• TalkBass has been independent since 1998. Add your voice.
    Create a free account to reply to discussions, view embedded media, and browse with fewer display ads.
    Join free Log in
    Want zero display ads or expanded classifieds tools? Compare plans.

Acts that you thought would make it....

MultiScaleMale

MultiScaleMale

Gold Supporting Member
Jun 19, 2003
27,208
38,986
Maryland
#1
...but went nowhere. I'll go first -

1) Whoever that kid was that sang in my kid's elementary school's production of Annie. She had a phenomenal voice, not just for a kid, and I was certain I'd see her on America's Got Talent or The Voice in a few years.

2) Alice Merton when "No Roots" hit the scene. I guess she's still active but never achieved much fame after "No Roots".

3) Medina - Danish singer that still does well in the EU market, but maybe too much like Lady GaGa to break into the US market.

4) A local guy Wes McDonough who moved to Nashville and I was certain that I was going to see him on tour. He's also a financial advisor or something, so it's tough to take a risk and the big dip in pay to maybe get a chance at something. Maybe if he hit Nashville when he was 21. Talent alone isn't enough, you need timing as well. Anyways, I don't know about his situation, just that he has a great voice.
 
  • Like
Reactions: db59
#2
MultiScaleMale said:
4) A local guy Wes McDonough who moved to Nashville and I was certain that I was going to see him on tour. He's also a financial advisor or something, so it's tough to take a risk and the big dip in pay to maybe get a chance at something. Maybe if he hit Nashville when he was 21. Talent alone isn't enough, you need timing as well. Anyways, I don't know about his situation, just that he has a great voice.
Click to expand...
I often say that my possibilty of being a full time jazz musician was prevented by my financial circumstances growing up.

If my family had been "rich" (define that how you will) I would have just moved to NYC and let Mommy and Daddy support my scuffling lifestyle till I started making it (or not).

If I had grown up dirt poor, I would have moved to NYC and said "well, I already lived 8 people to a three room apartment with no heat in the winter, I can handle scuffling in New York".

But I grew up middle-middle-income; we always had what we needed but not a lot extra; so I compared going to NYC and scuffling for several years versus getting a useful degree and coming out at 22 with a secure job, benefits, retirementn plan, and enough left over every month to put some savings away and afford a few luxuries; and the choice was stark.
 
  • Like
Reactions: WG Plum, viper4000, gln1955 and 6 others
#6
There was a band out of Nashville called Vinyl Thief that I saw in New Haven, CT, at Toad's, opening for the Joy Formidable. Gave a stunning opening set, and IMO were the best opening act I had never heard of before. They released an EP and I think maybe at one point a full album but never wound up going anywhere.



 
#11
I thought a band called Irving would hit it. Their disk "Death in the Garden, Blood on the Flowers" had some catchy tracks, but now it is harder to find.
Joanna Newsom -- her modest success does not measure up to her talent as a music writer and player.
I know some very talented musicians. Regardless of how great your musical talent, the chance of making it big seems very small, hey? Thankfully, lots of talented people keep playing for the love of music. And fortunately, some of those talents are patient enough to play with hacks like me
 
  • Like
Reactions: CaribooBass
#15
There was a period up through the early or mid-90s was probably the last time the major labels displayed real interest in signing performers who didn't conform to conventional pop expectations, and it might have been the best/worst time to be in a guitar band doing what you want rather than trying to do what will chart. Grunge made the biggest dent, but there was so much else going on, and any one of them might've made it big if circumstances had allowed it.

Late 80s, white kids being silly while playing funk? No, not the RHCP, but Dogzilla.


It feels like in the early 90s every city and college town had a singer-songwriter guy writing catchy fun pop songs who couldn't quite break through, either as solo acts or bandleaders. Like the rest of them, Frank Allison & The Odd Sox were intensely popular for a couple years in a few isolated parts of the rust belt but never managed to get farther than that.


New Zealand was like a rock/pop factory in the 80s. For every Finn brother who made it big there were, I dunno, eighteen bands doing something nobody'd ever done before and managed to be hugely influential to certain people in early 90s American rock but noone else. The entire city of Dunedin was turned over to the production of great weird rock singles that disappeared into the crates of obsessive record collectors without seeing the light of day again.


 
  • Like
Reactions: corinpills
#16
I saw The Silent Comedy a few times when they toured, loved their live shows and I thought their album Common Faults was great. Never broke through but the brothers are still at it. . Also James Durbin. He has done ok, joining Quiet Riot after American Idol and doing his own album. He lives in Santa Cruz and I recently saw him do a local show. A down to earth guy. My kids knew his wife growing up. Amazing voice and range.
 
#20
My wife would often remark (as have most of us), 'THOSE guys are way better than what's on the radio', as have most of us at one time or another. You have to remember, this ain't the Olympics: Otherwise the best would be first, then second, etc. Those guys probably are 'better'. But . . . .

They did not have the luck and/or plan to work into 'the business'. Then if they did, could they stay there? Anyone you can think of that's had a long, many years career is the exception, and it's a far different band than the original situation: Now, they're a real business with CPA's, attorneys, employees, taxes, everything required for a company to do business across America or the world. That is a huge change for guys that would pool their money to argue over a bag of White Castles to survive to now studying the tax implications of where to park their money.

'It's Only Rock and Roll' only goes so far . . . . .
 
  • Like
Reactions: Bunk McNulty

Latest posts

Top Bottom
Back