I find it hard to define ‘obscure’, so if some of these are already familiar to you, forgive me.
I feel justified in calling Jay Leonhart obscure because I started a Jay Leonhart appreciation thread that sank like a stone. To make it even easier, here are a couple of youTube clips -
Beau Dommage is the companion band to Harmonium. You can tell Canadian Francophones by singing ‘Dimanche soir…’ and seeing how long it takes them to join in.
La Bottine souriante is a fabulous mix of traditional Québec folk music and New Orleans jazz. The band varied from the more traditional (like La Traversée de l’Atlantique to material like La Mistrine.
Jorane
Just a typical Québecoise singer-songwriter-cellist
Uh-oh - we have dangerously similar musical tastes - seeing that I also am fond of the Cramps and Southern Culture On The Skids.
I recently got ahold of some Bomboras and Man or Astro-Man? to add to one of my homemade Ipod surf collections - good stuff. Man or Astro-Man? has an intriguingly-titled tune (“Cleanup On Aisle No. 9”) that I’m going to have to check out, along with other groups you mentioned.
The Aqua Velvets are another of my favorite surf rock groups.
Ministre, thanks for those. I just went tripping down memory lane… I hadn’t heard mention of Harmonium or Beau Dommage in years, and both are inextricably tied up with campfire singalongs at summer camp near Charlevoix. Sigh. Good times.
Other good obscure and semi-obscure Canadian bands I madly love (mostly in the indie-pop/alt-country vein, though a couple are definitely less so):
No real dead-set definition - basically just “out of the mainstream”.
There’s a rather obscure Christian band called Raspberry Jam, which I would recommend. In college, I often listened to their album “Oceanic” (actually, I’m not sure if they put out any other albums).
I ran across Mary Prankster when I lived in Maryland. She seemed to understand more about the punk attitude while alternatively reminiscing and making fun of it, with a sound that was more pop/country than punk. I was sad to see she’d retired before I got a chance to see one of her shows.
I don’t know how obscure any of these are, but here goes:
Abraxas Pool
Automatic Man
Bellaphon*
Randall Bramblett
Jon Butcher
Camel*
Captain Beyond*
The (Jazz) Crusaders
King Curtis*
Dreams*
the (Dixie) Dregs*
Enchant**
Endangered Species*
Flash*
the Flower Kings
Freddy Jones Band*
Rory Gallagher*
Danny Gatton*
(Stomu Yamashta’s) Go*
Gordian Knot**
Gypsy*
If*
Jazz Is Dead*
Habib Koite (& Bamada)
Krokodil***
Liquid Tension Experiment*
moe.
Nektar*
Nuclear Valdez*
Oblivion Sun**
Ozric Tentacles
(Klaus Doldinger’s) Passport*
Porcupine Tree
Pure Reason Revolution**
the Reasoning**
Riverside
Greg Rolie
Screaming Cheetah Wheelies*
Sea Level*
Jimmie Spheeris*
Spock’s Beard
Roine Stolt
Storyville*
Sugar Free All-stars
The Tangent
Transatlantic
the Why Store*
Wide Mouthed Mason*
Zebra*
Zero*
Zilla**
these seem defunct, in some cases due to death.
** these I know even less about.
*** I’ve often wondered if our Krokodil knows there is a German band from the 70’s named after him.