Embryo, Missus Beastly, Sparifankal, Ton Steine Scherben and Julius Schittenhelm decided to take their fate into their own hands in 1976.
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.
Other artists who published at Schneeball are Real Ax Band, Munju, Checkpoint Charlie, Moira, and Hammerfest.
Schneeball Oper 1 und 2 [Snowball Operas 1 and 2] were developed as a new cooperative project by the musicians from the various bands.
Only Schreckeneder continued to use the label for occasional new releases, e.g. Charlie Mariano with Rama Mani in 2005 or Peter Michael Hamel with Thomas Gundermann in 2014.
Schneeball was the trailblazer of the “Independent Label” movement, which conquered its place in the global music industry.