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Oh delay! >> The Snitches finally release their "difficult" second, or third, album by CHRIS YURKIW
"It's all perceptual," says the Big Snitch Mike Webber, trying to calm the storm surrounding the Snitches second album, Sleepwalker, now that it is indeed to be released this Wednesday. "If you asked every Snitch what happened in this last year, the stories would range from venomous to defeatist to hopeful. As a collective, I don't think we understand what happened and why. I don't think there is a definitive 'what happened.'" Nice try, Mike. But you know I'm here to find out what happened. I've already heard the stories in bars. Give it to me for the record. "We finished recording the album last fall," says Webber. "We were psyched, and we were going to put it out through Chooch Records [like their first album, A Day at the A]. There was also some talk with major labels--lots of back and forth, but nothing solidified... By the time this summer came around, the Snitches were losing steam in terms of their ability to visualize being able to work with the team that put out the first album. We started losing hope." When yet another projected release date of September 1 got blown off, Webber started to think about forming his own independent label to get the album out. "It's called Write Off Records," says Webber, who went ahead with the plan. "We're looking for investors." Fine, except that the Snitches still had a deal in place with another "investor," their former manager and Chooch Records head Duncan MacTavish, and getting out of these things is always sticky. The bar grapevine had it that MacTavish owned the master tapes of Sleepwalker, and that if the band wanted to release the album on their own label they would have to pony up dollars to buy them back. So the Snitches convinced MacTavish, who in turn convinced Silent Sound studio owner Morris Apelbaum, that they could pay their bills, if only they could get their hands on the very product they needed to make some money. "We're willing to work hard for the future and not see the profits in the now," says Webber. "We have enough to do what we want to do. It's the lentils-and-rice kind of technique, but that's cool with us." And the music? "There's a higher percentage of darker material," says Mike, "and that reflects a lot of things in our lives. I think second albums are often like that. Actually it's more like a third album. Sleepwalker is our third album!" The "difficult" third album? "Yeah, exactly." The Snitches launch Sleepwalker withguests Jerry Jerry, Wednesday, Nov. 19, at Cabaret, 8pm, $7
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Back in September, Snitches singer-dancer Scott Moodie cornered me at a gig to blow off some steam. According to the band's court jester, it was no laughing matter: "I was at the Concordia orientation show to see the Violent Femmes, and a bunch of Snitches fans spotted me. They came up to me--they had me surrounded--and they were all going, 'Where's the new album?! Come on, where's the new album?!' We finished recording it a year ago, but I couldn't tell them what was going on. I just had to say, 'It's coming, it's coming,' even though I don't know if it is."