Great local music that never "made" it big.

[soulfarmer]

There was (is?) a band from the Chapel Hill area called The Connells. REALLY good rock and roll. A little Tom Petty-ish with the hook and 3-4 minute tracks. But good stuff.

"Slackjaw: is/was a great tune.

I saw a band called Trip Shakespeare who I thought were amazing. Two of the guys went on to become Semisonic with the minor hit "Closing Time", but I always thought their first band should have been more popular.

 

[Doctordirt]

The Urge -- St. Louis
Helix
Tora Tora

Some up and comers out of Rockford IL area
Silence is Broken
Anew Revolution

And South Louisana:

12 Stones
Poltern Kinder

others I like:

Mind Set Ultra
Mindest Evoloution and Waterstreet (Peoria Il)

 

[sled108]

Back in '78...Every Camaro in the North East with an 8-Track had this Blastin' from the Sparkomatics....

 

[statman122]

My first concert was a Laguna Beach CA band called Honk. Their biggest claim to fame was doing a soundtrack for a surfing movie called "five summer stories". they are quite good and I recently found an address to get a 20 song colaborative CD from. To my surprise the liner notes were written by the guy who was the station manager at KUCI when I dj'd there in college!

 

[Doctordirt]

A band I remember from college called Joker. I believe they did the soundtrack for a Gene Simmons movie. Drummer was good anyways.

 

[Cactus Bob]

Ya, it's a crap shoot. Some other band gets a better roll at the time. The Shadows of Knight had a hit Gloria, but the other tunes are some of my favorites. Dixon's I Just Want to Make Love to You, for example.

I still like The Shadows of Knight. I grew up in Chicago in the 60's. Light Bulb Blues, Bad Little Women, You can't judge a book and others are still a treat to listen to. Jim Sohns was a wild man.

I used to see the Joe Kelley Blues Band (Shadows lead guitarist) at a club I used to hang out at on 2200 N Lincoln Ave. called Vibes in the 70's. They played their every Sunday night. Kelley was excellent.

On a side note I had an audition in the 90's to play drums with the Knight's, but I was self employed and couldn't cut it. Sure would have been fun.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadows_of_Knight

Take them over Styx any day!

 

[Mystic]

CB's reminiscence of The Shadows Of Knight reminds me of another "almost made it big" Chicago area group, The Ides Of March and their ****ing fantastic single "Vehicle". I still love that tune, it's just great blue-eyed.

 

[bshorey]

From Boston, Robert Ellis Orral. I actually worked with this guy for a couple of months at Tech Hifi in the early 80's, but he was already on his way out, as his music career was just taking off. He gave me a tape with some tracks off his first album on it, I still have it. 'White Noise' was a favorite of mine.

I Googled his name a few months ago, seems he ended up gaining some fame for performing a bunch of duets with some woman I'd never heard of, and more recently has been producing albums for the likes of Taylor Swift.

Great thread, I'm looking forward to tracking down some of the stuff mentioned here.

bs

 

[glum]

Here we have 2 bands that should have 16 tons and well this one is from indy ps dump your boyfrend.
The lead guy in 16tons was a kid names scott ryan one hell of a tallent.
He is fronting a new band now but there kind of forgetable.

 

[Cactus Bob]

CB's reminiscence of The Shadows Of Knight reminds me of another "almost made it big" Chicago area group, The Ides Of March and their ****ing fantastic single "Vehicle". I still love that tune, it's just great blue-eyed.

Great tune! One of the best. Glad you mentioned them. Jim Peterick as you already know was lead singer guitarist. He also played with his own band at "Vibes" on Lincoln Ave on a regular basis . . . my old hang and I saw him many times and of course he did Vehicle. This was in 73-74'. In 78 he co-found survivor which I wasn't fan of, but . . .

Also, In 71' Peterick wrote & sang The Ides' song "L.A. Goodbye" which was also a great tune.

1980-1981 Jim co-wrote hits for .38 Special including "Rocking Into the Night", "Hold on Loosely", "Caught Up in You", "Wild-Eyed Southern Boys", and "Fantasy Girl".

He had a lot of talent indeed.

http://www.jimpeterik.com/

Luther Alison also played at Vibes on a regular basis at that time. He was super good. We can add him to the list.

 

[michaelhigh]

Speaking of St. Louis, there's a rock station known as KSHE 94.7 FM that claims to be the longest-running rock format in the country (world?) and they still do a show on Sundays from 8:00am-noon called KSHE KLASSICS- used to feature mostly 60's obscurities (JD Blackfoot, Amboy Dukes, Joe Byrd/Field Hippies, Aphrodite's Child, Rare Bird, Poco/Buffalo Springfield, Wishbone Ash, etc.) but now with the passage of time are more into the 80's brand of nostalgia (Sammy Hagar/VH, The Kings, April Wine, Joe Walsh/Eagles, etc.). I still hear Moody Blues, Jethro Tull and Al Kooper. Pretty cool for commercial radio...

 

[ScramMan2]

I still like The Shadows of Knight. I grew up in Chicago in the 60's. Light Bulb Blues, Bad Little Women, You can't judge a book and others are still a treat to listen to. Jim Sohns was a wild man.

I used to see the Joe Kelley Blues Band (Shadows lead guitarist) at a club I used to hang out at on 2200 N Lincoln Ave. called Vibes in the 70's. They played their every Sunday night. Kelley was excellent.

On a side note I had an audition in the 90's to play drums with the Knight's, but I was self employed and couldn't cut it. Sure would have been fun.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadows_of_Knight

Take them over Styx any day!

Northern WI. I used to listen to WLS all the time in the 60's. Even worked in radio for a while.