Biography
In the late 1980s a limited circle of American groups specialized in guitar pop that evoked the British Invasion and the mid-1960s West Coast style, and the Sneetches belonged to that circle. Their brief catalog of albums and singles reached only a modest audience and never secured the major-label deal the members sought, yet the band endures as a concealed favorite among listeners drawn to clever, melody-rich pop.
San Francisco served as the birthplace for the group, founded by vocalist and bassist Mike Levy together with guitarist Matt Carges. Both musicians had previously performed in punk outfits before electing to pursue gentler material. From 1985 onward the pair assembled a demo tape whose lo-fi character blended the melodic directness of Herman’s Hermits with the polished soul of the Beau Brummels. Those recordings traveled to Britain, where Kaleidoscope Sounds issued the eight-song EP Lights Out with the Sneetches. Drummer Daniel Swan, an alumnus of the British punk band the Cortinas, had already entered the lineup by then, enabling the Sneetches to begin performing in neighborhood clubs. They next signed with the newly established local imprint Alias and entered the studio, yielding the 1989 album Sometimes That’s All We Have.
After handling bass duties onstage for a period, Levy moved to guitar, leaving the band without a bassist during live appearances until another British expatriate, Alec Palao, completed the quartet. Palao had earlier alerted Kaleidoscope Sounds founder Joe Foster to the band’s demos and had likewise helped persuade Creation Records to issue Sometimes That’s All We Have in the United Kingdom.
The same four musicians returned to the studio in 1989 to cut the single Please Don’t Break My Heart, which featured an energetic reading of the Monochrome Set’s “He’s Frank.” That year the Sneetches also embarked on a nationwide U.S. tour and began work on their second album, Slow, a more experimental and orchestrally arranged effort released by Alias in 1990. Additional 1990 activities included another cross-country trek, a collaboration with power-pop veterans Shoes at the latter’s Illinois facility, and a British visit that included shows alongside John Cale and the Monochrome Set. In the ensuing two years the group backed former Flamin Groovies guitarist Cyril Jordan for a series of concerts while continuing to record intermittently. Those sessions produced singles issued on Bus Stop (“And I’m Thinking” in 1992 and “A Good Thing” in 1993), Elefant (“Sunnyside Down” in 1993), and Jellybean Sounds! (“She May Call You Up Tonight” in 1993).
Further ties with ex-Groovies personnel led the Sneetches to support Chris Wilson both onstage and on the 1993 album Chris Wilson & the Sneetches. Following these side projects and the appearance of a Rev-Ola compilation of early material titled Obscureyears, the band finally tracked its third album. Shifting from Alias to Spin Art, they delivered Blow Out the Sun in 1994 before essentially disbanding shortly thereafter. Levy turned to solo work while Swan established himself as a booking agent and Palao became a prolific producer of reissues for labels including Big Beat and Numero. When Levy’s solo album Fireflies appeared in 2000, the remaining members reconvened to accompany him at selected performances and also staged occasional reunion concerts under the Sneetches banner. In 2017 Palao applied his reissue expertise to the group’s catalog, resulting in the career-spanning Omnivore collection Form of Play: A Retrospective.
San Francisco served as the birthplace for the group, founded by vocalist and bassist Mike Levy together with guitarist Matt Carges. Both musicians had previously performed in punk outfits before electing to pursue gentler material. From 1985 onward the pair assembled a demo tape whose lo-fi character blended the melodic directness of Herman’s Hermits with the polished soul of the Beau Brummels. Those recordings traveled to Britain, where Kaleidoscope Sounds issued the eight-song EP Lights Out with the Sneetches. Drummer Daniel Swan, an alumnus of the British punk band the Cortinas, had already entered the lineup by then, enabling the Sneetches to begin performing in neighborhood clubs. They next signed with the newly established local imprint Alias and entered the studio, yielding the 1989 album Sometimes That’s All We Have.
After handling bass duties onstage for a period, Levy moved to guitar, leaving the band without a bassist during live appearances until another British expatriate, Alec Palao, completed the quartet. Palao had earlier alerted Kaleidoscope Sounds founder Joe Foster to the band’s demos and had likewise helped persuade Creation Records to issue Sometimes That’s All We Have in the United Kingdom.
The same four musicians returned to the studio in 1989 to cut the single Please Don’t Break My Heart, which featured an energetic reading of the Monochrome Set’s “He’s Frank.” That year the Sneetches also embarked on a nationwide U.S. tour and began work on their second album, Slow, a more experimental and orchestrally arranged effort released by Alias in 1990. Additional 1990 activities included another cross-country trek, a collaboration with power-pop veterans Shoes at the latter’s Illinois facility, and a British visit that included shows alongside John Cale and the Monochrome Set. In the ensuing two years the group backed former Flamin Groovies guitarist Cyril Jordan for a series of concerts while continuing to record intermittently. Those sessions produced singles issued on Bus Stop (“And I’m Thinking” in 1992 and “A Good Thing” in 1993), Elefant (“Sunnyside Down” in 1993), and Jellybean Sounds! (“She May Call You Up Tonight” in 1993).
Further ties with ex-Groovies personnel led the Sneetches to support Chris Wilson both onstage and on the 1993 album Chris Wilson & the Sneetches. Following these side projects and the appearance of a Rev-Ola compilation of early material titled Obscureyears, the band finally tracked its third album. Shifting from Alias to Spin Art, they delivered Blow Out the Sun in 1994 before essentially disbanding shortly thereafter. Levy turned to solo work while Swan established himself as a booking agent and Palao became a prolific producer of reissues for labels including Big Beat and Numero. When Levy’s solo album Fireflies appeared in 2000, the remaining members reconvened to accompany him at selected performances and also staged occasional reunion concerts under the Sneetches banner. In 2017 Palao applied his reissue expertise to the group’s catalog, resulting in the career-spanning Omnivore collection Form of Play: A Retrospective.
Albums
