Newspapers / Daily Tar Heel (Chapel … / Feb. 11, 1988, edition 1 / Page 13
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6The Daily Tar Heel Thursday, February 11, 1988 Local band trying to snatch up some road work By JAMES BURRUS Senior Writer When School Kids Records, employee Michael Rank sells some one the new Snatches of Pink album. Send in the Clowns, he does not thank them for buying his band's record. Selling Snatches of Pink records, or any other band's records for that matter, is not exactly what Rank wants to do. He would rather be out on the road somewhere in a van with bassist Andy McMillan and drummer Sara Romweber looking for places that will let him and his band crank up their raucous rock 'n' roll. "We did an album so we could get out and play on the road, which is what we want to do." Rank said. "We don't enjoy making albums." Recently, though, the band has been unable to put a string of out-of-town dates together. The band will go to places like Greenville. S.C.. or Blacksburg. Va.. for one show and then drive back to Chapel Hill that same night. Snatches of Pink has toured only once and that was for two weeks last summer. But maybe that experience is what makes the band members want to get back on the road. "Wejust started enjoying ourselves and we had to come home." Rank said. "I'd love to go off for weeks on end and then come back for a week and then go off for weeks on end." Rank. 22. and McMillan. 26. knew when they were youngsters they wanted to be rock 'n' rollers. "When KISS entered my life I was I lM9 PREPARE FOR THE TERROR! K MOONSTRUCK CHER NICOLAS m mgm C4GE Shows Nightiy 7:15 9:30 ,,,.,,! Ill ft its. IlIffliWTOga 7:00 - pretty sure that's what I wanted to do." Rank said. McMillan's first passion was bas ketball, but he knew he couldn't do that. "But I'd see a band on stage on TV and I'd go. That's what I want to do.' " Rank and McMillan formed Snatches of Pink in 1 985 and a couple of months later Romweber joined the band after leaving Let's Active. Rank writes the songs and plays guitar. McMillan plays bass and does most of the singing and Romweber pounds out the rhythm. (Hege V guitarist David Thrower is doing some dates for the time being with Snatches of Pink.) McMillan, who has only been playing bass for three months, is the band's third bass player. The other bassists did not work out because the band members wanted someone who played rock n' roll bass. Snatches of Pink did some early demos with the production help of Pressure Boy John Plymale. but nothing much came of the effort. "Mainly it was something for us to do so we could hear what our stuff sounded like," Rank said. WXYC gave the rest of Chapel Hill a chance to hear what Snatches of Pink sounds like when the station got hold of some of the band's demos and played them over the air. McMillan said Snatches of Pink has never asked WXYC to play its songs, "but they've always played our stuff, which is nice." Snatches of Pink was also part of the infamous Cradle Tapes released last spring. Eleven North Carolina bands played Cat's Cradle in November of 1986 to raise money for WXYC. The concert was recorded and each band put two songs on the Cradle Tapes. Snatches of Pink contributed "Kissing the Thin Air" and "Ones With the Black." Profits from the sales of the tape, which is still available at School Kids Records, go to WXYC. But Rank and McMillan are out spoken about some of the problems the project encountered. Rank said the quality of the tape suffered from lack of organization. The tape finally came out last April, four months after it was scheduled to be released. ELLIOT ROAD at E. FRANKLIN 967-4737 $2.50 TimiiiT MlMTTKI(IS.KJHn) GOOD MCilfiG VIET71AM (R) 9:25 4:40 7:00 9:30 Patrick Sottm DIRTY DAilCim (PG13) 8:40 4:45 7:05 9:10 Winner of 4 Golden Globe Awards INCLUDING BEST PICTURE (Diwa) HP I AST EMpERR 11)3:15 7:33 OMLY e lypDUW KttSTBB, BC All BGfflS BSBWB). VC .J El T 7 1 - . v, -.A fax - 1 mmmmm mmm i 11 iHmmmmm waxiiwinvimnniiri riiimii Snatches of Pink "There are those people that are gonna say it's supposed to help raise money for the radio station, but all the money at the door went to getting the tapes out But that took forever, and the fact they took forever meant no one was going to buy the tapes," McMillan said. "I