Schneeball

Schneeball was a German record label founded in 1976. Embryo, Missus Beastly, Sparifankal, Ton Steine Scherben and Julius Schittenhelm decided to take their fate into their own hands in 1976. Setting themselves apart from the phonograph industry, they founded their own record company (APRIL Records) and cooperatively organized the distribution. "Music distributed by the musicians” was the primary guiding principle. There were no European models to imitate, although the Filmverlag der Autoren [Authors’ Film Publishing Company] was surely groundbreaking at the beginning. Established several years previously, it had succeeded in marginally pushing back the market power of the Anglo-American media flood so the filmmakers who belonged to it could make a living for themselves. The start of APRIL Records was extraordinarily successful and attracted much attention. After CBS threatened to take legal action, its name was changed to "Schneeball” ["Snowball”] in 1977. The situation was quite difficult, but samplers entitled "April ist Schneeball” ["April is Snowball”] enabled it to remain recognizable in the music and media landscapes. The name was chosen to express the energy in the center of the music spectrum and the expansion and development along its margins. Many others... ()