Favorite Musicians No One's Ever Heard Of

[deepthroat]

Here's another favorite that only a few have probably heard of, although you've probably heard some of his soundtrack work.

 

Guy's name is Craig Armstrong, a Scottish composer. He's a guy that switches easily between classical, electronic, and rock stuff. I first heard of him when he worked with Massive Attack on their Protection album, and they then helped him to get some of his earlier stuff released. 

 

Here's one of my favorites - it's his reinterpration of perhaps the greatest King Crimson track of all time, "Starless". Robert Fripp actually gave him access to the original 1974 tracks and Armstrong then sampled and it wrote an orchestral score around it.

 

[dixon cox]

I've always been a big fan of instrumentals and one which has lived in my mind for 40+ years is Sylvia by Focus. I have an original 7" single back in the UK too. It may be a while but you've probably all heard it before, but I like it so much I don't care if it's unheard of or not 
 
While searching for a decent youtube clip I came across this cover version, it is incredible and well worth a listen.

 

 

The original:

[pdogg]

Here's a live version of Focus' biggest hit, Hocus Pocus, at a Dutch rock festival.

 

And a way to test if videos are properly loading on my laptop.

 

[Jimslim]

I loved this band when I was a kid , The Action one of those sixties mod bands who never quite made it big .

 

A shame really as they were so soulful .

 

This would still be in my all time top ten tunes .

 

[Jimslim]

Not exactly unheard off but seeing as its a b side it counts .

 

My all time favourite tune by my all time favourite band .

 

Steve Marriott was my hero sadly taken from us way too soon , the best white soul singer ever .

 

[-J-]

This is one of my all time favorites

You can read more about this guy who was mostly unknown for many years until a recent doco here

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sixto_Rodriguez

 

 

 

 

[Tomcat]

Here's a live version of Focus' biggest hit, Hocus Pocus, at a Dutch rock festival.

 

And a way to test if videos are properly loading on my laptop.

 

 

 

Thats the studio version overlaid on film. the live version is different as ive got the original live version on bootleg vinyl and the sound quality is awfull sorry to say . Jan Akkermann was the best rock/jazz guitarist ever IMO.. amazing

 

I was in a band for 6 years and i can tell you that the opening chord work on Hocus Pocus alone is frightening and its still debated to this day the correct fingering  ( we used to cover this)

 

 

[deepthroat]

Did someone say "cover version of Hocus Pocus"????

 

Here's one of my favorite bands - Marillion - playing a creditable version at their fan convention in Holland - I was there! Look closely you might even spot me in the crowd.

 

[Hefe]

God, how I miss these guys... saw them a few times back in the haze. Dan was in what was probably the first "psychedelic" San Francisco band in the mid 60s: The Charlatans, they predated The Grateful Dead & most of the others that became more well known. 

 

 

[Hefe]

So here's a band I never heard of until they mysteriously appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show (1965-66ish) & made an absolutely indelible impression on me with their live peformance then...   apparently they opened for the Beatles on a few American shows & were legendary in Boston area but never broke through. Someone even made a documentary a few years ago about them. Barry & The Remains.

 

Some great gogo dancing too!  

 

From the wiki:  Mark Kemp, in Paste Magazine (June 2007): "Had these Boston bad boys stuck it out beyond their 1966 debut, we might today be calling them--and not the Stones--the World's Greatest Rock 'n' Roll Band. As it is, The Remains most certainly are America's greatest lost band."

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obENRIZ7zAg

[Hefe]

Just one more, I swear!   I'm listening to some music tonight, I just can't sleep.

 

If you like Dr. John, keyboards or blue-eyed soul I think you'll like this guy. I'd be astounded if anyone here knows of him: Ronnie Barron. 

 

In the late '50s Ronnie & his childhood friend Mac Rebbennack (later Dr John) were in bands together starting as young teenagers, Mac told Ronnie's mom he would watch out for the much younger boy on the road. During some kind of fight at a hotel Mac tried to protect Ronnie & a gun went off hitting Mac's finger & thus ending his budding career as a guitarist, focusing on piano after then.

