22 July 2009

SHITTING BRICKS



THE SNAILS formed in 1980, and released one demo before this one, titled Don't Panic. The liner of this demo refers to the first one as being "remarkably bad," so it should go without saying that I would fucking LOVE to get (or at least listen to) that one. The playing here is pretty decent, but the vocals are almost always way off time, and the guitar achieves a level of shit tone that bands today spend hours and days trying to replicate. Mystery pawn shop pedals are used seemingly at random, and the result is beautiful. Insistent and mandatory anarcho punk, these tracks are among my favorite that I've posted...marvel at the magic.

6 comments:

Henk said...

great one, thanks! i'm addicted to old UK tapes

Anonymous said...

An old favourite! I loved The Snails and featured them twice in my fanzine back in 1982!

The vocalist on this tape is Paul AZ who did A-Z fanzine back in 1981 and then went on to play guitar for Faction (which featured Rob Challice of Enigma fanzine who had been an early member of anarcho-punks Anthrax)...
After The Snails split, the guitarist (Richard) had a shortlived band called Witchhunt which featured Paul (ex-Terminal Disaster) before going on to a band called Tender Loving Care...

I used to have a copy of 'Don't Panic' tape back in those days (on a tape with the first Anabollic Steroids and Primal Chaos demos), but it's long lost in the intervening years...It WAS pretty poorly recorded (a rehearsal in a bedroom), but it did did feature their only singer - a 13 year old kid called 'Mad Dog Muldoon!'...The songs included 'Tradition', and 'The Queen is a Whore' amongst others...

Nice one!

Nic

the wizard said...

Nic...
thanks for all the info on SNAILS and the other comments you left as well. drop me a line, I'd like to ask you about a few other bands since you were around then. Cheers!
Robert

Anonymous said...

I've got this, bought it after seeing an ad in Sounds music paper. I haven't played it since about '83 but the song Factory is a timeless classic.
Paul C

House Husband With a Twist said...

Haha, I can tell you now how you acheive that shit tone cos it was me and my own....First you'll need my old pink Columbus strat copy going thru a 5 watt Kay catalogue practice amp on max volume, a Pearl Chorus pedal set to mazimum wobble, and a cheap un-named fuzz-box on maximum distortion, you also need to be 14 and wearing pvc pants with a zipped siouxsie and the banshees t-shirt and a chain n padlock round your neck! Pete A formerly guitarist of The Snails

Anonymous said...

This was a great listen in my humble opinion. Thanks!! And also a great read from all of the above.

Nathan.G