Showing 1 - 25 of 54
Artist: Chris Spedding
One of Britain's most versatile session guitarists, Chris Spedding's long career has seen him tackle nearly every style of rock & roll to come down the pike, as well as sporadically attempting a solo career. Spedding started out in a beat group called the Vulcans, and from there supported cabaret acts on a cruise ship and several touring country... [+] Read More
Artist: The Battered Ornaments
Battered Ornaments were an ambitious rock band put together by lyricist Pete Brown, known for writing many of Cream's songs with Jack Bruce, after that group broke up. Organized in 1969, Battered Ornaments featured Brown on vocals and trumpet, Graham Layden (vocals), Chris Spedding (guitar), Charlie Hart (organ, violin), George Khan (sax), Butch... [+] Read More
Artist: Nucleus
Nucleus began its long jazz-rock journey in 1969, when it was originally formed by trumpeter Ian Carr. They attracted a following after a successful performance at the Montreux International Festival in 1970, which led to the critical success of albums Elastic Rock and We'll Talk About It Later. The other members consisted of saxophonist Karl... [+] Read More
Artist: Twist Imstar Club
With their first album Star Club Show, Vol. 4, the Twist Imstar Club influence 60's garage and Motown were not only present, but sped up to a punk motion as well. Fronted by former Mummies drummer Rusty Quan, the singer/guitarist also divided his time drumming for the San Francisco surf troupe The Phantom Surfers. Accompanied by shout-outs to... [+] Read More
Artist: Acen
Author of two club hits and one of the few rave artists privileged enough to even record an LP, Acen Razvi produced tracks with dense breakbeats and all matter of sampled, sped-up vocalists, from rude-boy chatters and divas to Jim Morrison. Released on the hardcore label Production House, "Trip II the Moon" also sampled James Bond's You Only... [+] Read More
Artist: Bees
The Bees' "Voices Green and Purple" is one of the weirdest one-shot obscurities of the 1960s garage scene, coming out on the Liverpool label in Covina, CA in October 1966. The verses were standard two-chord sub-Rolling Stones rants. The psychedelic touch was added not just by the florid and deranged lyrics, but by the choruses, where the tune... [+] Read More
Artist: The Scotsmen
From Minnesota, the Scotsmen made one obscure novelty single, "Beer Bust Blues," in 1965. A typical frat rock arrangement backed a gravelly-voiced, indeed wrestler-voiced singer with sound effects of a beer can being opened and poured. The flipside was an instrumental featuring organ and what sounded like artificially sped-up electric guitar... [+] Read More
Artist: The Parcels
The Parcels formed in New Jersey the summer of 1997. The original lineup of Tara Mackay (vocals and bass), Christian Elton (guitars, vocals, keyboards), and AJ Naito (drums) emerged as a sped-up indie pop trio in the vein of Go Sailor. The band released the Oh What a Busy Day single on Brentwood Estates Records in 1998. The EP was recorded with... [+] Read More
Artist: Bob Downes
Once one of England's top avant-garde jazz flautists, Bob Downes (born: Robert George Downes) has maintained a low profile since relocating to Europe in the late-1980s. Although he released a series of impressive albums in the mid-1970s, he has recorded very little since. Able to play more than twenty-five instruments, Downes has focused... [+] Read More
Artist: Danny McCulloch
London-born bassist Danny McCulloch got his first big break while still in his teens, as a member of Screaming Lord Sutch's backup band. In late 1965, after Eric Burdon had disbanded what was left of the original group the Animals, McCulloch was taken aboard as the first new member of what became Eric Burdon & the Animals. He was also... [+] Read More
Artist: Randy Cooke
Toronto drummer Randy Cooke was first exposed to the instrument at a young age via his father, who was a snare drummer in the pipe band the Toronto Scottish. But Cooke didn't begin to pick up the instrument until he was a teenager, when he joined the Cadet Lancers of Etobicoke drum corp. When he was 15, Cooke received his first full drum set and... [+] Read More
Artist: Harkonen
Part of the progressive hardcore underground scene that revels in abstracting the form and blurring its definition with overt metal tendencies and droning ambient interludes, Harkonen began in 1995 in Tacoma, WA. Originally a five-piece with bassist Matt Howard and drummer Ben Verellen at the core, the group suffered the all-too-typical growing... [+] Read More
