mybandnames

[mybandnames]

Zen, and the Art of Men

Japan has been responsible for a lot of great art, philosophy, technology and cheap guitars. And while we all know of the huge technical influence they've had on modern society, not so much is known (discounting a few standouts such as Isao Tomita and Charles Tumahai of BeBop Deluxe) of their musical influences on British and American music. This is especially true in the funk dept where they've produced many masterpieces.

So today we're going to look at two examples of bands whose work, sadly, never scaled the ramparts of western pop. And these two are the late 70s Clook Roam (an unfortunate linguistic mixup as this was supposed to be Cloak Room) and a group of Zen monks called One Too from Fukuoka (yes, really).

Clook Roam

The band were not amused when they spotted the typo in their name, which was an allusion to their fandom of any superhero who employed a cloak as part of their figure hugging costume. Unfortunately for them, their manager had printed all the band's publicity materials with the mistake, so there was no going back.

In some ways it turned out well, as many people turned up at their gigs because they wanted to find out just what the hell a 'Clook Roam' was. What they got - a dirgy, formless form of Goth - never seemed to satisfy their enquiring minds. So the beginnings of each gig were halls packed full of expectant, smiley faces that quickly turned into polite stampedes for the nearest exit. And tears, lots of tears.

Spotting an opportunity to claw some cash back from the innocents at the start of the gigs, their manager, the aptly named Maikīmanē, pressed a few hundred copies of their first/only single, which he then sold to the unsuspecting fans before they got to the auditorium. The single's title, 'My love to Death' was written in English, which translates roughly to 'Watashi wa jibun no shi o aishite iru' was helped to the lower reaches of the local pop charts by the smiling, cherubic faces of Maikīmanē's teenage children. Once again the band were not amused by the cheap trick of facial substitution (actually a good move as none of the band were lookers) but preferred to focus on the small degree of fame that the minor success brought them.

And that's where their story dries up. No more is known of the band or their manager, though there are rumours that more than one band member followed their musical quest to the burlesque clubs of Berlin.

One Too

A play on their Zen philosophy, One Too, were well-educated young men who knew a thing or two about western pop music and had decided to raise some money for their temple by exploiting this knowledge in the form of a pop band. This being the mid-60s, anything was possible, and they being Zen Buddhists, knew nothing was impossible.

Hailing from the ancient city of Monno Naimon, the six-piece band hired themselves a selection of instruments from Tokyo and started learning them. Things went well initially, with the band recording their first album - Free Four All - within six months of first plucking a string. The album sold well, for rural Japan, and they raised a modest amount for their monastery.

However, things started to get very un-Zen-like when the band were asked to play at a music festival in the nearby Gifu.

The organisers had misunderstood the nature of the band (thinking they'd be a traditional hocchiku band - I believe someone said that one of their songs was called 'Hoochie Coochie Man' - not a phrase to fall lightly upon the Japanese ear) and got something of a surprise when the monk's opening song crashed into existence. Stolen quite blatantly from Jimi Hendrix, but remodelled for a local audience, their opener was called 'Purple Sage' and whilst unrecognisable as a copy, did feature a very long and highly disturbing (to local ears) guitar solo. Halfway through their second number, 'Fuxey Laydee' the local fire brigade, on the orders of the organisers, pumped up their hoses and aimed them at the Marshal amps stacked up behind the band. And bang! That was the end of One Too. The entire band electrocuted in about 30 seconds and tens of thousand of Yens worth of rented musical equipment all now available in charcoal.

Rather ruthlessly, the company that hired the equipment out, wanted it paid for and demanded the monastery, which of course they couldn't do given that the instruments were supposed to be raising money for them. However, the monks did have a few assets, the main one being the monastery itself, which overlooked a river and had charming views across many arable fields. Some say that if you squinted sideways during the early dawn, the patchwork fields looked remarkably like a golf course - a sport that was becoming more and more popular with city dwellers and business men who had money, time and no interest in philosophy.

