Obscure 60s-70s-ish bands

[danlo]

It's pretty hard to dig up exactly where we had this conversation before (we probably talked about some of these groups in the Prog thead), but I'll namedrop a bunch and maybe get a discussion going.

IOW lesser known bands around the 70s that you have a soft spot for. Let's see if you actually know or have heard of any of these. (inspired by Lord Zombiac's posts)

The Nazz (Todd Rundgred's old band)
The Move
Rhinoceros
The Nice (Emerson)
Atomic Rooster (Palmer)
Captain Beefheart
Captain Beyond
Ultimate Spinach
H. P. Lovecraft
Gentle Giant
Van Der Graff Generator
Lindesfarne
The Horslips
The Grass Roots
Dan Hicks & His Hot Licks
Kingfish (Bob Weir's band)
Seatrain
Hot Tuna (Jack Casady and Jorma Kaukonen formerly of Jefferson Airplane)
Arthur Lee
Pentangle
Pentagram
Renaissance
Manassas (Stephen Stills)
Uriah Heep
The GODZ
November
Pavlov's Dog
Sir Lord Baltimore
Thirteenth Floor Elevators
Moby Grape
Blues Cheer
Climax Blues Band (like Manassas and Uriah Heap you've probably heard of these guys)

just to name a few

[sgt.null]

we have music sations with our cable company. no vids just the music. so anyway... they play lots of Captain Beyond. I have been looking for the Lovecraft albums.

Captain Beyond - Dancing Madly Backwards
www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AIszddHZEs

HP Lovecraft - At The Mountains Of Madness
www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHxuWBzBbpw

[Lord Zombiac]

I used to think this song was the Moody Blues...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnFZsrs32Co

[Lord Zombiac]

the Chocolate Watchband

[Relayer]

the Chocolate Watchband

I second that!

[dANdeLION]

I'll name a few that I like:

Flash
Flash and the Pan
Elf
Electromagnets
Bruford

[Relayer]

Flash!! I just saw them today. Really.

No, really. They headlined the first day at ProgDay in Chapel Hill, NC.
www.progday.net/ProgDay-Bands.html

I'm familiar with some of their older music from when Peter Banks was in the band but hadn't really heard them much. I think I'll be exploring more of them after hearing them today.

[finn]

There were two double albums released in the late 60s/early 70s; they were samplers from Island and Chrysalis and between them were a good whos who guide to the bands of the sometimes lesser know bands at that time. Bumpers is one (link below) I can't find a link to Picnic which was the other.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bumpers_(album)

I saw a good few of the bands on Danlo's list and actually supported Atomic Rooster (post Carl Palmer) with my college band.... they were real arseholes! The Move were great and Renaissance were awesome live.

Other bands I recall were:

Spooky Tooth,
Traffic,
PFM,
Focus (who just saw a revival of their song Hocus Pocus as the theme for the FIFA World Cup....at least here in Oz)
Refugee (the Nice with Patrick Moraz relacing Emerson)
Plynth (A great live band, I don't think they recorded tho')
Groundhogs
Edgar Broughton Band
Bloodwyn Pig
Mott the Hoople (before Bowie)
Heads, Hands and Feet
Blind Faith
Thunderclap Newman
Hawkwind
Osibisa
McGuinness Flint
Curved Air

....I'm sure I'll remember others now tha I've started trolling through the darker regions of memory..............

[danlo]

Wow! McGuiness Flint and Curved Air! I LOVE Curved Air-totally forgot about them!!! (admits he once owned a Flash in the Pan album)

Traffic and Blind Faith aren't obscure, at least not to the, older, me...

I saw Renaissance live, as well, in '74 and yes they were astounding.

One of the GREATEST instrumental albums (and totally obscure) of all time is Gian Piero Reverberi's Timer (I had it in '76)...You MUST listen to this, it will CHANGE you life and make you VERY happy!

[finn]

I'll check it out, yeah I guess "obscure" is only relevant to the no officianados a good many of the bands in your list were well known to me, certainly I'd never had called the Nice or the Move or Lindisfarne obscure!

Curved Air released an album with pictures of a naked Sonje Christina (I think it was Airconditioning) printed "in" the vinyl and released a single Back Street Love which did well. They also had a young Stewart Copeland (Police) drumming for them for a while.

McGuinness Flint did the amazing, When I'm Dead and Gone which I've covered for some 25 years on my battered old mandolin, I think it was a Gallagher and Lyle song but still gets everyone on their feet.

[Vraith]

I'll check it out, yeah I guess "obscure" is only relevant to the no officianados a good many of the bands in your list were well known to me, certainly I'd never had called the Nice or the Move or Lindisfarne obscure!

Heh...never heard of 2 of those 3, but same list I was like "Who the hell doesn't know Nazz, H.P., Hot Tuna?"...then I remembered, generally speaking, E.L.&P., King Crimson, hell, even Tori Amos and Ramstein are "obscure."

[finn]

Yeah they are to the kids today, I mean its probably 25 years since I bought my last ELP album.

Curiously enough a lot of the kids are looking at these bands as source material, much like the Stones did with Muddy Waters or Clapton with Robert Johnson. I talk with young musos who want to get certain sounds and I say "what like XXXX?" and they say "who?" ....... I'll avoid the ovbvious pun here!

