The standard opener was based loosely around The Werewolf by the Holy Modal Rounders, usually followed by a version of Batman that set a poem by the Liverpool Scene’s Adrian Henry to the theme from the TV show, assorted other odds and finishing with something based on the Bonzo Dog Band version of The Sound of Music.
There may have been a version of the Bonzo’s classic Canyons of Your Mind in there as well, and I have vague memories of working up a version of The Liverpool Scene’s I've Got Those Fleetwood Mac, Chicken Shack, John Mayall Can't Fail Blues that morphed into a cover of The Who’s version of Summertime Blues.
If that last bit sounds more than slightly overambitious I should point out that two members of the final Snafu line-up went on to bigger things in the south and are listed in my copy of the Who’s Who of Australian Rock.
Conflicting musical ambitions might be seen as the cause of Snafu’s inevitable demise, but the more important factor was the cyclone that demolished a substantial part of Townsville on Christmas Eve 1971.
The loss of a suburban church hall wasn’t all that important in the big picture, and Hughesy’s memories of Underworld deserve a lengthy reminiscence of their own, but those Christmas Eve winds took away the most regular venue for performances and the most likely avenue when it came to recruiting new participants.
It’s interesting to speculate what might have been without Cyclone Althea. Given a continued flow of people who could be inveigled into participating and a venue to play around in it’s possible that Snafu may have morphed into an ongoing collective, with elements of Captain Matchbox, the Bonzos, the Holy Modal Rounders and other proponents of what might loosely be termed freak folk jug band music.
In the long run, given the absence of a sympathetic venue, limited opportunities to do anything apart from rehearse and players whose ambitions lay beyond the limited capacities of most of the other participants the demise of Snafu was inevitable.
On the other hand, once Snafu and Heavy Chunder had been consigned to the dustbin of history the memories gave me the opportunity, whenever I happened to come across one of the participants to venture the suggestion that I was thinking of getting the band back together.
Unsurprisingly, the invariable reaction was immense horror.