I’ll add another- Jellyfish…the CD “Bellybutton “ made MTV, and was called album of the year by a number of mags. It was poppish, almost overly produced, but I really liked it. Jason Faulkner was brilliant, but they fell off the face of the planet.
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Acts that you thought would make it....
- Thread starter MultiScaleMale
- Start date
I thought they were more of an American XTC, sorta kinda. They were one of many bands stuck in the 120 Minutes/indie college station ghetto; by the end of the 80’s that whole scene was so diffused that they weren’t going to get that much attention. They gave it a shot, it’s not like they disappeared after one album, but after a while Donnette Thayer, who I played with in her later project, Hex, had different ambitions. Hell, that band could have gone somewhere, but the moment had passed stylistically, and it just ran out of steam. After the two studio-only incarnation releases with Steve Kilbey, we recorded an album, she shopped it, but no one wanted to know.
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- Oct 7, 2000
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They did a second album, good stuff, but the band was falling apart, that Cat-In-The-Hat neo-psychedelia was getting stale, grunge happened, bye-bye. Jason ended up in a great power-pop band, The Grays, with musical whiz kid Jon Brion…
They got a label push, but it fell apart as well.
After some solo albums, Jason has recently been playing with St. Vincent, and was on a McCartney album some time back.
Jellyfish’s Roger Manning came back with Imperial Drag…
But their retro glam vibe was at odds with the times, and suffered the same fate.
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I saw them at Hammerjacks in 1990. I never heard of them until I was living near Baltimore. They released albums but I don't think they got real big.
Back in the late 70's there was a band from Albuquerque called the Wumblies that played in bars throughout the central mountain region of the U.S. (New Mexico, Colorado, Arizona, Montana, Kansas, etc.). They were great musicians, with a gonzo guitarist and a terrific Robert-Plant-like singer, and put on a top-notch show (which included props and humor and killer lights/sound). The drummer was incredible. His name was Randy Castillo, and he also played regional bars in a great trio called The Offenders (whose bass player went on to be in the hair metal one-hit-wonder band Autograph). Castillo later went on to play for Ozzy Osbourne and Motley Crue. We all thought The Wumblies would make it. But back in those days, in that region, bands played covers--not originals--and I don't know if The Wumblies ever wrote or performed original music.
Another one... In the early 80's a band I was on the road with played at Cardi's (a huge nightclub) in San Antonio, opening for a local band called Heyoka. I believe some of their members were Native American. They were a prog-rock group, doing original music (as well as covers of Rush, Jethro Tull, Pink Floyd, etc), and they drew a big crowd. Great light show, fog, and friggin' lasers (in the early 80's!). I thought they were terrific and assumed they were destined for big things. But apparently it didn't come to pass. I just Googled them and learned that the band still plays occasionally around San Antonio.
Another one... In the early 80's a band I was on the road with played at Cardi's (a huge nightclub) in San Antonio, opening for a local band called Heyoka. I believe some of their members were Native American. They were a prog-rock group, doing original music (as well as covers of Rush, Jethro Tull, Pink Floyd, etc), and they drew a big crowd. Great light show, fog, and friggin' lasers (in the early 80's!). I thought they were terrific and assumed they were destined for big things. But apparently it didn't come to pass. I just Googled them and learned that the band still plays occasionally around San Antonio.
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First time I went to Hammerjacks, I took one look around at all that exposed timber and thought- “this place is gonna burn to the ground one day”….
Summer of 1977 -- or maybe it was Fall of 1978? -- I heard a guitarist named Lorne Leiber (or Leber?) playing around Berklee, and he had some of the most astonishing jazz/rock chops of any musician I had ever heard in person. He was like a blend of Al DiMeola and John McLaughlin incarnate, yet with a clarity and precision that those guys only achieve infrequently, and all without sacrificing palpable emotion/feeling. I was in complete awe of his command of the instrument, and I was convinced he was going to be the next big breakout star (presuming there is such a thing as a "star" in jazz/rock).
Not sure why I remembered his name not too long ago, but I wondered "Why haven't I heard anything from Lorne in these last ~45 years?" and so I Googled him.
Zero net presence. Nothing. Nada. WHAT HAPPENED TO THIS GUY?!?!?!
(fwiw I remember he played a black Les Paul Custom, and he used oddly shaped picks made of Plexiglass...which I think he told me he made himself.)
Not sure why I remembered his name not too long ago, but I wondered "Why haven't I heard anything from Lorne in these last ~45 years?" and so I Googled him.
Zero net presence. Nothing. Nada. WHAT HAPPENED TO THIS GUY?!?!?!
(fwiw I remember he played a black Les Paul Custom, and he used oddly shaped picks made of Plexiglass...which I think he told me he made himself.)
Was/Not Was had videos on MTV, appearances on the big nighttime talk shows. "Walk the Dinosaur" broke the Top 10 in the US, and was top-40 in almost all of Europe, most of their albums did well on the Billboard charts, most of their singles charted in the UK (and a bunch also charted in the US). The Was bros leveraged that success into very lucrative careers as producers and music industry honchos. Only way they could have done better than they have is if Madonna, Michael Jackson, and grunge hadn't existed.
There was a band based out of Ottawa in the late 70's early 80's called Galleon that I thought could make it.
Another band that should have been huge that some people will recognize was Spock's Beard.
Another band that should have been huge that some people will recognize was Spock's Beard.
No idea what happened behind the scenes, but I wish Muzz Skillings of the original Living Colour line up would have stuck with bass somewhere if not Living Colour. Really liked his playing.
I think he wanted to be a singer/songwriter, he started a group where he did/does that (not sure of the status). In a Living Colour compilation put out a few years after he left, he said in the liner notes that he left on good terms. And that seems to be true as he has occasionally substituted for Wimbish with LC (not sure when that last happened). But yes, he was so good on bass and in LC.
And, as you probably know, Manning is part of a group of long-time Beck collaborators along with TB's own JMJ--who's been St. Vincent's bassist and MD for a bit. Falkner's worked with Beck as well, albeit less frequently; he was on bass the one time I saw Beck around 2002 and he's played some guitar and bass on a couple of his albums. Those guys generally haven't been on Beck albums in a while, but JMJ said recently in his forum here that they're all working together on a new record.
Probably doesn't help at all but I found exactly one mention of Lorne Leber, in a post about bassist Edo Castro on a Russian social media site, which implied Leber was active in 1990. But it's just a namedrop, nothing more. Other spellings (Lieber, Leiber) didn't bring anything useful.
Usually when I search online for a person who isn't online I start by searching obituaries and death notices. Couldn't find anything that way, and hopefully that's good.
