What's your favorite "lesser known" band discovery?

[Halowords]

Porcupine Tree. Steven Wilson's main band (although his side project Blackfield is pretty strong as well), they get labeled Prog Rock or psychedelic rock (their early stuff at least), they make just flat out beautiful, thoughtful, and catchy (in a good way) music. Rapidly rising as one of my favorite bands of all time. Steven Wilson is kind of like a modern day John Lennon. Porcupine tree seems inspired by bands like the Beatles, Pink Floyd, Rush, and similar styles, but really transcends the influences in the sense that they do not come across as hacks imitating their influences but make something that seems fresh and new. Highly recommend them.

Jawbreaker. One of my old favorites, they are a rock/post-punk type of band. Just a great rock band. They are big in the indie crowd, although defunct for quite a while now. More influential than most will ever know or bother to find out.

-Cheers

[kenjones]

Superdrag (competes well with the Shazam in spots).

Wow - I love Superdrag. I only got to see them once. I think I have all their records, but my favorite is "In the Valley of Dying Stars".

My favorite unknown band is Angel City (also known as The Angels in Australia).They played Hamers that Rick Nielsen loaned them after their guitars were stolen while on tour. I think I read about that in Trouser Press.

[Brooks]

Brooks you like a lot of the same stuff I like. Have you heard The Hidden Hand is done? Wino's new project is called Shrinebuilder and has members of OM (Sleep) and Neurosis. Should be incredible.

cool, i'll look for that. imo, wino shoots himself in the foot by continuing to change band names when he's the main vocalist/songwriter. can you imagine if, say, dave mustaine changed band names every time his lineup shifted?

ps- +1 on dada, saw 'em open for sting.

[alantigold]

Some of the older ones I liked were Head East, The Hooters, Honeymoon Suite, and the Vapors

I really like the live Head East album - I wish I had that on CD. I think my cassette went bad.

Not to nitpick, but I'd consider the Hooters somewhat well known - a couple big national hits. And Bazilian has kept a pretty nice career going.

I loved the first Honeymoon Suite record, although I haven't listened to it in years.

Alan

[BTMN]

Betty Blowtorch with their release Are You Man Enough has been in my steady rotation since I found it a few years ago. I'm on my second copy. I hope the person that found my first copy I left in the rental car cd player in Minneapolis didn't get to scared or offended by it.