That is awesome!
I only got to talk with Scott Miller a couple of times, but as a fan, I was spellbound.
That sound reminds me a lot of Let’s Active, another Southeast band from the era that few people have heard of even though they existed through the entire decade with multiple records and albums. Their frontman, Mitch Easter, is better known as REM’s first producer. This video is probably the most exposure they ever got…
That is a highly perceptive observation, as Mitch Easter produced much of Game Theory’s output, including this track!
Never in a thousand guesses would I have got that right - and I actually saw the singer live in concert in a different context.
The Creation, a UK rock band of the 60s. Never had much success, but they influenced many UK musicians. The guitarist sometimes used a bow to play (at 1:27), something Jimmy Page took up. Pete Townsend acknowledged them as an influence and some accounts say he asked guitarist Eddie Phillips to be a second guitarist for the Who, but Phillips declined.
This topic often comes down to regionality. Growing up in Ottawa, I was subjected to CanCon radio and TV regularions, so a certain percentage of airtime was always turned over to Canuck artists, so a lot of lesser lights got tons of play to fill the time. Still there were some cool bands that may not have broken through south of the border (or elsewhere). I loved National Velvet, out of Toronto: poppy goth, with a lead singer on whom I had a major crush for years. This song still gets regular spins at the retro clubs I attend: National Velvet - Flesh under skin - YouTube
Here’s a song that I remember got a fair bit of critical acclaim back in the day, but David + David never followed it up with another album. Both Davids went on to behind-the-scenes success (I think one of them was a producer for Toni Childs…or Sheryl Crow?): David & David - Welcome To The Boomtown - YouTube
Hitting Birth. An industrial protogrunge band out of Portland OR in the 80s/90s. A lot of improv jams and found trash as instruments, always unpredictable. I saw them at least a dozen times live.
Mike Dillon, Punk Rock Percussionist extraordinaire
Birtha
Free spirit
Glad you like it! Even in '68 when it was a new album, few people seemed to have heard of it.
54 years later, the fade from Alicia and Others to that quasi-Morse Code opening of Seventy-Five still gives me goosebumps. The composer/organist/pianist was Don Galucci, who at age 15 played that opening electric piano riff in the Kingsmen’s recording of “Louie Louie.”
Hehehe, I know of him from Billy Goat, he’s always has been a killer percussionist:
I was in a band with the singer of this band before he hooked up with them. They were totally more talented and practiced than we were (hey, they were Jazz performance majors, we were Art majors), so I understand why he went with them.
They had a lot of great songs, but this is my favorite that you can find online easily. Karate 2000: (it’s the whole CD, but cued up to that song):
The Beat Farmers were a slammin’ cowpunk band in the 80s and 90s with a knack for great covers, a seriously warped sense of humor and a drummer/singer (RIP) who sounded like Johnny Cash’s idiot cousin. According to their website the surviving members are touring again.
The Handsome Family is a Chicago-based brother-and-sister act who sound like Nick Cave filtered through the Cowboy Junkies’ Trinity Sessions. Eccentric, atmospheric and quietly intense.
That is what I came here to write, and am a bit surprised that @EinsteinsHund did not mention it earlier, as they were big in Europe and particularly in Germany for a season. The whole album Mas Histeria is great, Sittin’ in the Dark a masterpiece. And good for dacing wild.
Funny story about this song… I had a roommate in college who picked up some Rhino Records sampler album at a used record store that had this song on it, but the credits only said something like “Bonus Track/Mystery Artist”. It was probably another 10-15 years before I finally found out what the song was!
Only one album in 1970, rereleased in’73. Canadians, eh?
Really good record, available on Spotify
BTW, they are still together. (line up changes though)
And speaking of obscure tracks from sampler albums, a different college roommate had some other sampler album with this little gem:
I honestly never heard of Carolyne Mas, though it was exactly my time (1980) when this came out if she was successful in Germany. Was she ever in Bananas, Disco or Musikladen? Or even Rockpalast?
I’m listening now to the song and it’s great. Reminds me of Patti Smith.
I did not have a TV back then, I don’t know why she was so popular in Germany, but she was played a lot in discos in the 80s. And in the radio.