Artist: The Greedies
One of the more obscure supergroups to exist during the '70s was the Greedies (aka the Greedy Bastards). Thin Lizzy leader Phil Lynott (bass, vocals) quickly took an interest in the fledgling punk movement of the late '70s, and subsequently befriended members of such outfits as the Sex Pistols, the Damned, and the Boomtown Rats. With time off... [+] Read More
Artist: The Prodigy
The Prodigy navigated the high-wire, balancing artistic merit and mainstream visibility with more flair than any electronica act of the 1990s. Ably defeating the image-unconscious attitude of most electronic artists in favor of a focus on nominal frontman Keith Flint, the group crossed over to the mainstream of pop music with an incendiary live... [+] Read More
Artist: Free
Famed for their perennial "All Right Now," Free helped lay the foundations for the rise of hard rock, stripping the earthy sound of British blues down to its raw, minimalist core to pioneer a brand of proto-metal later popularized by 1970's superstars like Foreigner, Foghat and Bad Company. Free formed in London in 1968 when guitarist Paul... [+] Read More
Artist: Cloud One
The studio-bound disco unit Cloud One made its debut in 1976 with the spectacular "Atmosphere Strut," a drifting, blissed-out nugget of underground disco that featured a repeated female vocal refrain of "We're gonna fly/Fly away." More importantly, what made the song stand out from everything else released at the time was the wild synthesizer... [+] Read More
Artist: Quasimoto
Quasimoto is the utterly bizarre alter ego of production wizard/MC Madlib (born Otis Jackson, Jr.), one of the leading underground producers on the West Coast hip-hop scene. Madlib got his start with the Oxnard, CA-based Lootpack, which recorded an acclaimed album, Soundpieces: Da Antidote, for Peanut Butter Wolf's Stones Throw label in 1999. At... [+] Read More
Artist: Gangsta Pat
One of the first Memphis rappers to make the major-label jump, Gangsta Pat never attained the acclaim or success of fellow Memphis pioneers Three 6 Mafia and Eightball & MJG, yet he still remains noteworthy for his trailblazing. Pat's career began promisingly when Atlantic signed him at the dawn of the gangsta rap era and released #1 Suspect... [+] Read More
Artist: Tony Hazzard
The name Tony Hazzard may not ring a bell, but the English singer/songwriter has written hits for everyone from the Hollies, Manfred Mann, and Herman's Hermits to Gene Pitney and Andy Williams. Born and raised in Liverpool, Hazzard picked up the guitar and ukulele at a young age. A formidable student, he managed to miss out on the Merseybeat... [+] Read More
Artist: Bumblebee Unlimited
Bumblebee Unlimited was a studio-based disco unit helmed by Patrick Adams and Gregory Carmichael. Much like the other groups/artists featuring the handiwork of Adams and/or Carmichael (Cloud One, Universal Robot Band, Inner Life, etc.), Bumblebee Unlimited acted as a bridge between disco and house, stylistically (and sometimes chronologically)... [+] Read More
Artist: Modey Lemon
Inspired by the proto-punk Stooges and the post-garage Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, and informed by the late '60s and '70s rock so prevalent in their middle-American hometowns, Modey Lemon was the most successful of the new wave of Pittsburgh bands born in the years following the mid-'90s peak of the indie and math rock scenes. Formed in the... [+] Read More
Artist: Lesley Duncan
One of England's top session vocalists, Lesley Duncan sang on recordings by Elton John, the Dave Clark 5, Pink Floyd, the Alan Parsons Project, Michael Chapman, Joyce Everson and the soundtrack of Jesus Christ Superstar. Her songs have been covered by Elton John, Olivia-Newton John and Long John Baldry.
Although her debut 1963 single, "I Want A... [+] Read More
Artist: Nick Mason
Nick Mason is the drummer of Pink Floyd and the only member to have remained in the group for its entire existence. Born Nicholas Berkeley Mason on January 27, 1944, in the Downshire Hills area of Birmingham, England, he met future bandmates Roger Waters and Rick Wright while studying architecture at Regent Street Polytechnic. He began playing... [+] Read More
Artist: David Gedge
Love and sex usually stoke the lyrics of David Gedge (vocals, guitar), often written from a seemingly autobiographical perspective and sung in a dejected, conversational manner. A critics' favorite in the U.K., Gedge cemented his cult status in the U.S. by refusing to surrender his artistic convictions for mainstream stardom. Gedge formed the... [+] Read More
