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Greatest Bands Never to "Make It"

Two bands that I used to like;

Twelfth Night - Great live, with their God-bothering lead singer, but he left and they became just another heavy rock band.

Crazyhead - Great live, too and produced the rather good studio album, Desert Orchid, did one more OK album and then dissappeared. Any band with a Bass player called Porkbeast deserves respect!
 
NME were/are a great and well respected band over here in
Germany esp. Hamburg.
Justin Sullivan will do a show in Hamburg at the weekend
to support our local football club "Fc St. Pauli".
www.fcst.pauli.de

As for Aussie bands, there were a few back in the 80´s who never made it big in Europe back then. Hunters & Collectors,
Redgum and one of my all time favourite party bands
The Skyhooks.

BTW the new Go Betweens´ album is called Bright Yellow Bright Orange and is a brilliant one IMO.

Cheers
Gernot
 
They were good. Hard rock and a bit new wave with flavours of prog and folk, good rythms, knack for a hook.

Why weren't they massive? There were hordes of crap rock bands in the late 70s/early 80s that ultimately filled arenas and sold millions of records by mere virtue of constant touring.

Well actually, I think they bagged a gold disc or two. In truth this msg is an excuse to post this stirling record sleeves.

It doesn't put a foot wrong. A naked woman, in heels, standing in a glass tube, on what looks like a bit of old carpet, holding a guitar...THAT'S ON FIRE!!!
 
A Manchester band who were often compared to The Stone Roses for a number of reasons. Firstly for their music, and secondly for the amount of time it took them to produce a follow up album.
The Stone Roses took about 5 years, Apple Violet took about 7. The difference was that the Apple Violet album lived up to expectation and was far superior to the first.
It has been 6 years since the release of 'Soundsound', rumour has it there will be a new album later this year.
The band seem to prefer playing gigs rather than releasing records. If you get the chance you must see them live!
 
AFAIR they only produced one album. Called Breathe Awhile it also had naked women on the cover, though more in the Titian style. It's available from Amazon on CD and the LP is reputed to be worth a fortune and no, I won't sell.

My school mate Rob Ross introduced me to them when I was 14. He'd seen them live and gave the drummer the lace from his baseball boots to hold the kit together for the last part of the gig.

I was never very good at naming musical styles other than rock, pop and classical so lets say it was heavy rock but not metalic, if that makes sense.

The other band of the time not to make it of course was Function, where I played bass. Formed whilst at school we had two drummers, Dave and Tony; alternating on a kit and bongos, Chris on lead guitar and Dave on rhythm and occasional keyboards. We did a few gigs in local pubs, one as support band at a local university and one where the music teacher wrote the score for a school play for us, for which we all had to learn to read music.

We played covers of Taj Mahal; Six Days on the Road being a favourite, Chicago, others I can't remember plus a few of our own compositions.

Sadly we disbanded after about 3 years and went our own separate "grown up" ways. Fortunately, we spent a day in a recording studio, just for laughs, and I still have the cassette. Great stuff.

Mick
 
Have to agree with matthewr here. Galaxy 500 sound like the Velvets doing "The Ocean" on the 1969 live album, but better.
Today and On Fire are both fine albums.
 
Loop made fabulous dark psychedelia in the late 1980's, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club borrow bits of their sound.
Big Black where uncomfortable listening but no holds barred in terms of subject matter / how loud you can turn up the drum machine.
 
Big Black were wonderful. I think they definitely "made it", however - they had a large impact, and Steve Albini made his name as a producer as a result.

His current band, Shellac, are even better than Big Black IMO - particularly the At Action Park album.

-- Ian
 
Spookily enough I've been digging out my old Big Black lps lately to see how my hifi would cope, just as harsh, slamming, painful and glorious as I could hope for...
I'm with Sideshow that they made it as much as anybody making music as extreme as Big Black could hope for. I reckon a double A-side of The Model and Kerosene could do well in the chart though... the Linkin Park kids would love it!!
 
Good lord, other Big Black fans.... I thought I was the only person ever to hear of them! They were fabulous weren't they - still sounds fantastic today. Shellac rock too, and I agree - Action Park is the best album.

"I guess they know..... I'm not no company man but I can pull on a rope, to kill a cow, as well as any other f@*&£r can". What a lyric. The song 'Bazooka Joe' has sampled heavy machine guns for drums. Awesome :D
 
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