Lesser know band that you love

[serial]

Kix was always a semi-local group growing up, playing a lot on the Eastern Shore of MD and Balto. Steve Whiteman is still a presence here and the guys from my last band opened up for Funny Money several times. He still gives voice lessons IIRC, which I always found amusing because I never thought he had a great voice.

Kix and Cool Kids rocked, after that I lost interest.

[Jeff R]

Supagroup's from New Orleans. They have a great following.

My vote is for Comes With The Fall ... www.comeswiththefall.com

[JohnnyThunders]

MSB is from Cleveland, local Bruce Springsten type. MSB albums are readily available at record stores if anyone needs any let me known I can pick them up. He played at our management meeting last fall. Not my cup of tea.

[Mike_C]

Donnie is a local Pittsburgh guy who had some national success in the 70s and 80s. He still performs in Pittsburgh and still kicks ass.

Love is like a Rock. Donnie Iris that is a good one Poe.

Poptopia vol 1 through 3 is a good starting point for some cool tunes from lesser knowns

Elvis Brothers a band I saw open for Cheap Trick that put out a couple of Albums but never really took off.

I'm not sure how popular they are but I really been getting into the Exies first cd

Also Tito and Tarantula Probably best known as the house band in the Movie Dusk til Dawn Tarantism has some killer stuff on it

My chemical romance is cool in a goth meets teen angst movie sountrack sort of way

And from the cutout bin from work a band called H.I.M. pretty cool stuck a bit dark lyrically but still all in all worth checking out

And from the the cutout bin at work a band or performer H.I.M. cool stuff kind

[jwhitcomb3]

This is easy! It's much harder naming bands I love that people have actually heard of.

Right now I'm listening to "Ad Frank is the World's Best Ex-Boyfriend" by Ad Frank*.

Alien Crime Syndicate*

The Redwalls*

The Cavedogs

Francine

Merrie Amsterberg

A.C. Newman*

Brian Leach*

Idaho*

Pernice Brothers*

Paco*

The Pillcrushers*

The Grip Weeds*

The starred bands are availabe on the eMusic subscription service, which I highly recommend for great music off the beaten path. Very reasonable price (as little as 18 cents/song), high quality variable bit rate MP3 (usually over 192 kbps) and no goofy copy protection schemes. I've subscribed for nearly 4 years and have discovered a world of great music I might have otherwise missed. Lots of cool independent labels, like Matador, Rykodisc, KOCH, Yep...just tons of great stuff. Very well organized by style, and lots of cross references with suggestions for other artists similar to folks you look up.

eMusic

-Jonathan

[jettster]

Just about everything I listen to falls into that category.

Joe Bonamassa

Walter Trout

Andromeda http://www.andromedaonline.com/nhtml/home.htm

Evergrey http://www.evergrey.net/

Threshold http://www.thresh.net/

Talisman http://www.jeffscottsoto.com/jss/mainTMAN.htm

To name a few.

[JohnnyThunders]

Band that I liked that never really made it.

MC5 - The god fathers of American metal in my opinion

Johnny Thunders and the HeartBreakers of course

Destory ll Monsters from Detroit...Ashtons on guitars and the incredible Niagra on vocals

Nico - I was in love with her for years, cool video biography on TV a while ago

Rocket from the Thombs - broke-up into Pere Ubu/Deadboys..Peter Laugher/Chettah Chrome guitars were awesome

Pere Ubu - songs like a bad hangover

Ramones - never sold any records really

Pagans - best cleveland punk band ever!

Carmen - think early 70's flamingo styles hardrock...great stage show with cool dancers.

Black Death - wow early 80's heavy heavy metal from some black guys that kicked ass...84 studio album is being released. Siki Spacek rules!

Dicators - guess they weren' the "Next Big Thing"

[jwhitcomb3]

Nina Gordon

Expanding Man

Odds

The Yayhoos

Mother May I

Loveless

I've just been listening to my old Veruca Salt and Nina Gordon CDs. The Loveless disc is also very good as are most CDs on QDivision.

-Jonathan

[tobereeno]

Pop Poppins, they were playing in Texas in the early 90's. I saw them by chance in Wichita Falls (of all places, god what a depressing hole that place is). They totally mesmerized me, and it's pretty rare for a live band to even get me interested. I remember I couldn't move my feet, because that would move me away from the sound that was enveloping me. I was convinced they would make it big, but they never quite did. Nine years later I come across their CD (released on an indie label) in a used CD bin in Menlo Park CA. Thank god I have that disc...

[tbabinec]

These are current bands that have some great sound:

Pelican - 2 CDs - Wall-Of-Sound guitars.

Mastodon - I guess they're typecast as "metal," but they have

a monster drummer, great guitars. "Remission" is awesome;

"Leviathon" is the Moby Dick story - great chops on display.

High on Fire - HEAVY, kinda like Black Sabbath or Helmet.

Isis - Noisy guitars, long instrumental passages.

[ctrixie]

Current bands - The Shazam, Span (energetic Norwegian rockers)

Broke up (egos?? what are they?) - Jellyfish, the Greys

[Turdus]

Nina Gordon

Expanding Man

Odds

The Yayhoos

Mother May I

Loveless

Good choices Dave!

We've talked about MMI before.

