Exploring unheralded rock songs from many genres including classic rock, hard rock, psych, garage, metal, proto-punk, punk, post-punk, and the occasional blues tune...
This three-man garage blues band was named for three African American prisoners questionably accused of murdering a white guard at Soledad prison in 1970. It seems like a bit of a bold name for a group of three white guys from Ohio. Name notwithstanding, the music does not dissappoint.
The Soledad Brothers had ties to the White Stripes. Drummer Ben Swank was roommates with Jack White for a time and Meg White dated Henry Oliver. On the Soledad Brothers first full length LP(their best), Meg played some drums and Jack White recorded the album.
This track has a methodical, brooding nature that is quite satisfying.
Andromeda was a short-lived late 60's English hard rock/prog band. Sometimes, I listen to old unheralded records, such as this one, and wonder why the music wasn't more popular. I've come to the conclusion that the music of this era(through the mid 70's) was so rich and plentiful that all of these bands couldn't rise to the top with the limited distribution channels of the time. It's a shame that these bands didn't achieve more succees. The silver lining is that there is so many nuggets to be unearthed 40 to 50 years later.
Before Michael Schenker joined UFO and morphed the band into an arena rock guitar band, UFO had a much more psychedelic feel to the their music. Indeed, they considered their music to be "space rock". To me, those first few efforts were much more worthy of "full album listening" that what would follow.
For this track, hang in there through the first few minutes, it gets musically interesting after the vocal part is over.
I'm a big Quentin Tarantino fan. So, when I first watched 2007's Death Proof and heard the song "It's So Easy", I thought that it was cool that a ZZ Top song was used. Upon returning from the movie theater, I looked through my ZZ Top collection and could not find this song. Upon necessary Googling, I found out that the song was by Willy DeVille and not the bearded ones from Texas.
This track was originally on another soundtrack, the 1980 Al Pacino/Paul Sorvino movie, Cruising.
The Ramones were one of those bands that I liked, but could easily become oversaturated with. Maybe it's because they found a formula that worked and hammered it into the ground. In any case, there are a few Ramones tunes that stand out among the rest. This is definitely one of them.
Dee Dee Ramone wrote this song with Richard Hell. The Heartbreakers recorded their version first in 1977. However, this version is better.
This Swedish band was a precursor to the more popular Soundtrack of Our Lives that would emerge a few years later. I like Soundtrack, even though they had a bit less of an edge.
Here, Union Carbide Productions certainly seem influenced by the Stooges, which is okay in my book.
In the mid-90's, I often served as a designated driver when my friends and I would go out on the tiles. One of the benefits of being the driver was that I got to choose the music played in the car. One Saturday night, I remember sliding a mixed tape of Bikini Kill into my Mazda's cassette player as we were leaving Boston's North End on our way home. One of my friends commented "What is this shit!". Ha! Some people just have no sensibility for punk. Me? I loved what I was hearing and the music that I was getting into for the previous year or so. I was too young for the first punk movement of the 70's. The Riot Grrl movement was a contemporary sound that I could listen to as it was happening.
For anyone who has not heard of Bikini Kill, I recommend this documentary on Kathleen Hanna, the band's lead singer and driving force.
Here is a song off their last regular studio album. It isn't their best song or my personal favorite, but it does capture the essence of their sound quite well.
To me, Foghat epitomizes the sound of a mid-level arena rock band of the 70's. Lonesome Dave Peverett and the boys seemed to be reaching for stars and fell a bit short. While they would not achieve super stardom, they did leave us with a baker's dozen or so quality rock songs, in addition to their big hits(Slow Ride, Fool For the City, and I Just Wanna Make Love to You).
Here is a relatively unknown song from their classic live album.
The Shadows of Knight were a mid-60's Chicago-area band known primarily for recording a slightly more sanitized(and less satisfying) version of Them's Gloria. As a result, they had a U.S. hit with the popular song. I never cared for their version. As a result, I never sought out any other material from this band. That was my loss, though, as they did produce a bevy of solid 60's garage rock.
Here is the song that follows Gloria on their first album.
The Johnny Bob Goldstein(aka Keith Morris) era of Black Flag is about as pure as rock n' roll gets in my humble opinion. Regardless of whether they are referred to as punk or hardcore or something else, this music just stops you in your tracks. In fact, when I'm randomly listening to music and one of these precious few early Black Flag songs comes on, I will almost always be let down by the next song to come up on the playlist.
