I have eclectic musical taste, and my friends haven’t heard of a large portion of my collection. Let’s see how SDMB fares.
I’ve got two especially:
“Water Dance” by Raffi
“Harbor” by Vienna Teng
Heard 'em?
Give me some of your own wierd and/or obscure music.
I’m not familiar with your songs.
One of my favorite songs of all time is “Goodbye Old Missoula,” by Willis Alan Ramsey. Hardly anyone I’ve met has ever heard of the song (or of Willis Alan).
Just a sampling (I’ll stick with one song by each obscure group or musician):
“With My Face on the Floor” by Emitt Rhodes
“Electric Sailor” by Kak
“Kings and Queens” by Renaissance
“Look Out There’s a Monster Coming” by the Bonzo Dog Band.
“Madeira M’Dear” by Flanders and Swan
“Driving Test” by Christine Nelson
“Birdman” by Macdonald and Giles
“Welcome to the Universe,” by Flash and the Pan
“Moon in June” by Soft Machine
“Hush Hush” by the Siegel-Schwall Band
Never heard of them.
“Smoke from your Cigarette” by Lillian Leach and the Mellows. I keep waiting for someone with a rich, earthy voice to cover it, but not so far.
Most of my friends are (popular) music geeks, so they’re generally familiar with my stuff. In general, though (at least in the U.S.), I’ve run into more people that haven’t heard these than have:
Celebrated Summer by Husker Du
Tonight We Fly by The Divine Comedy
Untidy Towns by The Lucksmiths
Cattle and Cane by The Go-Betweens
Dance, Girl, Dance by Cinerama
You’re My Favorite Waste of Time by Marshall Crenshaw
I’ve Got It And It’s Not Worth Having by Boyracer
Let’s Go by The Feelies
The Truth by Handsome Boy Modeling School
Anorak City by Another Sunny Day
Throw Aggi Off the Bridge by Black Tambourine
Here’s to Forgetting by the Parentheticl Girls
I Don’t Want To Be Friends With You by the Shop Assistants
Inside by The 14 Iced Bears
Pathetique by the Close Lobsters
When I Grow Up I’ll Be a God by the Siddeleys
Speed to My Side by Rollerskate Skinny
Happy All the Time by the Flatmates
Nobody’s heard of anything on my best list. I like really old music. You know what they say: “If you can remember the '30s - you weren’t born yet.”)
I’ll see your Vienna Teng (love HER!) snd raise you:
Velvet by a-ha…yes, THAT a-ha. They’ve got 5-7 albums and they ALL well, not ‘Rock’ exactly, but I love 'em all. (the Dephazz remix of Velvet will probably travel best)
Oh, and Curious by The Innocence Mission.
And the whole album from The Dukes of Stratosphear (a.k.a. XTC)
I like a lot of my uncle’s music. He led a pretty hard-working salsa band in the LA area for many years til he just retired. Someone has to know of him here, I wouldn’t doubt there’s Dopers that have seen him live, which I sadly never did. He was kind of informally known as “El Padrino”. Not one of the songs pops out as a favorite though.
On the other hand, there’s a Baltimore area band I “discovered” back in the later 70’s, (a kind of a feat here in Chicago) and whose albums and CD’s I played for years . A business trip took me to Baltimore a few years ago, and the lone night I had free, they were playing at some place south of the city called the Thunderdome. There I got to see Crack the Sky play Ice live right in front of me.
Took me 2 hours to get a cab back to the inner harbor, but I made some friends that night, and the experience qualifies that as my favorite song because of the circumstances.
“C’est pas nouveau” - Tomás Jensen
“Montana” - Venus Hum
“No Reason to Stay” - Victory at Sea
“Devil’s Airship” - Piñataland
“Unemployed in Summertime” - Emiliana Torrini
“The Director” - LittleHorse
“Misdirected” - Universal Hall Pass
“Stay” - Jorane
My absolute favorite song (well, tied with Blur’s “Coffee and TV,” but that’s considerably better-known) is “White Mice” by the Mo-Dettes. Although, to be fair, it is the most famous Mo-Dettes song, though that’s not saying much.
Salt Seller - I see you’re a C-86 fan!
Anything by The Chenille Sisters.
“Songwriter” by Good Rats
“Aunt Clara” by In Our Cups
Musical soulmates?
I thought I was the only American to own Scoundrel Days, Stay on These Roads, East of the Sun West of the Moon… I even have the Headlines and Deadlines greatest hits on DVD and CD…
Also saw your Dukes, I have all of XTC’s stuff! It’s all about Black Sea…
Almost everything on Bob Martin’s River Turns the Wheel (http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/martin) which a few have probably heard, but espescially the title cut, Stella Keroac, and Ride the Silver Rails down to Rio.
I don’t have a copy of it anymore, but I love a cut by a band called “The Porch Dogs” entitled “Fido on the Bayou”
Are b-sides fair?
These are all bands/performers who are known, but the songs may be a little obscure. Or not. Hard to say.
Bone Bag by Blur. Sure, Blur is well enough known, but it’s rare for me to meet a person who’s heard Bone Bag, which I think is beautiful, and very probably my favourite Blur song ever.
Then there is the cover of Gary Numan’s *We Have a Technical * done by Blur with the Rentals. That was pretty cool stuff. Duelling Moogs. Much fun.
Heh. Um… don’t laugh. There’s this remix of Michael McDonald’s *Sweet Freedom * done by Safri Duo that I think is just plain awesome.
I think this is from the Go soundtrack, but again, tough to find someone who knows what I’m talking about, or else I’m just asking the wrong people, but damn, I love, love, love me some Esthero, and she has a song on there with Danny Sabre called *Song For Holly * that makes my heart skip.
Old Canadian band The Extras - I Can’t Stand Still.
I love Crack the Sky! Have since the early 80’s when GRX in Bmore played them. I just finally found their CD a couple months ago.
I’ll add Joe Blues, by the Moving Sidewalks (Billy Gibbons’ first band.)
The entire album Kill All Humans by Schnauser. This is without a doubt the most obscure thing in this thread yet. Armenian prog rock. Good luck beating that. In any case the album is amazing, and mind-blowing.
I can’t beat it, necessarily, but I have the album (well, purchased the whole thing from iTunes). I didn’t know it was obscure, though. :smack: