I guess well known is relative - Portishead were massive in Europe.
Best unknown band of the sixties: MC5
Seventies: Wire or maybe The Only Ones
Eighties: Teardrop Explodes - in fact best ever !!!!!!!!
Nineties: PJ Harvey (unknown ?)
Now: I'm too old to care....(not a band btw)
I wouldn't really say that MC5 was unknown, relative to the time/music styles at the time maybe, but either way MC5 is awesome. I only say that they weren't that well known because I knew very little about them until I read the Mötley Crüe book The Dirt and they were referenced several times.
There's an 80's metal band called Grim Reaper that I've very little about other than what I had discovered on my own that is pretty good.
There's a few bands that started out local/semi-local that got really good, some got kinda big before breaking up, that I know/met through bands I know playing with them. Four Rochester bands that were on the way to becoming rather big (underground hardcore/punkish bands that could actually play instruments) that I think deserve a mention; Standfast, Building On Fire, Break Of Dawn, and The Disaster. I'm sure a few people have heard of At The Drive In, a few weeks before their last album, the one that got them more well known, came out they played Rochester in a tiny tiny tiny venue with Standfast and broke up not too long later, Standfast broke up the next summer, I think they could have done really well.
There's a band from buffalo that I've seen a lot that used to play really small shows around here called Every Time I Die that is getting bigger, they just had an interview on Headbanger's Ball a couple weeks ago. They're really frantic hardcore.
Other bands, Refused, The (International) Noise Conspiracy (sounds like Target commercials, awesome), the Murder City Devils.
There's so much excellent music about...in fact way too much to absorb.The problem is finding it....because the best, most innovative stuff is shunned by the industry because it is not "instant", generic or "pigeon-holeable". There is a 22 year old student in the same apartment block I am in who's just finishing an engineering degree at UCLA...he is a violinist and pianist who has been playing since he was 4 years old. He has a couple of keyboards on a stand in his livingroom with a G4, ProTools and some "soft synths". (btw I am also an occasional session musician (pianist) who has played in studios for album and commercial sessions so I listen to *lots* of music, both finished and in progress). I listened to some of his compositions a few nights back and he has more musical talent in one fingernail than you can usually hear in a whole week of continuously viewing MTV, or listening to commercial music radio stations. Who will ever hear this man's music? Perhaps his friends, family and acquaintances. I asked him..."why dont you shop this around some?". He said he has no intention of taking it further than that and explained why. He is savvy enough to know that great talent will get you nowhere in the entertainment biz unless you have the attitude and chutzpah to do what it takes to get professional work.
There are probably hundreds of people making wonderful music at home, or bands in garages, with today's technology in any city you care to mention, who will also never be heard. Great music is around on smaller, mostly eclectic labels like ECM and many others.
Depending what your listening habits are you may have heard many of these cats, but others may not have heard them, some are better known, but none are really household names ya know
I knew I was forgetting something. Sufjan Stevens. Welcome to Michigan..... is just so damned good. One of the best albums to listen to when you're drifting off to Slumberland.
This thread comes up every now and then, and I'm going to have to push Dream Theater again. Back in the early and mid nineties they were really flaky, but WHAM - somehow out of nowhere come some seriously heavy albums.
Rock and roll is back . . . actually, there's some stuff on the new album that's so damn thick; I don't know if I've ever heard anything so thick. It was like Charles Ives on speed, driving an 18 wheeler, and crashing into a tank of nitro glycerine.
Comments
Originally posted by segovius
I guess well known is relative - Portishead were massive in Europe.
Best unknown band of the sixties: MC5
Seventies: Wire or maybe The Only Ones
Eighties: Teardrop Explodes - in fact best ever !!!!!!!!
Nineties: PJ Harvey (unknown ?)
Now: I'm too old to care....(not a band btw)
I wouldn't really say that MC5 was unknown, relative to the time/music styles at the time maybe, but either way MC5 is awesome. I only say that they weren't that well known because I knew very little about them until I read the Mötley Crüe book The Dirt and they were referenced several times.
There's an 80's metal band called Grim Reaper that I've very little about other than what I had discovered on my own that is pretty good.
There's a few bands that started out local/semi-local that got really good, some got kinda big before breaking up, that I know/met through bands I know playing with them. Four Rochester bands that were on the way to becoming rather big (underground hardcore/punkish bands that could actually play instruments) that I think deserve a mention; Standfast, Building On Fire, Break Of Dawn, and The Disaster. I'm sure a few people have heard of At The Drive In, a few weeks before their last album, the one that got them more well known, came out they played Rochester in a tiny tiny tiny venue with Standfast and broke up not too long later, Standfast broke up the next summer, I think they could have done really well.