Oh well, enough praise for Black Flag. This track is not an undiscovered song for Black Flag fans, but just for those of you who haven't discovered the band.
In my mid-teens, I was a huge Beatles fan, to the point of excluding all other music. I remember feverishly waiting for the Beatles discography to be released onto CD for the first time and buying the first four albums at Caldor's on day they went on sale. To me, and to the annoyance of my friends, the Beatles were the best and could not be improved upon. Therefore, when I would hear covers of Beatles songs, like Aerosmith's version of "Come Together" or even Joe Cocker's take on "With a Little Help from my Friends", I was not impressed. In reality, I was just not ready to hear these different perspectives on the Beatles' songbook.
Years went by and I branched out to listen to music from other bands and other eras. A couple of years ago, I stumbled upon this version of the early Beatles' classic. While I had not heard of the Moving Sidewalks to this point, I instantly recognized Billy Gibbons' distinctive voice. He made some great garage rock prior to forming ZZ Top.
The word "underrated" is generally overused when people try to describe what music they are into. I am certainly no exception. That said, Neil Young & Crazy Horse's fourth album, Re Ac Tor, definitely qualifies as underrated. Maybe it's not After the Gold Rush or Tonight's the Night, but this is quality rock n' roll, especially for 1981.
I could have picked almost any song from this album, as you almost never hear any of these tracks. So, I'll just pick the tune with the most interesting title.
There is nothing too complicated about Savoy Brown except figuring out who was in the band at any particular time over the past fifty years. Aside from the driving force, guitarist Kim Simmonds, this British blues rock band has featured 64 different supporting band mates over the last half century.
Here is a track from one of their better line ups in 1974.
Australian hard rock pioneers, Buffalo, formed in 1971 out of the ashes of Head. Even though the band only lasted about six years, they put out a great body of work(if you like hard rock, that is). Unfortunately, the music is largely unknown Up Over. For more on the band, check out this interview.
Here is the opening track from Buffalo's sophomore effort, Volcanic Rock.
Man, was Free underrated or what? I love this short-lived band. In the mid-eighties, as I was immersing myself into classic rock for the first time, "All Right Now" was my favorite song for about a year. In fact, I even declared to some high school classmates that it was the greatest rock n' roll song ever recorded. At least I was genuine in my naivete...
Of course, it took me a few years to find any other music by Free, as there weren't many Free albums for sale at Strawberries in 1985. As I listen to the band more nowadays, I am impressed by Paul Kossoff's guitar style. It's a shame that he would die of a heroin-related heart attack at the age of 25.
Here is another track off the same album that produced All Right Now.
Not sure where I first heard this track, or Marmalade in general, for that matter. In any case, this Scottish band's song sounds like it belongs on a soundtrack of a Quentin Tarantino movie set in the early 70's.
I can't say that I was ever really a fan of Rancid. By 1995, rock radio(or what was left of it) was overplaying "Roots Radicals", "Time Bomb", and "Ruby Soho" from their "...And Out Came the Wolves" LP. I thought they were trying too hard to sound like the Clash at that point and just tuned out.
However, a year or so before that album came out, I first heard of Rancid with the release of "Salvation". There is something about this song, perhaps how it just keeps rolling without stopping.
In 2005, on the day after Christmas, I found myself in my car, fighting the cold outside, fumbling around with my new Sirius radio that I got for Christmas. See, I was a fan of the Howard Stern show and he was moving his show to Sirius in January of 2006. As a result, there was no mistaking what I wanted for Christmas.
Once I managed to install the radio, which looked like 1980's era radar detector, I started flipping around the music channels to see what was available. One of the first stations that I came across was playing this very tune. I knew right then that this was going to thoroughly enjoy this gift.
Thee Fine Lines were(are) a raw sounding garage band from Springfield, Missouri. Something about this straight-ahead garage rock song just hits the spot.
Not a whole lot is known today about this late 60's bluesy/hard rock band from Washington D.C. I do know that their only album, Hammer, is considered to be a very rare and expensive find in the album collecting world.(NOTE: I am not lucky enough to have this in my collection).
After listening to a bunch of tracks, it is surprising to me that nothing else came from this band. But I shouldn't be surprised. Such as the record industry was back then, there were a lot of "one and done" bands that had a lot to say.
Like most music fans in their forties, you can imagine that I was loathe to watch the Grammys. Almost all of the music performed or awarded was surely going to be autotuned pablum cooked up by unimaginative writers and record producers and performed by another pretty face.
But having kids will make you watch things on TV that you wouldn't otherwise watch. After all, I had made it through the Barney years, I could handle the Grammys, right? Of course, you can imagine my surprise when AC/DC opened the show doing what they do best. Seeing Angus Young run around the stage at age 59 in his trademark schoolboy outfit was refreshing, if not a bit silly. It also reminded me that he(and Malcolm for that matter) were not the first Young brothers to gain fame through music.
I am referring to their older brother, George Young, and his wildly popular Australian pop rock band, the Easybeats. The 'beats started in 1964 and had the international hit "Friday on My Mind". Well, the band would ultimately run its course by 1969. Here is one of their last singles. They seemed to move from a poppy to a garage sensibility with their music by the end. It's too bad that they didn't continue on into the 70's to see what may have developed.
For years, my image of Roxy Music was based on Avalon, their last studio album. That album was released in 1982 in the dawn of the MTV era. As a 12-year old looking for some angst in his music, seeing Bryan Ferry sashay around in a white sport jacket wasn't cutting it...
Years later, I was able to dig back into their catalog to the first few albums. This track is off of their second studio effort, and last with Brian Eno. Now this tune has a punky edge and a glam feel that 12-year old me would have appreciated.
Poco was an interesting band in that they were one of the first bands in the late 60's, along with the Flying Burrito Brothers, to start popularizing "country rock". They were also interesting because of band members that were known entities when the band was formed(Richie Furay and Jim Messina of Buffalo Springfield) and band members who would go on to have greater fame later in their careers(Randy Meisner and Timothy B. Schmit of the Eagles). Of course, Jim Messina would also go on to have more commercial success performing with Kenny Loggins through the 70's.
Country Rock is very much an acquired taste, as far as I am concerned. There is much that I like and much that I don't. This track is of the bluesier variety and comes off Poco's second album, Poco.
This is a great example of a British invasion band settling into their own unique sound after the initial wave of the Invasion had passed. I have the Blaze album on vinyl and it is a great time stamp of the 60's that is relatively unremembered today.
Soon, friction would escalate and the Hermits would see personnel changes that would become common through their later existence.
How about a New Zealand band playing some good ole throwback rock n' roll in the relatively recent past? This track is from the Datsuns first album. More info on the band, which is still active, can be found here.
I first heard of Death a couple of years ago. They have been described as "proto-punk". I don't know. I supposed that I can hear a bit of the punk sound. To me, though, it just sounds like high energy rock n' roll. Maybe they are too tight as a band to be lumped in with punk.
In any case, this band has a really interesting story. They were comprised of three brothers from Detroit(Bobby, Dannis, and David Hackney) who formed this garage band in the mid 70's. They made a bunch of demos, but never got their material released while the band was active. They broke up the band in 1977. The brothers eventually moved to Vermont. David died of lung cancer in 2002. Dannis and Bobby went on to form a reggae band.
Here is a blistering track from those early demos. A documentary about this band was released in 2012. More information can be found here.
New York's Dust was largely ignored during their existence in the late 60's/early 70's. Decades later, their self-titled debut effort and their sophomore release, Hard Attack, are heralded as early pioneers of heavy metal. I don't know. The themes are similar to a lot of heavy metal ones(death, pain), but the actual sound is a lot more like hard rock in the style of early Black Sabbath.
Aside from the music, the band is often known by what the members did after the dissolution of the band. Richie Wise, the lead singer and guitarist, went on to produce Kiss albums. Kenny Aaronson, the bass player, became a touring musician working with Billy Idol, Billy Squier, Foghat, Brian Setzer, Dave Edmonds, and many others. Most famously, drummer Marc Bell went to on join the Ramones in 1978. By then, of course, he was christened Marky Ramone. There is more information here.
Creedence Clearwater Revival was a production machine from 1968-1972. The number of hits they produced, while still making straight-ahead rock n' roll. In 1969 alone, they released three albums. The second one, Green River, is my favorite. Here is a relatively unheralded track from that collection.
Oklahoma's Dwight Twilley Band were one of those bands to achieve some success right out of the gate. Their first single, "I'm of Fire", made it all the way to #16 in the Billboard charts. When I first heard this song, I could have sworn it was from the 80's. It seems to have that guitar driven pop rock that would develop in the 80's as an alternative to pure pop and the hair bands. Perhaps the band was ahead of his time. Unfortunately, the band's initial success would never be matched. The band would eventually dissolve by 1978.
Dwight would go on to befriend Tom Petty and provide backing vocals on some of his songs.
