A wee heads up about a just announced new, retrospective release from Spare Snare.
Snare main man Jan Burnett has compiled a three disc box set of the earliest Spare Snare demos including songs on the first three albums and the box is available to buy right now!
It’s called ‘Dundee Church For The Deaf – Curios and Versions’ and contains 44 unreleased recordings, which have all been transferred from 4 track cassettes over the past year.
The compilation will come in a DVD type case format, in an edition of 50, hand number stamped with inserts and the usual hand made Snare fare by Jan.
As a preview of the boxset, Jan has provided MPT with an demo version of perhaps the Snare’s best known song, ‘Bugs’. Scroll down a little and you’ll be able to listen to the song.
Whilst it plays you can read some of Jan’s recollections about the song’s origins.
“I remember it coming rather fast, on my own, and feeling that having a lyric like ‘Goodbye Jan’ was interesting, and not sure really what it meant. The start of making records and people listening to them, perhaps it was me moving on to the next phase, or maybe that’s just bollocks.
“I do remember playing it back to Paul (Esposito) and seeing his grin afterwards. Part of the lyrics, ‘guns in safe’ were from a particular Brookside story thread.
“We knew it was a good tune, and that was confirmed when Love Train records wanted to release the ‘Live At Home’ version as a 7″. I wanted to edit it down for 7″, and my chum Andy Rogers did that for us. The track ended up being in John Peel’s Festive 50 for 1995, #32.”
Jan reckoned that several factors meant that the time was right to do this release.
“I was keen to do something retrospective, and an excuse to transfer my tapes over, before the technology to transfer goes obsolete. It draws a line in the sand for the cassettes too. A nice small edition to interest fans, and because it is in such a small release, it’s been put together, printed, cut, rubber stamped by me.”
‘Dundee Church for the Deaf’ may well not be the last time that the Snare archives are trawled for material – but the next release won’t be archival, as Jan explains.
“There’s plenty of unreleased versions and tracks still to be released, perhaps as a second box in a few years, but these tracks are all on CDR , quarter inch or minidisc and would cover a later period. I’ll likely look at that after the next ‘proper’ Snare album due 2017.”
The boxset is available now from the Spare Snare Bandcamp but be quick because there’s not many available …
And as promised above, here’s an exclusive first listen to the demo of ‘Bugs (One)’:
Manic Pop Thrills 
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