 

Ronnie developed a "character" that he would assume when he played the clubs on Bourbon St, the "Reverend Ether", that drew crowds with his call & response style r&b act. He & Mac devised another character based on voodoo schtick they called Dr John & Mac assumed Ronnie would incorporate it into his act, but Ronnie decided to move to L.A. & let Mac become Dr. John The Night Tripper instead. Pretty interesting how life works out huh?

 

Check this out, he's just riffing in his apartment for a friend, very off the cuff, but he works it!  You should have seen him in full voice with a hot band performing this... just awesome to behold.  His albums aren't that great unfortunately, but he has a lot of good sideman cuts around. He had a bit part in the indy film "Above The Law".

He was never a well guy & died young of a heart condition, I suspect not long after this video was shot. 

 

[Tomcat]

Did someone say "cover version of Hocus Pocus"???

 

We used to cover the song in practice between ourselves  . Thats what i meant. Our lead Guitarist was a Focus nut and went on to become a top session guy. We were not a full time professional band but a group of guys at College who were all Musicians and played as a hobby really for drunken student gigs etc. The only involvement i have in the Industry now is designing RFI mains filters for certain Audio Visual applications ..some of which have won many Industry awards as some of the BMs here know

 

That cleared that up i hope

 

Also Deepthroat if your into sarcasm i suggest you try it on someone else.  So go fuck yourself

 

 

[KenW]

 

 

Also Deepthroat if your into sarcasm i suggest you try it on someone else.  So go fuck yourself

 

O come on, that's a bit over-sensitive. I see nothing offensive or sarcastic in post #133 by our friend from Porcupine Tree.

 

One of the no-one's heard of musicians who I still enjoy is Southside Johnny. Coming from the Jersey Coast and playing with a band called the Asbury Jukes, he was for a while a scion of Springsteen. So it's not really that no one ever heard of him; The Boss did.

 

http://www.translatum.gr/forum/index.php?topic=30747.0

 

And with The Boss:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UK5MBMBQ9R4

[deepthroat]

Also Deepthroat if your into sarcasm i suggest you try it on someone else.  So go fuck yourself

 

TC, if I offended you I really don't know how, but I'll apologize anyway.... I wasn't being sarcastic (at least not intentionally) and honestly don't have a clue what you're reacting to or why.

 

I'm a huge Marillion fan, hence the trip to Holland from Montana in the dead of winter. That's what my post was about. 

 

[deepthroat]

This is probably stretching the bounds of the thread subject, but what the hell. One of my favorite bands of the 80's was Iva Davies and Icehouse. Australian pop band, heavily influenced by Roxy Music. Iva has started performing again and here's a video of one song from last year at the Sydney Entertainment Center:

 

 

 

And then here they are back in their glory days, my favorite track by the band and one that never got any airplay here in the USA:

 

[deepthroat]

And what the hell, why not give a quick plug for another of my favorite 80's bands, which has actually undergone a fantastic crticial reapraisal the past couple of years, with critics reaching for the thesaurus to dig out new terms to convey "ahead of their time" and "genius". Shrugged off as a run-of-the-mlll pop band due to their big radio hits like "Talk Talk" and "It's My Life", the band increasingly moved into more artistic and jazzy explorations on their last couple of classic albums as their perfectionist lead singer/songwriter Mark Hollis took sole control of the bands work, partnering with producer extraoridinare Tim Friese-Green.

 

According to Wikipedia: "Their final two albums, Spirit of Eden and Laughing Stock, were highly acclaimed and remain influential to experimental alternative rock genres, especially post-rock^"

 

My favorite though is their "Colour of Spring" album which featured their biggest hit "Life's What You Make It".

 

My favorite track from the album is "I Don't Believe In You"

 

 

Nearly as good though, and from the same album, is "Hapiness Is Easy"

 

 

 

What's that? This is a thread about "musicians NO ONE'S ever heard of"????

 

Sorry.

[deepthroat]

OK, returning to topic remit, here's a band I can say with near-certainty that none of you lot have ever heard of!

 

This is a German prog band called Sylvan. The track below is from their best album, 2006 release "Posthumous Silence", a concept album (of course!) about... something. They're German, the lyrics are hard to follow, and to be honest I was more intrigued by the mood of the songs than the actual meanings.

