Local Natives.
People On Planes.
Biffy Clyro.
Buck 65.
Gil-Scott Heron (Recently deceased, but his word lives on).
The big one for me is Sleater Kinney.
Awesome all-girl band. They’ve broken up with half the band creating a new band called Wild Flag that will be releasing a new album later this year. I just saw them live and they ROCKED.
Black Carl. Great funk-rock band with a female vocal lead.
Honolulu Mountain Daffodils
No Friends of Harry
Celtic Rumours
Zed Astaire
Sleater-Kinney and Gil-Scott Heron are pretty well known, IME.
Back in the stone ages, I loved Magnapop, Killdozer, and the Grifters. Not sure how well-known they were / are…
Joe
I know they have some popularity in Europe, but most of my friends have not heard of them.
My newest discovery is Mumford & Sons. Never heard of them until I went to San Diego at the end of March; now I can’t get enough.
Bloodkin. Not new, but damn good. Here’s some of their songs.
Dalriada - Hungarian Folk Metal
Ария (Aria) - The USSR’s answer to Iron Maiden
Agalloch - Epic Viking Metal from the Pacific Northwest
Quintron - Organ-driven New Orleans party-down music, sometimes tending toward the bizarre, though not to the level of a lot of indy groups. Quintron’s wife, Miss Pussycat, does puppet shows during their act.
NRBQ - These guys weren’t exactly unknown, but given the quality of their music they should have been huge.
Cinerama might have been big in England, but they never got too big over here. Saw them at a show with The Aislers Set, The Ladybug Transistor and The Lucksmiths, all of whom were/are worthy of a listen.
Another one that never really made it on this side of the pond was The Divine Comedy. Probably the best pop songwriting going right now, for my money.
Shingetsu (Japan)
Bacamarte (Brazil)
Los Jaivas (Chile)
Nexus (Argentina)
Supersister (Netherlands)
Neuschwanstein (Germany)
Harmonium (Canada)
Black Bonzo (Sweden)
Pulsar (France)
All excellent prog bands.
Marah- Alt-country with a dash of Philly soul. One of my all-time favs. They have a few big name champions such as Bruce Springsteen, Steve Earl and Nick Hornby. Should be way bigger than they are.
Boris- well known enough inthe circles I run with but given that they a a Japanese “doomcore” band I think it unlikely tha the American population at large knows them. Truly spectacular screamng guitar insanity at it’s best. Lyrics in Japanese but it doesn’t matter a bit.
Mink Lungs- Now defunct New York art scene kind of band that was trulyan eccentric jewel in the 9os music wasteland.
Panda Bear- Everyone should know this guy. He’s a part of Animal Collective. Weird and wonderful, layered and complex music that defies catagorization.
A Place To Bury Strangers- probably a little better known than the rest of my list. Noisy, gloomy throwback band that reminds me of Depeche Mode if they grew a pair of balls and got angry.
My Life With The ThrillKill Cult- flirted with success in the early 90s with the song Sex On Wheels and a song on the Crow soundtrack. Kind of a dark borderline metal party band. I have no clue why they weren’t huge. They arrived at the right time and had more talent than most of their contemporaries.
Slim Cessna’s Auto Club. This is what all country music ought to sound like.
The Indelicates. This is what all indie british pop ought to sound like?
Gogol Bordello. Actually, these guys are probably well-known enough not to be appropriate here, but I wanted to get my whole triumvirate of favorites in.
A friend of mine sent me “What Have You Done?” and I got hooked from that. I also like Nightwish and Helloween thanks to her.
Agree with The Indelicates.
Wild Billy Childish and the Buff Medway Appreciation Society (the Buff Medways for short). Lo-Fi, straight up old school DIY punk - here’s a Youtube playlist. Also see Thee Milkshakes, Thee Headcoats, and a few other Thees - Billy Childish has been banging around the English punk scene for ages, but every Brit I ever speak to (and I talk to a lot of folks from the UK) has no clue who he is.
Greg Cartwright (Reigning Sound, Compulsive Gamblers, the Oblivians [no Youtube link because they’re all live shows that sound like crap]) - king of lo-fi Memphis (no North Carolina) garage punk, although he’s cleaned up his sound quite a bit lately. Also the author of some of the most brutal breakup songs ever written.
The late great Jay Reatard - I can’t begin to describe his music. You must experience it for yourself.
Yes, sweetie, Mommy’s heard of Gil Scott-Heron.
I was about to decry threads like this on account of their general show-offishness, but then I had to check this out on the strength of your other two recommendations, and they’re awesome! Thanks for bringing them up!
Hmm, how 'bout O’Death? Wovenhand? DeVotchKa? The Divine Comedy? Patrick Wolf? Okkervil River? Damn, now I can’t stop anymore… OK, last one, probably my favourite: The Mountain Goats.