Snatch was the name of the London band formed by American ex-pats Judy Nylon and Patti Palladin, who were both lodged in the capital by the mid 70s. “In 1971 I got off a plane alone with $200 and carry on luggage” Nylon told 3am Magazine in October 2001. Based in London’s Maida Vale, they both moved in the kind of avant-garde and arty circles that brought them into contact with everyone from Roxy Music to the Sex Pistols as well as a young Chrissie Hynde. But Judy and Patti weren’t the usual run-of-the-mill mosh-pit Millies, glugging lager and pogoing and spitting their way around the 100 Club, they were far more likely to be found mopping the fevered brow, of say Brian Eno, as he contemplated the future of ambient music and life after Roxy, or hanging around with the post Velvet Underground John Cale. Their first release “Stanley/IRT” came out 1 week before the Damned’s first single in 1977, but couldn’t honestly be described as being instantly recognisable punk. Their art sensibilities eschewed drums and instead of fuzzed up electric’s featured a repetitive choppy chord sequence played on an acoustic guitar, along with the pair’s trademark bratty and slightly nasal vocal delivery. Reviewed by Sniffin’ Glue fanzine who said it was “The type of acoustic track that’d make Dory Previn shave off her beard” – which we take to be a good thing.
Their second release “All I Want/When I’m Bored” took another year to hit the streets, delayed by their picky, and some would say overly protracted, search for a company who could produce the kind of special metallic sleeve they had in mind. Incredibly on its release the single sneaked in to number 57 on the charts, but it’s the b-side “When I’m Bored” that seems to best showcase their combined Punk and Art sensibilities. Still without drums, still art school deconstructed, and still with those bratty vocals, “When I’m bored, anything’s my business, yeah when I’m bored, anything’s my scene”.
After Snatch ended in the 1980s, Judy eventually headed off to work with Adrian Sherwood producing the album “Pal Judy” in 1982. Patti went onto work with The Flying Lizards, and in 1988 made an album of cover versions with Johnny Thunders.
Despite never having had a hit single, and far from being Punk Girl household names, Snatch in their own arty, deconstructed, post-modern, abstract-expressionist, way still managed to leave a uniquely non-conformist etching on that messed up canvas we call Punk.
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