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Weird obscure bands you like??

Asking "are there any weird obscure bands you like?" is like asking "are there any bands with bassists that you like?"

A mainstay (for decades!) in UK post-punk but obscure to most Americans: The Fall. The leader Mark E. Smith became a self-caricature after a while but at his best he's brilliant.



A heavy influence on hundreds of bands you've never heard of, and a few you have: The Monks.

 
Its difficult to sell many of my favorite bands as "obscure " on Talkbass because most folks here have such a wide knowledge.
But alot of these bands would get quizzical looks when mentioning them to casual fans.
The Sensational Alex Harvey band
Gong
The Lonesome Strangers
The Knitters
Etc.... You get alot of "who?" 🤔
Most folks don't even know formally well regarded bands like the Seeds or the Sonics.
Obscure to "us" is different from obscure to "most".
The Residents?.. All the Ralph Records bunch for that matter. 😶
 
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For me; Streetheart from Canada... Very strange band with an odd singer but dig a lot of their stuff and love the name... The bass intro on this tune is sick. They had some semi-hits in the late 70's and 80's but I think this is their crowning glory... The outtro is one of my favorites...


My band did three club tours in western Canada during the 80's. Streetheart was popular in Canada at that time. This song is so totally 80's sounding. I thought they were good but IMO Kenny Shields was not a very charismatic front man. Great voice but not to energetic. Some local musicians we met up there would always mention that when Streetheart won their JUNO award in 1980 for best new group. They bet that both Matt Frenette and Paul Dean who'd left just prior to that to join Loverboy would regret their leaving. In retrospect I don't think they did considering the HUGE success of Loverboy.
 
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My pick is "Crack the Sky" such a great group that IMO never got the mainstream success they deserved. Maybe not obscure to musicians but the general public is still clueless about these guys. West Virginia's undiscovered secret. These guys could still bring it in this live show from 2008. The bass mix on this is phenomenal ENJOY Be sure to check out the pseudo RUSH riff from the bass and rhythm guitar starting at 8:40 LOL

 
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Hugo Largo: Guitar, two basses, an amazing singer, and no drums. Not so weird-sounding in our post-Bjork world but at the time it was mind-opening, and it's still really good:


3 Mustaphas 3 was a bunch of white Britons (plus guest artists from World Music scenes) playing a wild mix of Mediterranean and Middle Eastern folk music styles. This isn't the best example of their musicianship (or of how serious they could be), picked this only because it's silly...


Lounge Lizards sprung from the same city and time that no-wave music did, but went in a totally different direction. Hopefully this link skips past the first two minutes of John Lurie being an uncomfortable interview subject:
 
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And the bass dude played this 2-string+

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