I’ve admired Todd Snider’s work dating back to his debut album, though a recent trio of albums -- East Nashville Skyline, The Devil You Know and The Excitement Plan -- are the great payoff for sticking with him. He’s one of our great songwriters, a guy equally at home with sad and funny material, and capable of creating characters or turns of phrase that require the repeat button on the stereo.

photo by Mark Mainz/Getty Images

We chatted about his latest album, The Excitement Plan, but in preparing to talk to him, I pulled out the older records. Out of 1998’s Viva Satellite slipped a notecard survey that was intended to gather information about Snider enthusiasts way back when. This was back when he was on major label MCA, so it’s a time and place long ago. I asked if he’d mind answering the questions on the card, and he was game.

The questionaire

“That was a weird time, a pretty turbulent time in my life,” he says. “And that was a strange record. There was a studio booked but I’ve never been an ambitious person. I was always like, ‘I guess we could go to the studio, but let’s go talk to some girls or something.’ I just didn’t give a shit. Making an album? I’d already made two.”

So as he tells it, he made a record, showed up at a few shows where he refused to play artist-on-the-rise for industry types and was promptly dropped. “I didn’t mind getting fired,” he says. “I remember before one show I was in the dressing room with 25 people I didn’t know. I thought, ‘This isn’t why I picked up the guitar, so I can stand in a room with 25 fucking people I don’t know talking about what they like or some jive ass thing.”

So we’ll leave out the bits on the questionnaire about his address and his phone and email, and gender is pretty clear.

The first two...

A. Date of purchase

29-95: I guess we can just put the release date, which was April 7, 1998.

B. What are your three favorite songs on this release?

Can’t Complain, Doublewide Blues and Godsend, the ones with the better lyrics. I wish I’d worked on the lyrics for the other songs as much as those three.

Two more . . .

C. Where did you buy this release?: Record store, electronics store, department store or other?

Ah, back in the day when people left the house to get music. Well, I was given a case of free ones, so I guess this doesn’t apply. Today I’m on the iTunes thing. It took me years, but somebody sat me down and said, “Watch this . . .” and now I have 5,000 songs. To me it’s like I get to use my own house as a bar. I like to drink at home on the porch and now there’s a computer instead of a jukebox. And instead of a quarter for one song, I pay 99 cents and keep it forever. I love the idea of how it allows you to remember and find old songs. Remember that song, “oh black water, keep on rollin’?” I’d never buy that album but I’d damn sure pay a dollar for that song. It’s a monster track. I also like to get on Pandora. “Everybody get on the floor and do your thing,” that song by the 103 Watts band (note: the Watts 103rd St. Rhythm band) that’s my new favorite song.

D. What influenced you to buy this release? Radio, friend, music video, in-store play, live performance, Web site, advertisement, read article, store display, TV show, other?

God love ‘em none of them worked. We did do TV, and we did a pretty good tour for that record. The tour I thought was better than the record. Man, you make a record and some people are not gonna like it. It kinda hurts to pick up the paper and read that it wasn’t any good. But I guess you have to get thicker skin. It’s like Dylan, put on the sunglasses and bite your upper lip. I felt like it might’ve been the year I learned that lesson. Some buddies of mine just made their first movie. They asked me what to do when they pick up a magazine and somebody calls them idiots. They asked, “Do we call the writer? Cry? Is this the part where we start shooting heroin?”

29-95: You’re really not supposed to read your reviews.

I never believe people who say they do that. When I was younger I didn’t think about it that much, but it’s evolved. People my age usually don’t give a shit anymore, I mean, I’m an old man. So I don’t really read much of it, but then your friends fucking bring it to you. Especially if it’s bad. They drive right over with it: “You see this?!? Ha ha!” You get used to it. It’s like, “How’s the water?” Fucking freezing, come on in.

And two more . . .

E. List 3 artists whose albums you’ve recently purchased.

Let’s say it’s 1994 when the first record came out. Monster by R.E.M., which loved, Ragged Glory by Neil Young, which I also loved. And I also bought my first Faces record, A Nod Is as Good as a Wink . . . Those three I remember well. When that record was done and waiting to come out I was already getting into Planet Waves. I buy all of Dylan’s records. I know there’s a time Self-Portrait will work for me. The day will come.

29-95: You got me hooked on New Morning a few years back

That makes me happy to hear. He’s my favorite American. I love everything about him. Everybody says he sounds so sad, but I don’t think so. I think it sounds like he’s not in denial about what’s going on. We’re sick. “He not busy being born is busy dying.” I don’t understand how a soccer tournament is going to change that. I still love him and the Stones. They’re the oldest guys doing what the rest of us are trying to do. I’d never compare what I do to what they do. We all make discs, but people get them on a different scale. They play stadiums, I play bowling alleys.

