Snapper

Mid-1990s fizzy Brit-pop. Catchy melodies you'll be singing on the bus—that's if you like them, and you're on a bus, and you feel like singing.

In the Summer of 1995, in York, Dave (bass) and Colin (lead guitar) formed a band with Nigel (drums) and 'H' (rhythm guitar) and then decided to recruit Tim (vocals) but then Dave went to Egypt and Nigel wrote off his car and most of his body and was temporarily replaced by Roland (drum-machine) with whom Snapper recorded the three tracks featured here, with 'H' on bass and Tim on rhythm guitar.

Then Nigel got better allowing Colin, 'H', Nigel and Tim to finally play some gigs. Then there was a BIG gap, during which Colin decided to leave and the mysterious Damian was invited to join. Damian made so much noise on his own that Tim was able to stop playing guitar and concentrate on learning to sing, which helped quite a lot.

Then, after a headlining gig at Fibbers in York in February 1996, they split up (although, if we're honest, all that really happened was that they changed the line-up slightly again and started calling themselves Bubblewrap...).

htr001 demo#1

htr001-1. How Would You Like To Feel Today? (Brookes) 3'31	mp3 (3.2MB)
htr001-2. Wish I Was In Love With You (Brookes) 3'17	mp3 (3.0MB)
htr001-3. Can't Understand (Tyler/Brookes) 2'27	mp3 (2.3MB)
	zip (8.5MB)

Released 1995

Vocals/Guitar: Tim Brookes
Lead Guitar: Colin Tyler
Bass: H Cambridge

Programming/engineering: Tim Brookes

February 1996: Yorkshire Evening Press review: "Snapper... quickly livened up the crowd by strutting on the stage like the cats that got the cream. And their safe-as-milk blend of pop sounds soon left the audience pouring out applause by the jugful. As lively lead singer, Tim Brookes, flailed his flagons of verse, punters looked on wishing they'd had a snifter of whatever he had drunk - clearly a pint of adrenalin. Their blend of fizzy pop mixed with laddish beer made a very palatable shandy which reached the parts that the other bands had so far failed to reach... total commitment... tight and organized".

March 2009: Shaun Keaveny Breakfast Show (BBC 6 Music) - The Ex-Band Factor: "... it's amazing that you can take all the elements of funk, and miss them all out ... makes the Soup Dragons sound like the Velvet Underground ... one that slipped the net - they could have been great, I think that's fair to say (that's unfair to say)".