Snatches of Pink
Send in the Clowns
(Dog Gone)
Whiskey-soaked hicks from one of indieland’s most celebrated college towns, Chapel Hill’s Snatches of Pink roared like a town drunk being cut-off midway through a bender. These rubes filtered Exile on Main St. through a Creedence gin still, concocting a musical Altamont where the Hells Angels are the good guys. Singer Andy McMillan’s crackin’ twang somehow rises above the squealin’ pig guitar of Michael Rank while Sara Romweber’s amphetamine-inspired drumming beats down the hangover. Released in 1987, Send in the Clowns kicked up a shitstorm of rustic Americana long before anyone had coined the term “insurgent country.” As such, Snatches of Pink played balls-out rock without any stylistic self-awareness. They were out on a limb, chugging moonshine even as the branch broke. And broke it did. After another gloriously ragged, if uneven, LP (Dead Men), the Snatches came out of retirement to record the dramatically boring Bent With Prey, a sadly textbook example of what happens when cool bands grow old. Thankfully, such indiscretions cannot erase past triumphs. From the opening thump ‘n swing of “Lazy Suzan” through the epic slow/fast piledriver “Ones With the Black” that closes it out, Send in the Clowns is a mud-slinging gem.
Claude Zachary |
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