Category: Snapdragons

The Snapdragons haven’t featured previously round these parts.  All I’ve got on the hard drive is a song included on the C88 box set issued a few years ago by Cherry Red Records.

Here’s the booklet:-

Singer/songwriter James Taylor fronted this Leeds band, assisted by John Sullivan on guitar, Spike Mullings on guitar and Pel Biccardi (later of Utah Saints) on drums.  Signing with Native, the band released two classy and thoughtful singles of pure pop – 1988’s ‘The Things You Want’ and 1989’s ‘Eternal In A Moment’, the title of the latter used for a 1990 retrospective compilation.  Their promising debut album, ‘Dawn Raids On Morality’, was produced by Pat Collier, but follow-up ‘Mass’ became mired in legal issues, leading to the demise of the band.  However, 12″ EP ‘Dole Boys On Futons’ is surely a contender for title of the decade.

There’s a wiki page which doesn’t add all that much to the above other than state there were a couple of Radio 1 sessions, including one for John Peel, and they toured the UK in support of The Darling Buds and Richard Hawley‘s debut band, Treebound Story.

Here’s the track included on C88:-

mp3 : The Snapdragons – The Things You Want

It’s a jaunty little number, and at under two-and-a-half minutes in length, can never be accused of overstaying its welcome.   It sounds similar to a lot of the indie music that was emerging around the same time, and while it maybe doesn’t have anything to make it particularly stand out in any way, it’s certainly not one to put in a drawer marked ‘best forgotten’.  A great deal many worse records delivered chart success to some of their contemporaries.

Here’s one of the other tracks referred to in the C88 booklet:-

mp3 : The Snapdragons – Dole Boys On Foutons

This one, I’m sorry to say, is very much indie by numbers.

JC