Something the hire company understood about Zen though, was the idea of wandering monks, and that monks that wandered both physically and metaphysically were more enlightened than their stationary brothers. And off they went on their quests. Having liberated the monks, the monastery was re-modelled into a hotel with an attached golf course. One of the first in the country.

So, while the band, the instruments, the monastery and the monks, and several hundreds of years of philosophy and tradition were gone, they'd all been replaced by something far more valuable. Progress.

[mybandnames]

Dick Swinger's Big Brass Band

Trumpeter Dick's real name is Richard Swingler, but that's not going to get you very far in showbiz is it? Especially if you're trying to jump on the swinging 60s bandwagon and your main claim to fame is a legal 'misunderstanding' that saw Dick being interviewed by the boys in blue. It turned out that he hadn't embezzled around £1000 from a form employer, but in fact was merely keeping it safe until it could be returned. Having repaid the money and made a grovelling apology to both the court and the former employer, Dick fled his home town of Wychbold never to return.

Attracted to the sparkle of the dirt and grime of Manchester's seedy nightclubs, Dick soon found himself blowing lead trumpet for the in-house band at the Jiggle Easy club, the eight-piece Octo-Pussy. Less than a year later Dick was leading the band after the original leader - known as 'The Octopus' by all of the girls who worked in the club, mysteriously resigned. Word behind the bar said The Octopus had been a bit inappropriate with Tina the Twirler, a favourite of local crook Ben the Gun, who noted the musician's handling error, and suggested a new band/new town combo was almost certainly going to mean continuing good health.

Not long after Dick took over, a local BBC news crew visited the club to record an episode of their new series, Careers for Modern Women. Desperate to fill a slot, the producer (who may or may not have been friends with the club's owner) decided that Go-Go dancing was a career choice, so definitely suitable for his programme. As was normal, Dick's band was playing on the night of the recording, which captured three of his tunes in their entirety, along with with accompanying Go-Go dancers. When it aired, the programme not only included interviews with several dancers and the club's owner, but also featured one of Dick's big solo numbers, the catchily named 'Blowing Dick's Trumpet'. For some reason that was never clarified, the title of the tune was shown in a caption on the TV, which excited more than one local vicar and led to protests from various protectors of society's fabric.

Latching onto this protest was well-known anti-smut campaigner and Londoner, Constance Fingering-Hoe, who saw another opportunity to return the UK to the oppressive silence of the Victorian era. Fortunately, many local dignitaries, some of who may have been members of Dick's or other similar clubs, laughed them all back to anonymity by putting on shows where the dancers actually put on more clothes while swaying gently to the band's newly acquired knowledge of Gospel music.

Sensing an opportunity to break free of strip clubs and sticky carpets, Dick launched Dick Swinger's Big Brass Band on a tour of the north west where 'Blowing Dick's Trumpet' had become a regional hit. It wasn't to last however, and despite pleasing crowds with the equally catchy 'Bigger is Better' and 'Bend over Cheeky' (which Benny Hill was rumoured to be interested in), the band soon returned to the basement bandstand behind the red velvet curtains of the Jiggle Easy club.

Officially, Dick died in 1969 of a respiratory illness brought on by spending most of his life sucking in damp cigarette smoke and the vapour of cheap perfume. Unofficially, it's rumoured that his heart was broken one too many times by the dancers he sought favours from, but who were too smart to give him anything more than a suggestive wink and a flash of cleavage. Any favours that might have been given were saved for the man with his hand on the bankroll and their futures. And Dick was never that man.

[mybandnames]

It's Not Normal, Mal

Another day, another triptych of near misses, this time we have three quick sketches of three blokes called Mal.