I have the Expanding Man cd. Never heard another thing about them, after their major label debut.

The Odds -- great power pop songwriters, but the lyrics always struck me as ... well, Odd, and just plain too quirky.

[DavidE]

Michael Stanley Band, & Donnie Iris

MSB is from Cleveland I believe...cool tunes.

Donnie is a local Pittsburgh guy who had some national success in the 70s and 80s. He still performs in Pittsburgh and still kicks ass.

Ha!! I sold my PV Delta Blues to Michael Stanley at the Ohio Guitar Show a couple of years ago. He did have a lot of good tunes, but growing up in NY I never heard of him until I moved to the Cleveland area for college in 1981.

[DavidE]

A current favorite is Saving Jane. I'm prejudiced because I play with all of the band members in various groups and I played in Saving Jane Acoustic. But I love the songs and hope they "make it" on some level.

www.savingjane.com

[DavidE]

Another one: www.sisterswade.com

I love their first record. They were signed by Charlie Daniels, but I guess he ran out of money to promote them. A good friend played on, and co-produced, the second record which sounds great. They're aiming for a smaller market, so maybe they have a shot.

[Stike]

Hey El, I didn't think anyone knew who The Yahoos were. Terry Anderson is a good friend and a certified nut job.

My picks

The Backsliders RIP

Tenderloin RIP

The Derailers

Drivin N' Cryin'(Kevn's got a new band with Stevie Ray Vaugnabe Gibb Droll)

CC Adcock

Fu Manchu

The Needles

Supersuckers(do they qualify?)

and of course

The Poonhounds

[pasqual12]

I dunno about them as a group, but The Kings' The Beat Goes On/Switching To Glide was awesome....when it came out, I thought it was a new Cheap Trick tune.

Iris rocked too...LOVED the 2 hits.

Crack The Sky......no need to say anything....awesome first 3 albums

Jellyfish...their covers of Badfinger/McCartney were great.

Protein...saw them open for Kings X...loved them

and last but not least, Kings X.

[wyldbil]

70s:

Angel

Starz

The Godz

Ramones (hatsoff to J. Thunders)

The Dictators (ditto)

80s:

Slave Raider

Shotgun Messiah

90s:

Todd Snider

Curently:

The Trip Daddys- KILLER rockabilly band from St. Louis

Los Straitjackets

The Wildhearts

[RichF]

Elduave and Stike, I'm right there with you guys on the Yayhoos. Kick ass band.

Let me add Zebra to the list. I was always surprised they didn't make it nationally.

Also BR5-49 was a great band that I thought would be bigger.

[mudshark]

Jimmie Lee Maslin

Dave Lindley

The Swinging Neckbreakers

Humble Gods

JoJo Gunne

Evan Johns and the H-Bombs

The Redneck Jazz Explosion

Col. Bruce Hampton and His Aquarium Rescue Unit

And for the country fans..............

Hank Penny - a great California Western Swing Artist of the '40s and '50s; many musicians in his band also played with Bob Wills and Spade Cooley.

Texas Jim Lewis and His Lone Star Cowboys - another wonderful Western Swing artist of the '40s and '50s.

Moon Mullican - one of the great country pianists; you don't hear much about him these daze, but he was a good'un.

Billy Briggs and his XIT Boys - great Amarillo, Texas, Western Swing artist of the '40s and '50s.

[jujisque]

My vote for best guitar-less band would go to Weather Report, especially their "Heavy Weather" from the late '70's. You bass players would find it interesting...

I absolutely love Weather Report. Jaco Pastorius was a master.

[Guest big steve]

we had a great group in the va beach/norfolk area called the states,they were on the same label as pat benatar.both albums released at the same time,when benatars record took off ,all promotion/push for the states ended.they were a great power pop band w/catchy tunes.

another band in the early 80's that toured around virginia was called 4 out of 5 doctors,great band,great tunes,i havent heard of them since there "second opinion" album.

i liked the song raised on the radio from the fast times sound track, by the rayvens/ravens?,hear they were from baltimore,but never found an album from them.

[serial]

Yup, I thought they were from Balto as well. Weren't the Slickee Boys from Va Bch?

[MCChris]

My vote for best guitar-less band would go to Weather Report, especially their "Heavy Weather" from the late '70's.  You bass players would find it interesting...

I absolutely love Weather Report. Jaco Pastorius was a master.

Pam (Cheap Chick) is a big fan also.

[Turdus]

we had a great group in the va beach/norfolk area called the states,they were on the same label as pat benatar.both albums released at the same time,when benatars record took off ,all promotion/push for the states ended.they were a great power pop band w/catchy tunes.

another band in the early 80's that toured around virginia was called 4 out of 5 doctors,great band,great tunes,i havent heard of them since there "second opinion" album.

i liked the song raised on the radio from the fast times sound track, by the rayvens/ravens?,hear they were from baltimore,but never found an album from them.

4 out of 5 Doctors did a reunion in 1990 at the Bayou in DC. Jeff Severson called me and asked me to do Stage Management. I was pretty excited about that. They sold out the Bayou no problem.

the Ravyns did release an album in the early 80's that had that tune on it. They were a great bar band... One of the guys went on to one of Uncle Greggy's favorites... ."Company Of Wolves"