don't think it helped the station and I don't think it helped the bands." McMillan and Rank said they would not have participated in the benefit if they had known the project was going to be so poorly handled. Last summer Snatches of Pink made another demo tape with Ply male and sold it at School Kids. "It's nothing I'm tremendously proud of." Rank said. "I think the sound quality stinks." But the tape did help them land their recording contract with Dog Gone Records. McMillan said. "Just the fact that we were actually doing something like that (helped) more than the fact that it was a great tape," he said. The band members thought of sending it to record companies but ultimately decided against it "I just didn't feel comfortable writing down on a piece of paper, 'Hi, we're this band and here's our tape iyja SPECIAL ADDED "A NEW YORK FILM CRITICS' AWARDS FOR BEST PICTURE, BEST ACTRESS, BEST DIRECTOR AND rrt rrArrum iu tun it 1 1 in mr HOUV HUNTER ALBERT BROOKS 3BH0ADCAST A HI M :C3 AH J 1 i" is " V, t - 'J: members don't want to be sitting at and if you're interested just give us a call.' " McMillan said. Snatches of Pink refuses to brown nose. The band landed its recording contract with Dog Gone Records because of its association with the president of the label, said Jefferson Holt. R.EM.'s manager. "We never asked Jefferson for anything." McMillan said. "He knew us and he knew what we were doing." The band members knew Holt when he lived in Chapel Hill and before he discovered R.EM. Holt also saw Snatches of Pink play in Athens. Ga., a couple of times. McMillan said. Snatches of Pink's debut LP, Send in the Clowns, will be released to record stores and sent to college radio stations in a couple of weeks. Rank said. The only stores that have the record now are School Kids and a store in Athens. WXYC also has a copy of the record, because they bought one at School Kids. Rank said. Send in the Clowns consists of new material as well as several songs off the band's last demo, like "Cowboys and Indians" and "Cry Wolf." The band's first song. "Ones With the Black," is also included on the record. The band members also got one SHOWS AT H :45 FRI. & SAT! GREAT FILM ...brhifantlycxtmk-. h BEAUTIFULLY RITTERSWEHT. MASTROIANNI H DELIVERS THE PERFORMANCE OF A LIFETIME.' MRRCtU.ll MASIROIANNI p- BY Nltf I A MIMI.M ki A 4:30 7:C9 9:39 flMAI WSW DMIK EYES 4-1 ;t t-- f home any more of their friends to produce the record, current dB's guitarist Eric Peterson. Peterson went to high school with Rank and helped out the band as a favor. ' Snatches of Pink does not have any dates lined up at Cat's Cradle or any of the other local music spots to promote its new album. "My strong desire is to get out of town, not stay in town," Rank said. "Too many bands play here all the time. It's the same old boring bands. I don't want to be one of those." Over the past six months several bands have received national atten tion The Connells. Fetchin Bones and Hege V. Rank and McMillan, though, do not think the Triangle music scene is that different from most other areas. "There's certainly nothing unique about this town." he said. "If you're someone who just likes rock 'n' roll music. I think there is nothing . . . here, which is pretty obvious to me by the fact that you can't even find a bass player or guitar player who just wants to play rock 'n' roll." College radio has a lot to do with the success of those bands. Rank said. "The mentality of college students is so obvious working at a record store." he said. "Once they are told something is the cool thing to get. they'll get it. In masses. They all want to do the same thing." So will Snatches of Pink become the next cool band from North Carolina? "I'm interested in seeing what happens." McMillan said. "We don't v have a huge following. People just don't flip out and tell all their friends that we're the greatest thing ever. To a lot of people we're just a lot of noise. I don't know how people are going to react to the album, but I guess if they like it there will be more people to come see us. Having a record is great, but all we want to do is play."
Daily Tar Heel (Chapel Hill, N.C.)
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Feb. 11, 1988, edition 1
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