1. Malcolm Oaffer and the Strands - Rose almost invisibly from the early East Lancastrian Rhythm and Blues scene (itself invisible from any part of the UK and especially London, where the record labels were) with their self-funded single 'Cow Ark You Broke My Heart'. This passionate plea to the singer's former girlfriend, and native of Cow Ark, Brenda Goodley, (who'd left him heartbroken outside the YHA in Slaidburn) to requite their love, scraped into the top 100 at 99 for a week. This minor miracle didn't go unnoticed by the music editor of the Clitheroe Chronicle, Baz Rudder, who fearlessly tracked down Brenda and ran a story on what happened and why. Sadly for Mal his broken heart was caused by his own dirty work which was carried out in the back of his van with Brenda's best friend, who she declined to name. With his dreams of stardom crushed under the hobnail boots of local disapproval, Mal's van was last seen heading towards obscurity along the A66 east of Cockermouth.

2. Mal Content and the Happiness - Impossible to truely categorise due mainly to a singularly focussed/blinkered desire to be across as many musical styles as possible in the hope of finding success in one. Mal and the band actually started out on the fraying fringe of the early 60s London hippy drug scene. Legend has it that Mal joined the band simply by walking onto the stage at one of their early gigs while four days into a LSD-fulled binge that never really came to an end. Having made it to a microphone, Mal, according to their bass player, and only surviving member, Arnie Villin, babbled incoherently though tunefully through their normally instrumental set. The audience, many of whom were in exactly the same state of mind as Mal, were totally bowled over by his performance, which was better than the indifference most audiences showed the band sans Mal. Backed into a corner, they were forced to take him on as their frontman. Then, as is so often the story, tragedy struck just at the moment it looked like stardom was heading their way. Heading back to London to talk to EMI after a gig (and many, many beers) in a small pub between Dover and Folkstone, they got lost in the fog. Deep into the middle of nowhere, their now-freezing bladders were at bursting point and stopping for a collective pee now became the priority. Arnie, in what is now one of the few actually factual statements attributed to the band, later told police "The rest of the band got out for a waz, but I was already comatose in the back. I'd also already wet meself, so they others left me and turned to face what we now know was the edge of the cliff and the sea. One man standing where they were might have survived the crumbling chalk cliff, but four? Nah, not a chance. And off they went." All four were found by early morning beach goers at around 06:30 the next day, with the police finding Arnie still asleep in the van a few hours later. Sensing he'd had a close call, Arnie gave up drugs, drink and basses and became a council road sweeper in Peckham, south London.

3. Mal Lingerer's Hideout - The last and by far the baddest of all the Mals, Mal Lingerer's look was a carbon copy of Marlon Brando's image and attitude in The Wild One. Albeit without the motorbike, which he wasn't licensed to ride. Of course the bad boy image was just designed to frighten old ladies and stir up column inches in newspapers desperate for anything remotely newsworthy. This was especially true in rural Suffolk, where, in the early 70s anyway, excitement had gone to die. Having garnered several inches of bad publicity, Mal turned up at the offices of the Ipswich Enquirer demanding a right to reply. After a few minutes of bluff and bluster with the Feature's editor (where was the bloody news editor?) Mal's ability to keep up his bad boy image petered out. Seizing the opportunity for a good photo story, the Features editor arranged to meet Mal at a country pub in Burstall, said to be the HQ of a local bike gang. A few days later the editor turned up with a photographer to get some pics of Mal with the bikers (one of whom was the editor's brother). All was going well, when someone suggested Mal be photographed actually riding a bike, but only in first gear, so barely rolling along. What could possibly go wrong? Everything it turned out. Mal, though without a bike license, had ridden a few of course, and thought he'd surprise everyone by showing off his skills. Revving the bike up as far as it's rattling crankshaft would allow, he dropped the clutch and almost literally took off. Still in first gear and almost unstoppable, he'd travelled about 100 yards when an almost antique combine harvester (a 1946 Cockshutt) hove into view. Well, we all know what the front of a combine harvester looks like, so you can work out what happened next for yourself. Miraculously, the bike (a 1965 Matchless) survived and was used to tow Mal's casket to the church in his home town of Copdock.

[mybandnames]

Glam Rock - Rounds 1 - 3

Tipper, Deathsponge and Glitter Bag

Today we're looking at three bands whose history spans three decades of hope, desperation, near-misses and failure tied together by one rather beautiful, if largely unsuccessful, man.