Not so many are after the "prog" things like concept pieces or virtuoso 8 minute solos, but they want the tones and sound these guys had, a lot of which were shades of sound rather than block coloured sounds, which a lot of the later effects and combinations of effects created. I've been doing similar (posted a thread on this - gear junkies) trying to use a pure guitar/amp sound and using effects to add a couple of % to get the tone I want rather than drowning the natural voice in "modelled" sounds.

I like to think if the kids are heading down this path there's hope.... may re-dux the thread in 2030!

[Lord Zombiac]

I don't personally care much for prog rock, but I love the first Genesis album and also the Strawbs.
I love your signature, btw, finn. Winston Churchill isone of my favorites. Did he say all of those or are the other ones someone else?

[finn]

He said some amazing things, "fight them on the beaches" and "never before in the field of human conflict......" etc aside.

To Bessie Braddock....

"Winston you are drunk, horribly drunk"

"Madam you are ugly, horribly ugly, but tomorrow I will be sober"

On Atlee...........

A modest man, who has much to be modest about

On the qualifications to be a politician..........

The ability to foretell what is going to happen tomorrow, next week, next month, and next year. And to have the ability afterwards to explain why it didn't happen.

On Cripps.....

He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire

On a former Conservative standing as a Liberal........

The only recorded instance in history of a rat swimming towards a sinking ship

On Atlee....

A sheep in sheep's clothing.

On the Americans....

The Americans will always do the right thing . . . After they've exhausted all the alternatives.

A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty

...............and there are many more.

As for the Sig. quotes, the first is indeed Churchill, the second is courtesy of the amazing mind of Peter Ustinov, the third is an unattributed bumper sticker............................

The fourth is our very own Kaydene!

[lucimay]

wait wait wait a minute!

how the hell is TRAFFIC "obscure"???

no. no no no. Spooky Tooth? no. not obscure.
Blind Faith? no. no. no.

URIAH HEEP OBSCURE???? pah! no i say.

mott the hoople obscure? not.


okay MAYbe Blind Faith was a sort of musician's band.
its true that not a lot of people that i know that AREN'T musicians
know who Blind Faith is / was...whatever.


i've got a couple for ya.

The Strawbs.
Forever More.

[danlo]

Well, I guess it does depend on how old you are, your musical genre and your location. Take Lindesfarne and Camel for example--since neither band ever toured in the US almost nobody here has ever heard of them. The Nazz is, kinda, a conundrum...they grew out of a more English 'Mercy Beats' heritage (even though they're Americans) if you play Open My Eyes to a US oldie afficiando they'll identify it immediately, but many other Americans won't even know who the band is. And if you play Hello It's Me those same people will immediately say, "Todd Rundgren" having no clue that the Nazz originally released it.

When I was in high school everyone knew who Blind Faith was because of the nude prepubescent girl on the album cover holding a dildo (like John and Yoko's naked cover it was widely circulated). Eric Clapton didn't make a move without being followed everywhere and aside from that Traffic's John Barleycorn Must Die was very popular, at least on the east coast so many people knew who Steve Windwood, Chris Wood and Dave Mason were. Which brings up another obscure band: Family, perhaps well known in Britain at the time, but almost no one in American had a clue who Ric Grech was...the consensus, however, was that it (Blind Faith) was one of the greatest records of all time.

I have mentioned H. P. Lovecraft many times throughout the years to folks in RL and on the net, and while many are interested in finding the music, I've only met 1% who have actually listened to them.

I agree that Uriah Heap is not obscure--I've heard Easy Livin' and The Wizard on the radio about as much as I've heard Traffic's The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys, if not more (and that's a lot). I thought it was a requirement for Fantasy fans to listen to Uriah Heep while reading Moorcock and Hawkwind while reading Zelazny, LOL.

[finn]

Wow, I'd forgotten about Family, they did the rounds when I was a school as did Incredible String Band and Collesium. I loved the Strawbs and Antiques and Curios is still on the shelf somewhere.

As for obscurity, well none of the ones listed are that obscure for any of us who remember them, however there are memories of some of these guys that are obscured by the years a bit. Growing up in the UK we had an amazing revolution of new music and bands formed and broke up every other day. We'd get the more mainstream of US obscurity and I'd guess that would apply too in the other direction with you getting our 'not quite so obscure' offerings.

[danlo]

I used to have the Strawbs' Ghost and bought (probably in '76 or '77) it because I really dug Lemon Pie which I heard on some bizarre underground radio station at 3am in the morning...

[finn]

Never got beyond A&Cswith the Strawbs, only ever herad it because someone played the track with "....I feel her nipples at my fingertips" which for pubescent schoolboys was a riot! I got into Rick W then with his excellent solo on "Where is this Dream of your Youth" it was at the same time I was listening to Emerson and the Nice and the whole keyboard thing kicked in for me.

Luci, I must say that early Mott the Hoople were seriously underground/prog. and kicked serious arse live, one of the best gigs of my life in a small hall in Dartford. Later on they became far blander....and less obscure imo .

[dANdeLION]

Happy The Man