Day 113. How many more days of stay-at-home? We are considering going away for a month or so. A deserved sort of vacation. I know this may not be ideal for the label, as we won’t be able to send any orders for that time, but I feel a little break would be ok. I’ll keep you all updated. In the meantime, here are some good finds:
Sloppy Joe: our friend Hitoshi Oka is back with “Waiting for the Night Begins” a delightful jangle pop album with 11 tracks. At the moment you can check out 5 of them of this record that is available on vinyl and CD. The CD version also includes a CDR with four songs, two acoustic and two covers!
Münchhausen: this is quite a discovery. I have been a bit dismissive with bands from Colombia as it is very rare to find good indiepop coming from there. Well, now I have to accept that Münchhausen’s latest song, “Here Again”, is a true beauty! The Bogotá based combo has put together a fine post-punk/indiepop track which I am sure everyone will enjoy!
Mashmellow: the Russian duo formed by Masha and Egor is back with a wonderful new EP titled “Someday Club”. The track “Melt” is lovely, my favourite out of the 5 in this record, though it is hard to pick!
The Muldoons: the great Scottish band is going to be back very soon with an album titled “Made for Each Other”. It is really promising and will be out on vinyl by the Last Night label from Glasgow. In the meantime I urge you to head to Soundcloud and check the wonderful song “In Love Again”, a little taster of the album!
Sweetie Darling: lastly coming from Imperial, California, is this three-piece combo formed by Camden Aguilera, April Urrutia and Megan Moreno. They have an EP titled “Love/Lies” of lo-fi ramshackle pop that is very enjoyable!
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I am going through my extensive list of bands I would have wanted to include in my Australian indiepop compilations that never happened. Why? Well let’s say bands weren’t that keen to help, they weren’t that interested. The same thing that happened with the second volume of the Starke Adolf series. If bands don’t provide songs, bios or photos, really, there’s not much one can do. I tried. And will probably try again in the future.
Okay, so yes, I am going through this list because there are many bands I discovered while doing my research on who to include. A lot of them were tricky as I knew they were pop bands but couldn’t find any of their songs online. Mind you, I am not rich to buy all of the records I want. So no, I had the names but didn’t know how they sounded, if they were fit to be included. One of the bands I did find some music from was The Snorkels. And I thought immediately that they had to be part of my project!
The band released just one single as far as I know. I know very little of course. Writing this post might help me learn more. This 7″ single came out on Method Records (MR8) in 1983 and included “When I Say Go” on the A side and “95 Miles from Sydney” on the B side.
Method Records is an interesting label. I actually found out about The Snorkels by exploring their catalog. You see this label had released Skolars and Love Minus Zero among others. They are still going mind you.
On Discogs someone has commented that each copy of the 7″ was hand coloured. We also know that both songs were recorded at Silverwood Studios in Sydney, and that the B side, “95 Miles from Sydney” was composed and sung by the band’s bassist Jon Yuncken.
Then on the Sideroom blog Bruce mentions that The Snorkels might have included Fabian Byrne from the Fast Cars and the person behind Method Records. That explains a lot, doesn’t it?!
I found another blog, Wallaby Beat, that mentions that Doug Lees the drummer of the band Progression Cult would be part of The Snorkels. All is making sense now.
We have three names now. But that’s not all. Their song “When I Say Go” was also included on the compilation “Sound of Sydney – Volume 2” that was released by Method Records in 1984 (L 38263).
And that’s it. Not much more written about them on the web. No other information. Maybe it was a short-lived band. Maybe they only recorded a few songs? Maybe not many gigs? Who’d know. I definitely would like to know more about them
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Listen
The Snorkels – When I Say Go
