Anyone remember the English blues rock band Chicken Shack? They featured a great guitarist called Stan Webb. Their pianist, Christine Perfect, later married into Fleetwood Mac (becoming Christine McVie) and raised her profile quite a bit over the next five years, or so. |
Two more spin-offs, this time from the Doctor Buzzard/Kid Creole family:
Don Armando's Second Avenue Rhumba Band
and
Elbow Bones and the Racketeers
Like their "parent" bands, both of these bands hybridized disco with other musical forms (notably big band jazz) in very clever ways. IMO, Elbow Bones, in particular, had a great album, "A Night in New York". |
China Crisis was a favorite of mine back in the day,but I can't recall a thing about 'em right now! Senior syndrome, I guess.
Some of The Feelies spin-offs, like The Trypes and Yung Wu come to mind first. Both would IMO qualify for this thread as TRULY obscure bands that never get mentioned anywhere but produced terrific music. |
I'm not sure that Richard Hell & The Voidoids qualify for this thread (they were a pretty high profile band in the punk scene), but they surely qualify for the thread about best song titles:
"Love Comes In Spurts"
One curious tidbit about the band:. In the punk world at that time, there was a certain pride in a band's inability to actually play their instruments. It lent a certain DIY authenticity to the music as a kind of craftless "primal scream". The Voidoids featured both Robert Quine and Ivan Julian on guitar, and both guys can play the sh*t out their instruments. |
Ghost,
Funny thing about Chicken Shack is that Christine Perfect only came on board after several years. Stan Webb was the main attraction in that band and he was a really good guitarist. They also had one other high profile member (maybe in a later iteration), but I can't recall and I'm too lazy to look it up. |
OK, so here's three from the NYC punk/new wave club scene ca. 1980 -
Anyone remember The Shirts? Lead singer Annie Golden later starred in Milos Foreman's film version of "Hair", IIRC.
Then there was a San Francisco (?) band called Medium Medium with their big song "Hungry, So Angry".
And let's not forget the immortal Love Tractor, maybe from Boston?
A little later on, on the cow-punk bar circuit we got "Momma's Big Iron Skillet", who were great and had some really funny lyrics. Later still, came BR5-49, from Austin, IIRC. Along with some great original material, they were the mother of all request taking cover bands.
BTW,
Good list from Bdp (as usual), tho a few of those are a little less obscure than this thread demands, IMO. However, I'll give you props on the Graham Gouldman/Andrew Gold collaboration. Who knew?
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A couple a Southern janglers (both from Chapel Hill, NC I believe) and a first cousin
Arrogance (Don Dixon)
Let's Active (Mitch Easter)
The DBs (probably that area's biggest jangle rock act) were too well known for this thread IMO. Still love the track "Amplifier", tho.
Color Me Gone (Marti Jones, eventually married Don Dixon), possibly from Akron, Ohio - tho, as Loomis so properly points out, my memories of provenance are not always 100% accurate. Hey, it's been a while for these bands!
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Yep,
I cant argue with Whart: Used Guitars = great songs, lousy sound.
For me, all of the early Marti Jones records (Used Guitars, My Long Haired Life, Unsophisticated Time, Match Game, and Any Kind of Lie) combined first rate songs, beautiful singing, and mediocre to poor sound. Her later record "Tidy, Doily Dream" and her live album, "Spirit Square", both feature much better (tho still less than brilliant) SQ to my ear. |
Bdp,
You got me on The Halibuts, which is kind of a bummer because that's a "top ten ever" name for a rock band, IMO.
I actually considered mentioning both 13th Floor Elevators (Roky Erickson) and Romeo Void (Debora Iyall), but figured both got too much press from the music rags of the day to qualify as truly obscure.
Maybe a case could be made for Destroy All Monsters, the pride of Ann Arbor, Michigan along with Freddy "Sonic" Smith's Sonic Rendevouz band (as well as the better known MC5).
I mentioned a few spin-offs in an earlier post to this thread and I'll add one more: Wild Turkey, of Jethro Tull lineage via Glenn Cornick, IIRC.
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Bdp,
I couldn't help chuckling a bit as I read your most recent post. It almost reads like a scene from "Spinal Tap". That must have been a fun time and it sounds like a few of those guys have had a decent run in the music making business, which is always good to hear. |
Another spin-off:. Health & Happiness Show
James Mastro (guitarist and songwriting partner to Richard Barone in The Bongos) started this alt-country/guitar pop band. They did three extremely good records without much in the way of recognition. |
Max,
I spaced on Wake Ooloo. Great catch. I used to live in Hoboken and got to see just about every iteration of The Feelies (not sure if I mentioned The Trypes, who may or may not have ever recorded a record). All of them were terrific. There was a period where those bands ended their shows with different obscure Brian Eno covers. I'm pretty sure that Wake Ooloo crushed it with King's Lead Hat, but it's been too many years to swear that it was WO, rather than one of its "cousins". |
Here’s another one that I love:
John Croslin was the main man in The Reivers (AKA Zeitgeist, before a conflict with another band caused them to change their name). This was one of the earliest and IMO best alt-country bands. I’m not sure that they’re obscure enough to qualify for this thread, but - if they are - they go to the top of my list.
If they don’t qualify, Croslin’s next band "Fire Marshalls of Bethlehem" surely does. Their one record wasn’t at the level of The Reivers catalog, but it was good in its own right. Basically, my belief is that Croslin belongs on this list. He’s an immensely talented and undeservedly obscure musician, IMO. |
LenMc
801 is a good choice (provided they're obscure enough), but they did release several live albums in addition to their sole studio release. I'd assume that "801 Live" (their first release) is their best known recording, but the studio record is very interesting, too. The other live records were released much later and IIRC aren't great tho they have their moments, too. Full disclosure: I haven't listened to any of them in ages. |
