Snatch – Bomp Records – 1977

I.R.T.

Stanley

Very old and scratchy debut 7″ by these ex pat Americans based in London released on L.A.s Bomp Records. Recorded (supposedly with the guitar expertise of Captain Sensible from The Damned) in one of the girl’s apartments somewhere in Maida Vale, these tracks are extra strength lo-fi. So be warned! 

Text ripped from punk77 site.

Snatch were originally if the News of The World was to be believed going to be called Cho-Cha before the sexually ambiguous name of Snatch was settled on.

Snatch was Patti Palladin and Judy Nylon, a pair of US expatriates:

“I met Judy on the phone. I was having a transatlantic conversation on the phone with a friend in London. I was in NY at the time, and Judy was in his studio. When I came to London in about ’74 we became good friends. We were trying our best to get something going, we were both creative chicks… We both had ideas of sorts”. 

“For two foreign chicks living in London, what is there really to do? So that’s why Rock & Roll! It was the obvious thing to do out of boredom. We thought about forming a band together. We worked on basic lyrics and melodies and things. But it was hard trying to find people who understood where we were coming from. At that time all the punks were suddenly beginning to appear. Everyone was into saying, “I’m a punk. I’m cool, I’m aggressive, we’re going to change it” and all this shit”.

Jon Savage Interview. Search & Destroy #8.

They certainly had a refreshingly blasé attitude  to the rock’n’roll business. Sporadic gigs and sporadic singles when they felt the need.  

They recorded a number of demos at Patti’s flat in 1976 two of which ‘IRT’ and ‘Stanley’ were released as a single six months later in February 1977. Another single ‘All I Want’ narrowly missed  the upper reaches of the charts in March 1978. A final single ‘Shopping For Clothes’ surfaced in April 1980. In between Patti featured on Chris Spedding’s ‘Hurt’ (1977) and The Electric Chairs ‘Things your Mother Never Told You’. (1979)

Both Judy and Patti were strong willed and committed individuals who never exploited their sexuality or the music industry they found themselves in unlike most of their punk contemporaries of the time. It was all on their terms.

Snatch was never a permanent set up. In fact it was really a collaboration between Patti, Judy and whoever else. Eventually they went their separate ways. Both are still recording and in the arts to this day.