And that man was Jan Vorlorne, who was born in the UK to Dutch parents in 1960. Jan, or Jonny as he became known, got bitten by the band bug in his early teens after seeing an early Slade gig in the Red Cow pub in their home town of Wolverhampton.

One cheap guitar later and Jonny Starbright, as he christened himself, was only three chords away from fame and fortune. Or so he thought. In fact it turned out to be only 30 years away.

His first stab at success was the five-piece band Tipper, which he formed in the last year of secondary school. The name came from his father's job, which was driving the tipper trucks that removed the earth and rubble from the new roads that were part of the post-war UK re-building boom.

Tipper were everything a young man of those times could dream of: loud, poppy, and a very large girl-magnet. Initially the band got a lot of attention, partly because they were cheap and available at the drop of a mirrored hat, and partly because they promoted themselves as Dudley's answer to Slade. As the rivalry between Dudley and Wolverhampton (the so-called Car Wars) was quite intense at the time, followers were easy to amass.

Eventually though, with no success under their belts, the other members (except his loyal bass player, Huggy Moonshine) tired of Jonny's mission and the band folded. Jonny however, was undiminished, and after a brief pause and very little self-reflection, went on to form Deathsponge.

While Tipper were fast but fairly unfurious, Deathsponge were exactly the opposite. By now Black Sabbath had been in the charts with Paranoid and their early albums had a lasting effect on Jonny. Under his creative genius Deathsponge brought together the two genres he most loved. Heavy metal with a distinctly downbeat and drudgey life view, and the uplifting and very bouncy pop music of Slade.

This curious mix led to songs such as 'Dress My Corpse in Spandex' and 'The Glitter Ball of Doom Wreaks Havoc', both of which featured on their self-made single (1981). By then though, Glam Rock had run it's course (unless you lived in Germany and the Netherlands). Sadly, though, this lofty point in the band's career proved to be no higher than much of the Dutch coast line.

The third and final act for Jonny came about after an encounter with Alvin Stardust, who's own history (albeit littered with actual hits and musical success) inspired Jonny to re-board the fame express via Disco-Funk, with the very much more upbeat and joyful, Glitter Bag.

Still desperate for success, Jonny's final thrust at pinning his name to stardom, was a cheap and very cheerful take on Disco (having also realised that getting people to dance is very good for popularity). Designed to be instantly likeable by anyone who heard them, the band seemed not to have noticed that Disco had also had its last chart-based hoorah, so despite their ability to move the dance floor, the chances of moving the hit parade were exactly nil.

Despite this, Jonny carried on with the band which found a certain level of success (and a reasonable career) on the nostalgia circuits in Germany, Portugal and Italy. Given his previous experience with several musical genres, he was often able to play three times on the same bill - a feat unmatched to this day by any artist alive or dead.

Sadly this commitment also took it's toll on his heart, and he died backstage after a particularly hectic performance at La Discotex in Milan in 2013. His spandex-covered body was returned to Dudley where he was celebrated with a low-key funeral attended by friends, fans and family, many of whom sang their favourite of Jonny's songs during the service. Afterwards, a few of his ex-band colleagues performed his music at the after-party, where it was also mooted, in a speech given by loyal bass player, Huggy Moonshine, that Windmill Street be re-named Jonny Lane in his honour. A suggestion so far ignored by Dudley city council.

[mybandnames]

Singer, Chanteuse, Cantante Femenina

Three European female club singers who were little more than shadows in the hallowed fields of rock n roll history are Tisha Moore, Mandy Tuesday and Since Mona.

Tisha Moore - Hailing from the UK, Tisha began her career in the Brummie working men's clubs where various local impresarios tried to lure her into their creepy, dank and seedy lives. Their promises of stardom were, inevitably, predicated on her sleeping with them. Finding herself unable to sleep her way to fame and fortune, Tisha turned her back on the clubs and fell willing into the arms of the Goth scene, eventually quitting music altogether. Which is where her story runs out, though there are rumours of a middle-aged female singer performing Andy Stuart's hits in full Goth gear on the Isle of Skye.

