The Snivelling Shits

The Snivelling Shits

The Snivelling Shits are a punk group from London associated with music journalist Giovanni Dadomo. Dadomo writes for publications including ZigZag, Sounds and The Face, and records under the Snivelling Shits name in 1977. The act centres on Dadomo and includes guitarist and fellow journalist Dave Fudger, with additional musicians drawn in, including members of Eddie and the Hot Rods. Steve Lillywhite engineers the session and also plays bass on the recording before Barry Myers, known as DJ Scratchy, takes over on bass.

The group’s first release is the single “Terminal Stupid” / “I Can’t Come”, issued in late 1977. The second track is described as an iconoclastic song about amphetamine-induced sexual dysfunction. In 1978 Dadomo appears again under the name Arthur Comix, with “Isgodaman?” on the Beggars Banquet compilation Streets. Further material is later found and issued in 1989 as the I Can’t Come album on Damaged Goods Records.

Dadomo also co-writes two songs with The Damned, “I Just Can’t Be Happy Today” and “There Ain’t No Sanity Clause”; the latter appears in demo form on I Can’t Come. He also co-writes the book New Women in Rock with Liz Thompson in 1982. Giovanni Dadomo dies in 1996. The I Can’t Come collection later receives descriptions that place it among the more extreme examples of punk recording.