Best Obscure Albums

Started by ducktrapper, August 15, 2015, 11:22:37 AM

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Quote from: ducktrapper on August 19, 2015, 10:54:19 AM

Anyone listen to Big Star? Maybe not so obscure anymore but at one time they may have been the answer to the question, "What is the best album that almost no one has heard?"   

Just listened to them yesterday on my morning commute to Carson City. Good band. It's puzzling that they didn't get a bit more famous back in the day. There's a pretty good documentary on Netflix about them too.

Quote from: hodagg on August 21, 2015, 08:16:53 AM
Just listened to them yesterday on my morning commute to Carson City. Good band. It's puzzling that they didn't get a bit more famous back in the day. There's a pretty good documentary on Netflix about them too.

Yes, I've seen it. Just a story of a great band that was making music not in step with what else was going on and very poorly served by their label. Critics and the few people that heard them were blown away but almost no one heard them until they were rediscovered and touted by The Replacements and REM years after they broke up. By that time too late for the band. Alex Chilton was some kind of genius, however. Unfortunately, after the demise of Big Star, his music took a strange turn. Some of it fascinating but all of it difficult for most people to appreciate without some background into his thinking.

My obscure LP of last night. A little cerebral comedy. Firesign Theater - Everything You Know Is Wrong. 


The self-titled album, Mashmakhan, circa 1969-71?  Mashmakhan was a Canadian band from Montreal, I believe.  I don't know how long they were together or if they had any other albums, but I've always loved this album.  All the songs on it were written by one or more of the band members (mostly by Peter Senecal)

They had one big radio hit, "As the years go by".

........... "and as the years go by, true love will never die"...........

I saw them live once, at a free outdoor concert at the Regina exhibition.  That would have been the summer of 1970 I think.  They were awesome.  What impressed me the most was the organ playing of Pierre Senecal.  I presume he was their leader as he is credited with most of the songs on the album and as the arranger and main singer.  I don't remember what organ he was playing, but for sure he had a leslie speaker and it sounded gorgeous to my impressionable ears.  Every band had an organ and a leslie speaker back then.

I'm pretty sure Ducktrapper knows their history better than I so he may have some better information to share.

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:guitar

Not really though I certainly remember them. Did you see the film, Musical Express? Cross country train ride featuring The Band, Janis and others circa 1970. Mashmakan make an appearance in the film doing that song. My girlfriend at the time did a dance routine to it, as well.  :cheers

My obscure LP from last night was Fever Tree. Simply awful. I couldn't get more than three songs down without upchucking.  :laughin:

Quote from: ducktrapper on August 22, 2015, 08:11:49 AM
Not really though I certainly remember them. Did you see the film, Musical Express? Cross country train ride featuring The Band, Janis and others circa 1970. Mashmakan make an appearance in the film doing that song. My girlfriend at the time did a dance routine to it, as well.  :cheers..........................................

I assume you are referring to Festival Express 1970.  Yes, I have it in a 2 CD set but it's been so long since I watched it I didn't remember Mashmakhan was on it   I see they are in the credits on the back of the CD case.  I guess it's about time I watched it again.

Another (perhaps) obscure album that I really enjoyed back in the day was "True Colors" by the band Split Enz, released in 1980.  I think they were from Australia.  Great harmonies and the album has great production values to my ears.  Some of the songs are a bit Beatlesque in a way.  I saw them live in Regina at the Centennial Auditorium in the early 80s.  Great acoustics in that venue.

Would you believe I also saw Pink Floyd there in 1971 when they were just gaining popularity.  Hard to imagine Pink Floyd performing in Regina Saskatchewan, eh?  They basically performed the whole Umma Gumma album at that one.  As a 17-year old budding rock star from a small prairie city, I was completely enthralled and overwhelmed by that concert.  I had never heard anything close to it in terms of material and sound quality.  It was one of those defining moments for me.

:cheers
"Badges?  We don't need no stinkin' badges."

Became a Shooting Star when I got my 1st guitar.
Back in '66, I was 13 and that was my fix.
Still shooting for stardom after all this time.
If I never make it, I'll still be fine.


:guitar

Oops. Right, Festival Express. I have the DVD as well. Gotta love the scene where the train stops at the liquor store!

Seeing PF do Umma Gumma would have been pretty cool alright.

As for Split Enz, actually Kiwis, the little brother of the their leader Tim Finn, Neil Finn, later formed Crowded House. Saw them in Thunder Bay with Richard Thompson opening. One of the few bans I can think of that I really liked until I saw them. That could be a whole other thread.   :beer

Last night ... The Raybeats. Sort of a cross between The Ventures and The Ramones (or maybe The Clash). That's not quite right but you get the picture. Very cool instrumentals with plenty of great stratocaster playing by someone named Jody Harris. Good stuff!  