Mandy Tuesday - Born in Furiani in Corsica, her real name was Amandine Tusoli, a hinderance in the largely Anglo-driven world of rock n roll she wanted to insert herself into. Passing herself off as an American, she toured all the clubs in Corsica and Sardinia, towns that were largely untouched by the music of the late 1960s. Despite the obviously fake accent, she became enough of a wow! to secure passage all the way to Wisconsin where she opened a French restaurant in downtown Fernwood.

Since Mona - Spain has long been the source of great music and musicians, and Since Mona (or Mona to her friends) should have been a much bigger part of this than she ended up being. A loss to us all, as well as her home town of La Linea de la Concepcion, a tiny Mediterranean town in southern Spain, right across the border from Gibraltar. Although a more than adequate singer, she remained quite poor, and eventually got involved in the various smuggling activities that kept much of the local economy afloat. As luck had it, smuggling was something she was a natural at and through it was able to amass enough of a fortune to escape a small town life to live a quieter and more pleasant one in the western suburbs of Berlin.

[mybandnames]

John Castle Group

An extremely talented guitarist of the Jimi Hendrix era, John was an iconic figure in the streets and venues of Aylesbury during the mid- to late-70s.

Although actually quite reclusive, this mild-mannered English gentleman was famous for his very long and curly blonde hair and colourful hippy attire.

Not only did he inspire and encourage numerous young guitarists, if his wardrobe is to be believed, he single-handedly kept the velvet industry in business for a good decade longer than it had any right to bank on.

Nothing is known of his recorded output, there there are rumours that there are some bootlegs recorded from a mixing desk when he played at Friars, a venue graced by many top names including Bowie, Slade and Motorhead.

John played there after the venue's promoter saw him playing at a local pub. "...the most extraordinary and wild guitar I've heard since Hendrix at the Isle of Wight" he's been quoted as saying.

Although not a Strat player, John had a beautiful gold-top Ibanez Les Paul which he played with all the verve and nerve, sparkle and scream of any self-respecting Hendrix afficianando.

[mybandnames]

The Folded Men

A strange mixture of 60s dime novels and early 80s synth-pop, The Folded Men's output drew heavily on the content of cheap crime novels. Basically desperate people doing desperate things to each other with little, style, substance or skill.

Sex sells of course, and probably the only reason TFM had even one hit was down to their singer who performed mainly in her underwear and frequently without it. Sue Hellen, aka the Face that Launched 1000 Handjobs, abruptly left the band after their gig in Chico, California, where they were part of a six band revue allegedly showcasing the latest trends in pop music.

Last seen climbing into the back of a large black and white 57 Chevy - thought to be owned by an out-of-state politician of little moral worth but quite a lot in $ value, the singer is rumoured to be now running and online lingerie business from a log cabin in Duckwater, in the Nevada mountains.

[mybandnames]

The Legendary Bass Beats

And indeed they were! But like so many legends, they were also deeply mysterious and are almost impossible to understand in concrete terms.

Consisting of three bass players (fretless, five string fretted, upright acoustic) and either for or five drummers, they were big on the DJ circuit in the mid-90s, with recordings being played on repeat in several clubs in London and Manchester.

The unusual line-up was heavy and furious with the three basses providing all the melodic lines (helped along by a carpet of foot pedals) while the drums provided the rhythmic motors. Even here nothing was straightforward. Three of the drummers played only a bass drum, a snare and a high-hat. The other two played all the cymbals and tom-toms, wood blocks, shakers, timpani etc.

According to a few people who saw them at their debut gig at Manchester's premier Drum n Bass club, The Sound of Thud, several ravers left with bleeding ears while others (probably southerners) were knocked to floor when the band started up.

Few of the original recordings survive, but a Mancunian friend says he heard a very poor recording of theirs on cassette that, although heavily distorted from being bootlegged in an unknown club, was "shockingly powerful, though somewhat monosyllabic musically".

