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Obscure 70s Rock Bands

#301
LonF said:
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My favorite.
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He he he. This one I got too. Their keyboardist Bayéte played keyboards on Peter Gabriels first tour 77, so I thought I'd better check his band out. Talk about downshift in gears from 4th to idle! Word has it that PG needed someone to be of good enough chops to back up his back catalouge with a few tricky Genesis numbers live, otherwise all virtuosity was turned down to nil in his solo material. Funny man, PG. I don't know how/why he chooses sidemen and musicians to play with. He generally eschews everything virtuosic, and even the slightest soloing in any of his material, but yet chooses Bayete, Tony Levin, L Shankar, Fripp, even Billy Cobham once, and more, and a plethora of high profile fusion musicians of the past. It's like PG hearing the musicians on record first when they play hyperspeed and thinks "oh, hey he's perfect for my music" and then they'll just play whole notes and longer drones when doing his material... beats me.

But OT. Let's get back on track.

EDIT: But hey! Beyond Bayete, there was both Pat Thrall and Michael Shrieve in that bands lineup... borderline obscure? ;) I do think Pat Thrall and Michael Shrieve made big enough noise on their own aftwerwards to remove them from obscurity (even with Shrieve before, his stint in Santana). However, I have numerous muso friends that haven't got the foggiest idea who those two were either.

BTW I still can't separate Pat Thrall from Pat Travers. Mix them up all of the time, they used to do co-lead in some constellations, mainly Travers albums.
 
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#303
47th Street said:
Good Rats was the very first band that came to my mind when I read the title of this thread! I listened to Live At Last a month or so ago, and was Blown Away...AGAIN!
They used to make Frivilous Sal's Last Chance Saloon in Poughkeepsie a regular part of their rotation...Packed the joint...ROCKED the joint!!i
(You tell the story really well! You are, apparently a Really Good Son!)

Man! I really thought that I was the only guy in the world who knew about...gave a damn about...this stuff! It does my heart Good to hang with like-minded folk!:thumbsup:
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Interesting post-script. I was getting a tattoo last night and the shop owner was talking 70s unknown rock bands (mostly drummers :pullhairrolleyes: ) and mentioned the movie The Roadie in which they discuss the Good Rats in the bar scene and who makes a cameo? Peppi himself.

Any of you folks who grew up seeing them should do me a HUGE favor- if you happened to take note of pedalboards and amp settings, I am keenly interested. I've emailed and written to Mickey and John, never had access to contact info for Lenny, trying to gain insight into these matters and was met with silence or resistance bordering on silence. But it's important to me.

The duelling guitar lines, modulation effects, cocked wahs, "mister ebowwwww!" etc. do it for me.

And are Still Doing It. #seewhatididthere?
 
#312
Honch said:
That's what I was after. Obscure when and where? Genesis were an obscure band in the US in the 70s, and HUGE in the US in the 80's. I could list a dime a dozen krautrock bands in Germany in the 70s no one in US never ever heard about.
If you're obscure on one continent, you may be a major arena draw at another continent. Still, in the 70s.

Like I said, lets make an exception then...;)
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Amon Duul?

Now, Kraan were/are great!
 
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#316
Sixpack324 said:
This is a great band......I bought their 8-track in the discount bin back in '78 or so....... Was pleasantly surprised.....

MELVIN AND HIS EGG!!!

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Here is a bit of music trivia about Bloodrock. Multi-instrumentalist and vocalist Warren Ham had been in the band AD with Kerry Livgren and Dave Hope from Kansas as well as being a touring and recorded musician with many well known acts.
 
#318
Now that's obscure!

arbiterusa said:
Snakefinger. That is all.
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Which automatically leads me to...
Are ....obscure bands "acts" that are anonymous, like THE RESIDENTS? Buckethead? (not 70s though) and the like?

German bands of the 70s can be namedropped like hell, like already been done a few posts back. Can / Kraan/ Neu/ Kluster/ Harmonia/ Aamon Düül 1 and 2/ Eloy/ Triumvirat/ Eela Craig (anyone remembers Eela Craig?) Birth Control /Spliff / Popol Vuh/ Faust / Lucifers Friend (already mentioned in the creepy cover department) / Ash Ra Tempel

Found out that Lucifers Friend may be disqualified as "obscure" since they consisted of John Lawton as lead vocalist who later joined Uriah Heep. Same with early NEU which consisted of future members of Kraftwerk.
 
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#319
Does GUN and Three Man Army counts?

Gun:


Three Man Army:


Three Man Army at least. Kicks ass in my book.

Gurvitz Baker Army doesn't count, since Ginger was in it. But they were great too. Or was it Baker Gurvitz Army? Maybe obscure anyway...

Here's them anyway:



I favor Gun and Three Man Army over that one though. Nonsense trivia: GUN is the first record cover ever by Yes alumni Roger Dean. Oh! OMG maybe that disqualifies it from being obscure! Adrian Gurvitz, his early bands The Gun, Three Man Army, and The Baker Gurvitz Army were major influences to the first wave of the British hard rock circuit.
 
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#320
I was about to enlist The Electromagnets from Texas, but alas, since Eric Johnson was in it, it disqualifies. But nevertheless, a cool and humourus brand of rock, and at that time, VERY obscure:



BTW Eric's pretty unknown still in Scandinavia.
 

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