How about Loudon Wainwright the third,Steve Forbert and the next to impossible to find and mine is missing a 20's-30's  jazz guitarist named Eddie Lang and his violin playing partner Joe Vinutti these guy's were the insperation for the Hot Club and Lang was one of Charlie Christian inspiration.
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I just mentioned it in the "Great Players" thread but will mention it here too:

Charlie Sexton's Under The Wishing Tree.

Quote from: unclrob on August 24, 2015, 07:49:28 PM
How about Loudon Wainwright the third,Steve Forbert and the next to impossible to find and mine is missing a 20's-30's  jazz guitarist named Eddie Lang and his violin playing partner Joe Vinutti these guy's were the insperation for the Hot Club and Lang was one of Charlie Christian inspiration.

Forbert is tremendous. I recently picked up a CD of his very earliest recordings called 'Young Guitar Days'. Terrific stuff. I can't imagine why it took so long to release it.


Not a very old record, but Jeff Lynne's LONG WAVE from 2012 is probably pretty obscure.  I've had it in constant rotation since I got a copy a couple years ago.

Seldom Scene - Live at the Cellar Door

though I now see it's on iTunes - does that disqualify it from being obscure?

. . . and now I see there are many, many  internetz links - should I just delete this post?

Maybe we should try to define obscure in terms of recordings? Or since I started the thread and have been somewhat of a record aficionado and self defined expert on things of this nature most of my life, I could stand as judge and jury as to whether something is actually obscure?  :whistling:  :wink: 

Quote from: ducktrapper on August 28, 2015, 07:30:33 AM
Maybe we should try to define obscure in terms of recordings? Or since I started the thread and have been somewhat of a record aficionado and self defined expert on things of this nature most of my life, I could stand as judge and jury as to whether something is actually obscure?  :whistling:  :wink: 

I think by your definition or any other, The Merseybeats first album would qualify.     They played the same clubs at the same time as the Beatles but got very little attention due to the meteoric rise of their contemporaries.   Still, they made some decent music that has come to be known as the Mersey sound of the early 60's


Quote from: ducktrapper on August 21, 2015, 08:28:38 AM
Yes, I've seen it. Just a story of a great band that was making music not in step with what else was going on and very poorly served by their label. Critics and the few people that heard them were blown away but almost no one heard them until they were rediscovered and touted by The Replacements and REM years after they broke up. By that time too late for the band. Alex Chilton was some kind of genius, however. Unfortunately, after the demise of Big Star, his music took a strange turn. Some of it fascinating but all of it difficult for most people to appreciate without some background into his thinking.

My obscure LP of last night. A little cerebral comedy. Firesign Theater - Everything You Know Is Wrong. 


Love Firesign Theater!  I have "The Tale of the Giant Rat of Sumatra" - hilarious!
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Quote from: tuffythepug on August 28, 2015, 10:11:12 AM
I think by your definition or any other, The Merseybeats first album would qualify.     They played the same clubs at the same time as the Beatles but got very little attention due to the meteoric rise of their contemporaries.   Still, they made some decent music that has come to be known as the Mersey sound of the early 60's



Yup. From that era, for me, to be obscure you probably never appeared on Sullivan.  :beer

Last night, James Talley - Blackjack Choir. More a country blues album than a straight blues album but B.B. King makes an appearance on the first cut called "Bluesman". I really liked this. I have three Talley albums, all pretty good but this is the best of them, I think. It's a bit of a puzzle why some folks just don't make it in the business. Talley would fit that group.

   

Quote from: tuffythepug on August 28, 2015, 10:11:12 AM
I think by your definition or any other, The Merseybeats first album would qualify.     They played the same clubs at the same time as the Beatles but got very little attention due to the meteoric rise of their contemporaries.   Still, they made some decent music that has come to be known as the Mersey sound of the early 60's

My brother and I had a Merseybeats album from about 1965, I think.  I don't remember the title of it.  We got it from our uncle.  Our uncle Peter, RIP, was the projectionist and ran the show and the music at the "Queen City" drive-in theatre back then.  He was responsible for playing the music over the speakers before the movie started.  He always had these cool contemporary albums that he would give to us once he went on to something else to play.  We got several free albums that way.  Another album that comes to mind that we got from him was by Hugo Montenegro that contained all the music from the "Man With No Name" movies.

Although he was much older than us, he was the coolest uncle ever.  He was an electronics wizard and set us up so we could amplify our first band, the Shooting Stars.
"Badges?  We don't need no stinkin' badges."

Became a Shooting Star when I got my 1st guitar.
Back in '66, I was 13 and that was my fix.
Still shooting for stardom after all this time.
If I never make it, I'll still be fine.


:guitar

I actually have a few of the albums mentioned so far, especially those naming Lowell George, David Lindley or Jerry Garcia, and without digging through the two tubs of LP's to look just yet, I'll add Fleetwood Mac's "Kiln House". I'm heading out for several days but will have to crack the lids on my storage tubs when I get home.   
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"Looking In" Savoy Brown.  Killer album.

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