 

I was such a fan of this album that when I found out they were playing a show in Baja California just after the album was released, I kicked in $500 towards the cost of getting them to come to Seattle to play a show for a bunch of like-minded friends. My web site was listed on the concert flyers as "sponsored by xxxxxxxx" which still tickles me to this day.

 

The show was amazing, they played the entire album along with another hour of music from past albums, all for the 25 or 30 folks that were in the tiny club we booked for the show.

 

 

[pacman]

This is probably stretching the bounds of the thread subject, but what the hell. One of my favorite bands of the 80's was Iva Davies and Icehouse. Australian pop band, heavily influenced by Roxy Music. Iva has started performing again and here's a video of one song from last year at the Sydney Entertainment Center:

 

You do have the most eclectic taste in music. I would not have credited you to have even heard of Icehouse let alone be a fan.

 

Your timing is good though, earlier this month Iva was honoured with an Order of Australia medal for his services to music but most importantly for his anthem song "Great Southern Land". It's one of the great Australian anthem songs. The other two are "Khe Sanh" by Cold Chisel & "Only Nineteen" by Redgum. 

 

There are plenty of other songs that could be argued are just as important but those are the three I like. And the last two are about the Vietnam War. How weird is that?

[pacman]

TC, if I offended you I really don't know how, but I'll apologize anyway.... I wasn't being sarcastic (at least not intentionally) and honestly don't have a clue what you're reacting to or why.

 

When there's no offence there's nothing to apologise about. I am quite shocked by the reaction. I'm sure I owe someone an apology before you do....           

[SiamSam]

When there's no offence there's nothing to apologise about. I am quite shocked by the reaction. I'm sure I owe someone an apology before you do....           

 

Undoubtedly 

[deepthroat]

Thanks Pacman!

 

I was a huge Icehouse fan and had tickets to see their first Seattle concert (behind the "Flowers" or in USA "Icehouse" album) but had to work that night and missed it. They only returned to Seattle on the Crazy tour, and Man Of Colours was my favorite LP at the time so I actually stood outside the stage door in the rain the day before the show, listening to them soundcheck. One of the security guys took pity on me and offered to let me in the following night.

 

After the show the next night, the keyboard player came outside and gave me a backstage pass, then escorted me and introduced me to each of the band members. At last he introduced me to Iva, who was a very nice guy. Not knowing that Iva had received a lot of slagging in the UK and Aussie press for "ripping off" Roxy Music's sound (they got NO press in the USA) I eventually asked if the parallels between his sound and Roxy Music were intentional (was he a Roxy fan?) and he suddenly went cold and my little meet and greet was done. The keyboard player explained as he was escorting me out about the crap Iva got in the press about the Roxy comparison, and I realized I'd touched the hot button.

 

I was also a huge fan of Midnight Oil, and saw them on 3 ocassions in Seattle, and got to meet them before one of the shows. I even requested one of their more obscure catalog tracks ("Jimmy Sharman's Boxers") when I was talking to Peter Garrett, and low and behold, it was their final encore that night!

 

As for my apology.... I don't understand how anything I said could have been offensive, but what the heck. TC's a good guy, he was probably just having a bad day or read something into the post that was not intended.

[globetrotter]

How about The Fixx, a fave of mine way back when ...

[pacman]

I was also a huge fan of Midnight Oil, and saw them on 3 ocassions in Seattle, and got to meet them before one of the shows. I even requested one of their more obscure catalog tracks ("Jimmy Sharman's Boxers") when I was talking to Peter Garrett, and low and behold, it was their final encore that night!

 

Good call on Midnight Oil. They were/are a great band. They don't perform much these days, Peter Garrett is today the Minister for Education in the current Federal government. I would have wrote they don't perform at all but there was some remembrance gig this year where they made a surprise appearance.

 

Garrett is a great front man, he puts so much into his shows. I don't know who you know to get to meet them but that must have been a thrill when they played your song. Or their song rather, the one you requested. I don't even know it but I do remember the name Jimmy Sharman. He ran a troupe of boxers that he took to all the town fairs back in the first half of the last century.

 

Here's a pic of Garrett as you wouldn't know him. It's him in his day job speaking in Parliament. Quite a difference to how you would remember him.