Jon Salemi stands center stage at the Sphere Nite Club in downtown Buffalo, the house lights on and his two-year old son Evan clinging to his neck. Evan is an adorable kid, but even more so on Saturday night, with his too-small black hoodie bearing the name of his father's band, Snapcase, in red letters and a blonde "fauxhawk." His eyes glazed over, Jon Salemi whispers in his son's ear as Evan studies the room, taking in the scene from the most emotional goodbye show Buffalo has seen in years.
After 15 years of defining and redefining the hardcore genre, Snapcase has played its final show.
***
Two nights earlier, the five members of Snapcase, guitarists Salemi and Frank Vicario, vocalist Daryl Taberski, drummer Ben Lythberg and bassist Dustin Perry, got together in their practice space, the second floor of Vicario's parents West Seneca pet-grooming business, Fins, Fur & Feathers.
"The term 'grooming' is a little misleading," Vicario said. "You can't really groom fish."
Snapcase started practicing here in 1998, using advance money from the record "Designs For Automotion" to build a practice room that most recording studios would envy.
"We had been practicing under Discovery Records in Tonawanda," Vicario said. "It was like a tiny closet and got very cold in the winter. It had these concrete walls that were so depressing. My parents said it would be cool (to move above the shop) as long as we paid for everything."
Lythberg had just left to pick up his best friend Lawrence, who had flown in from Lythberg's native New Zealand for the show. His addition to the room, which was starting to resemble a small show, would make it three continents' worth of onlookers, as Tonawanda native and DVD producer Pumice T, Perry's girlfriend and the band's German roadie, Sammy Estekhari, filed in.
While waiting, the band was reading the cover story about their career that longtime friend Donny Kutzbach had written in the latest Artvoice, an independent Buffalo publication. Taberski, the focus of the article, is having a laugh at the sub-headline.
"I love that it says, 'hardcore unit,'" he says, as Lythberg and Lawrence walk in. "Let's get this unit together."
What follows is probably the loudest, most intense band practice in the history of West Seneca. Snapcase practices at a volume akin to chainsaws battling five-inch thick concrete walls.
Everything about Snapcase screams experience, in particular Salemi's guitar. The maroon Gibson SG is so worn down and abused near the top of the body that the natural wood is beginning to show through.
Taberski sits with his head between his knees, rocking back and forth, mouthing the words to his songs. After a week of four-hour practices that involved him screaming himself hoarse, the band is content to let him sit this one out.
Even without vocals, the practice is as fierce as ever. Lythberg plays the drums with the sort of fervor that implies it is either the most intense music video ever or the last time the band will ever practice. The thing about tonight's practice is that the latter is true. After a quick trip to Louie's Red Hots to end the night, Snapcase concludes their last night of practice.
Ever.
***
Saturday is as good a day as ever to symbolize the band's final moments, which is to say it is a typically horrendous Buffalo winter day. Inches of snow have dropped on the city and its suburbs, causing all sorts of problems.
The six cameramen independently hired to film the show for the DVD have not been heard from, and their only contact is Taberski