There's a band from buffalo that I've seen a lot that used to play really small shows around here called Every Time I Die that is getting bigger, they just had an interview on Headbanger's Ball a couple weeks ago. They're really frantic hardcore.
Other bands, Refused, The (International) Noise Conspiracy (sounds like Target commercials, awesome), the Murder City Devils.
There are probably hundreds of people making wonderful music at home, or bands in garages, with today's technology in any city you care to mention, who will also never be heard. Great music is around on smaller, mostly eclectic labels like ECM and many others.
N.E.R.D.
Sneaker Pimps
Pigmy Love Circus
Iron Cross
Eleni Mandell
Telefon Tel Aviv
Zero 7
Cesaria Evora
Some bassists:
Adam nitti
Michael Manring
Steve Lawson
Richard Bona
Raphael Saadiq
Divinity
Victor Wooten
Brian Bromberg
Some Guitarists:
Kaki King
Michael Hedges
Justin King
Miroslav Tadic
Allan Holdsworth
Pat Metheny
Mike Stern
young and rollins
Strunz and farah
Some Rappers:
Gift of Gab(blackalicious)
Del
Ugly Duckling
Beatnuts
Dilated Peoples
Aesop Rock
Paul Barman
Bahamadia
Afu-Ra
Some Electronic music:
µ-ziq
Squarepusher
Aphex Twin
Prefuse 73
Autechtre
Boards of Canada
Misc:
Antibalas
Spearhead
Fela Kuti
Steve reich
Joe Farrell
Goapele
Residents
Lori Andrews
Maceo Parker
Tabla Beat science
Quite Sane
THE MONKS
MAN, OR ASTROMAN
PERE UBU
AU PAIRS
MORPHINE
STINKING LIZAVETA
BURNING BRIDES
SIGUR ROS
MOONEY SUZUKI
MINUTE MEN
PJ HARVEY
and....
THE SENSATIONAL ALEX HARVEY BAND.
/rightofthetopofmyhead.
Zero7
Dropkick Murphys (depends who you talk to)
Seven Mary Three (?)
Just the ones of the top of my head.
2nd, job-dropkick murphy's kiks ass!
Artman-man or astroman is mad good, so is sigur ros, don't know the others, will check out!
wrong robot-Beatnuts are great and aphex twin, don't know the others
hardhead, N.E.R.D rocks, so do the sneaker pimps, again, don't know the others
lastly, you guys all rock, i have so many new cds to buy, i am in heaven!!!!!!!!!!!!!! thank you all, and keep them coming
i'm gonna make a definitive list of all this new stuff, man, you guys are awesome!
http://www.againstme.net/
Franz Ferdinand - they won't be unknown for long.
Xiu Xiu - Kinda like Momus but less pretentious are more disturbed.
Broken Social Scene
The Walkmen
And some old favs - JSBX, Yo La Tengo, Mogwai
And Pulp (sorta unknown in US and Canada)
Originally posted by 709
If you're going to pick up a Grandaddy CD, pick up 'The Sophtware Slump'. I think it's their finest.
That's the first one I got so it's got that something special... but Under the Western Freeway has become my favorite and Sumday is pretty nice.
Other bands I like are (in no order):
Trans Am
The Sea and Cake
Sparklehorse
The Flaming Lips
Air
Add N to (X)
Cornelius
Ladytron
Sebadoh
Jets to Brazil
Jawbreaker
Hot Water Music
Tom Waits
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
Nick Drake
Django Reinhardt
www.selfies.com
Gilby Clarke
Izzy Stradlin
Velvet Revolver
Andreas Johnson
Slash' Snakepit
Some names I could remember off-handedly
Originally posted by markiv
Few of my favorite band/artists which aren't very popular for some reason:
Gilby Clarke
Izzy Stradlin
Velvet Revolver
Andreas Johnson
Slash' Snakepit
Some names I could remember off-handedly
Nice list
Rock and roll is back . . . actually, there's some stuff on the new album that's so damn thick; I don't know if I've ever heard anything so thick. It was like Charles Ives on speed, driving an 18 wheeler, and crashing into a tank of nitro glycerine.
16 Horsepower
Big Blue Hearts
Brad Sucks
Candlebox
Cave In
Fastball
Fenix TX
Ides of Space
Jets to Brazil
Protein
The Rosebuds
Zumpano