F. How much music have you bought in the last 6 months? CDs? Cassettes?

29-95: I’m guessing you can ignore the cassettes part. And maybe the CDs too.

Yeah, just songs, man. Wait, that’s not true, I bought some old fucking album that I already had. Exile in Guyville, which . . . I really liked that record. But mostly I get songs. I like to download songs from the early ‘60s, those nuggets. I don’t listen to as much folk music as I did when I was young. I like songs with titles like Hanky Panky and Louie Louie. If it’s got four syllables and two words, I’m in.

Five more . . .

G: What three magazines to you read regularly

Oh wow. I used to read all the music ones like crazy until recently. Now it’s more like history books that I’m into lately. I’m sure I’ll start reading the music magazines again. I’ve been touring hard this year. For some reason when I’m totally surrounded by interviews and radio and travel, I don’t want to hear about it. When I get home, I’m definitely going to be more interested in reading what the guys in Metallica think about touring.

H: What are your three favorite bands/artists?

Stones, Dylan, and the Dead. Maybe not in that order. There’s a lot of music there. Those are my three favorite bands anyway. Artists . . . I’d say my wife, and Andy Kaufman and Hunter Thompson.

I: How many hours do you spend online per week?

29-95: You can also check a box that says “No computer.”

In that time I’d have had to say no computer. I didn’t get one until 2005. Now about a half hour every day. I get up and I really like getting email. I don’t like being on the phone, it’s hard to say “no” on the phone. It’s easy to type it. They don’t get to say, “Oh, come on . . .”

J: List the call letters of your two favorite radio stations.

Oh KPIG in Santa Cruz. That’d be No. 1 and No. 2. Or if had to go with another it’d be Sirius Outlaw. But it’s KPIG by a mile. There was a woman, Laura Hopper, she passed away a few years ago, but through that station they built such an idyllic community. The radio galvanized those people. It’s like a fucking family. Laura let the DJs be whatever kind of character they wanted. I think it’s the most popular station of its kind. You walk around town, everybody has KPIG shirts. I like to listen to it at home when they talk about the tides. It makes me feel like I’m near the water.

K: Do you watch any of the following regularly? MTV, VH1, BET, the Box?

I don’t really do music TV anymore. There’s no point anymore, they don’t even have music on most of those channels. And I can go on YouTube and watch Keith RIchards swing his guitar at some kid running across the stage. The day I figured out what YouTube was, I knew I was never gonna stop. I spent two straight days just watching videos of Axl Rose telling crowds to fuck off. Just go and type “Axl Rose melts down.” It’s almost like a scripted part of their shows, like he’d written it into the program. There are also good clips of him explaining why Nirvana was no good. He wanted to believe that so bad.

Lonely L

L: What is your favorite . . .

Club: Oooh let’s see, I know I gotta have an answer. It’s probably gonna have to be outside, we like to play outside. Overton Park Shell in Memphis, I did that before I had an album and again last year. There’s a nice little amphitheater called Hawkins Memorial in Reno. I also like to play lots of towns that have zoo concerts. Those are fun, you do a soundcheck, look at some animals and then go sing.

Sport: Um, baseball. Mostly because it’s the least jockey of all the sports. I don’t like games where a big bunch of guys huddle in a circle and go “Hey hey hey!” I don’t want to know what they’re going to do after that. My coaches always wanted to make us angry. I’m not gonna do that. I’m not gonna chant and run into a person as hard as I can. My dad wanted me to be a football player, which made me hate it extra. I never understood why anybody’d put on that outfit. I’m so excited baseball starts in a month. The Kansas City Royals made me an honorary member of the team. I’d said in the paper that they were my favorite team. I said I like their games because nobody else goes to them and I can sit by myself. So they bought me a jersey and said, “Thanks for saying nice things.” I was like, OK!

TV show: Oh Family Guy. Gotta watch it three times a day.

Web site: YouTube, yeah, it’s gotta be YouTube.

Hobby: Um, let’s see. Um…. (Asks his road manager) Do I have a hobby, man? No. I don’t have one. I’m thinking about getting one.

29-95: I assume you don’t want me to check the box that says, “Check here if you would prefer NOT to have your information passed on to companies whose products and services may be of interest to you.”

Shit, I didn’t know that I contributed to people being bothered like that. (Laughs.) I’ve never been one of them guys who worries about those things. I’ve never been one who worries about “What’s artwork like?” I’m more like, “Why should I have to come into town to look at the fucking artwork? I wrote the songs.” My friends get so upset, they say, “The label fucked with the artwork.” The less you care the better.

Todd Snider. 7:30 p.m. Friday. McGonigel's Mucky Duck, 2425 Norfolk. $30; 713-528-5999.