He was lit the second time I met him, and the Obits show was weird because of it. But even in that state he shined bright.

Hot Snakes forever and always.