Could've Been A Contender.......bands that could've been / should have been

[REM]

Deaf School



Ralph

[Joe]

Big Star seemed to flash brightly in the late 80's when everyone fell in love with Teenage Fanclub and realised that Bandwagonesque sounded just like Big Star. Alex Chilton came out of retirement and they toured for a while. I've never checked them out personally, mind...

You should; they're great. I have an Alex Chilton solo LP 'Like Flies on Sherbet' which is one of the strangest records ever made. Mostly left-field cover versions, it includes a drunken take on "Boogie Shoes' that makes me smile every time I hear it.

My own 'nearly men' would be The Flamin' Groovies. 'Shake Some Action' should have been mega.

[The Grand Wazoo]

You should; they're great. I have an Alex Chilton solo LP 'Like Flies on Sherbet' which is one of the strangest records ever made. Mostly left-field cover versions, it includes a drunken take on "Boogie Shoes' that makes me smile every time I hear it.

My own 'nearly men' would be The Flamin' Groovies. 'Shake Some Action' should have been mega.

Joe, your taste in music seems to have many parallels to mine!!

I've just discovered The Flamin Groovies, having recently got hold of a copy of 'Teenage Head'. I always liked 'Shake Some Action', but I think the earlier stuff even much better - I'll be buying more!

Alex Chilton's solo stuff is a bit odd and very patchy, I feel.

[aquapiranha]

Deaf School



Ralph

I remember hearing about this ages ago, I meant to have a look for a Cd and now just found this...

http://www.play.com/Music/CD/4-/1371...y/Product.html

Lots of Peel session stuff there too! thanks for the reminder!

[The Grand Wazoo]

The Only Ones

I'm listening to 'Baby's Got a Gun' at the moment, but their first album is a complete triumph: seedy rock music with thoughful, romantically inclined lyrics. It got lumped in with punk - that's the trouble with pigeon-holing.

My sister used to have a blue vinyl 12" copy of 'Out There in the Night' - I wish I'd snagged that when I had the chance! A song about a cat that got lost(!!) I haven't heard it for yonks.....1979 seems like a loooooooong time ago.

Note to self - Gotta get a copy of 'From Here to Eternity'

[DanJennings]

XTC, I'm fairly obviously going to say, because they're my favourite band, one of the greatest english pop groups ever, and nobody's really heard of them. Shame.

Jellyfish: Released two unbelievably gorgeous albums, then split up. Think pet sounds era beach boys, with paul mccartney singing and louder guitars.

One Minute Silence: The metal version of Rage Against the machine?

Drongos For Europe: still going, as good as any of the original english punk bands.

Van Der Graaf Generator: One of the more original prog rock bands, one of the least well known

The Chrysanthemums: Mad quirky lofi pop, with daft but amusing lyrics and very strange instrumentation.

Martin Newell, excellent poet, that's made some great records, one of them was produced by Andy Partridge you know

[NRG]

The Vulgar Boatmen

http://www.youtube.com/results?searc...rch_type=&aq=f

[The Grand Wazoo]

I’ve had the day off work today & have been idly noodling around on the information superbridleway in between getting some things done & I stumbled across a reference to Brenda Holloway & ‘Every Little Bit Hurts’

I remembered that there had been loads of cover versions of this song & so I have been playing different versions of it all afternoon:
Spencer Davis,
Small Faces,
Robert Plant,
Alisha Keys,
The Clash,
The Jam

…….. I particularly enjoyed a quite recent video clip of The Spencer Davis Group playing it.


The guitarist was Miller Anderson, who I used to see quite a bit playing in a little band called Woodbine in various towns in Sussex, years ago, brought about because we had mutual friends. Miller has played in a huge number of bands in the past – I knew a few of them, but discovered today the full extent of his promiscuousness!

Selected highlights are:
Keef Hartley Band (1968 - 1971)
Savoy Brown (1974)
Blood Sweat and Tears (1975)
T.Rex (1976- 1977)
Donovan (1977 - 1978)
Stan Webb's Speedway (1982)
Chicken Shack (1984)
Mountain (1985)
Spencer Davis Group (1985 to now)
Jon Lord Band
Deep Purple (Concerto for Group & Orchestra gigs)
Roger Chapman
Maggie Bell
Zoot Money

He has what guitarists call 'great tone'
So why has almost nobody heard of him?

[Alex_UK]

As I requested the exhumation, I guess I'd better be the first to post on the resurrection...

Chris has already mentioned The Jayhawks (which was how I found this thread, as I wondered if anyone else was a fan.) Most of my music collection could perhaps be described as "bands that could've / should have been" but one in particular springs to mind, a band that I thought were going to be huge, but doesn't look that way... at the time (early 2006) I though they would fit right in with their 80's revival electropop sound, and a cute singer, which never hurts... Anyway, so my first nomination goes to The Modern - although for various reasons, they changed their name to The Matinee Club then back again, and as far as I can tell, disappeared into obscurity. Actually, how can you disappear into obscurity, when you're already obscure...? Anyway, I give you - The Modern - Industry could've, should've, wasn't... http://vimeo.com/90047

Another one that springs to mind is Mazzy Star - maybe I spent the 90's under a rock, but I'd never heard of them until I joined this esteemed forum... (well, not as a band, having heard Hope Sandaval appearing in a couple of records but not realising her heritage.) They had moderate success with Fade Into You - an absolutely awesome song, (see below) and I quickly snapped up their 3 albums (on CD, not on vinyl, I'm not made of money...) - it really is a crime that they didn't achieve commercial success, IMHO, of course!



Sure there will be others to add that I will think of now I know this thread exists!

[Jason P]

Oohh, some good ones here. Love Martin Stephenson and the Daintees, have followed him for years...

Of the same sort of age, but from a different perspective, I always thought TheThe never got the credit or fame they/he rightly deserved... all the more relevant today...





On a more contemporary note, this chap should, if there is any justice in the world, be massive...




And yes, he does look like Tim Minchin!