[mybandnames]

Latin American Mysteries...

Three for the price of one today! And if you thought researching some of Europe and the US's more obscure bands was tricky - then welcome to the black hole of independent Latin American music!

Valley of Voodoo - From Brazil and allegedly playing 'Doom Rock'. But were they? Voodoo isn't Goth IMO, so perhaps their ultra-heavy brand of rock, weighted down with Voodoo mysticism, and the hubble-bubble of shadowy subterranean rooms has been mis-reported. Whatever it was, there is, sadly, no existing examples of their one and only EP, Meus Membros Sao Flores (My Flowering Limbs).

Moz Quito and the Ecuadorean Bannister - One of the first, and possibly the most original, Pan-pipe band ever to haunt the streets of London. Moz was actually born Morris Plate, but changed his name after spending three years in Quito, the capital of Ecuador with his parents who were in the diplomatic corps. On returning to England he managed to bring back three local musicians who'd taught him the rudiments of sucking and blowing the Pan-pipes. Although popular on the university circuit, the band were last seen selling cassettes from an illegally parked Austin 1100 in Trafalgar Square in 1979/80.

Peter Piper and the Pickled Pink Peppers of Paradise - All that's known of this outfit is that they were from Guayaquil (Ecuador) and are said to have heard Moz Quito's band and, inspired by their 'success' in the UK, followed them over. The last performance they gave, that can be verified anyway, was to Passport Control at Heathrow airport.

[mybandnames]

Galloon

This Amsterdam-based band hail from the frankly dismal beginnings of Pirate rock. So bad were they, that, according to my low-land sources, audiences were made up of two types of people. Those fighting to get out once the music started, and those who felt the hour had come to transform from stoned hippy to revenging warlord.

The latter would endure as much as one minute's worth of Galloon's performance before storming the stage and smashing everything and everyone, up.

Eventually the police tired of being called out and arrested the entire quintet and despatched them to all points of the compass. Individually. And were never seen again - which is why no recordings of them exist.

Only the violinist had enough brain cells to make it back to Amsterdam where he started anew, but this time with some out of work sailors who could count in both 4/4 and 3/4 time. All drowned in a boating accident while on the Norfolk Broads in the UK just before recording their first album, Ga We Naar Vissen?

[mybandnames]

Dead on the Floor

Started out, it would seem as a sort of proto-Goth band, but then switched to dance-orientated music after accidentally getting an earful of Northern Soul. This was in the very early 1970s, and definitely no later than mid-1972.

Their singer/guitarist (Bristolian Bob Beezerly) is quoted as saying that they heard the music because the band's van died outside a club in the back streets of Manchester (as opposed to the band dying onstage inside a club in Manchester). As luck would have it, one of the club-goers (who was a dancer by night, but a car mechanic by day) was out the back having a fag and offered his services for a small fee.

Bob would be the first to admit that he was heavily averse to spending money, but also knew that being stuck in a back alley in Manchester late at night might be terminal, so acquiesced. While the mechanic was face down under the bonnet, Bob slipped inside the club where a 1K watt PA was banging out some of the grooviest music to ever hit the soles of his feet.

Sold! And the rest is history - or at least it would be if anyone knew anything else about the band beyond the two singles that even I can't find the titles for. Allegedly the first one was 'I've Pumped my Baby Part 1'. Presumably the 2nd single was Part 2. We may never know.

[mybandnames]

Artist list

I've got quite a backlist of artists* who I'll be writing about as I get enough info (both verified and unverified) to post here. New ones are added at the top of the list.

Message me if you know anything about the ones listed below.

* Note that some of these names may be incorrectly spelt.

Where are they now?

The Legendary Bass Beats (UK, Drum n Bass)

The Bangers (Scotland, Pipe band but without the pipes)

Catherine Wheeler (UK, Soul singer)

Des Cearte and the Beaches (Belgium, Surf band)

MindGnome (Russia, Phsycho-Rock)

Since Mona (Spanish, Psychotropic Ballads)

Clook Roam (Japan, Goths)

The Lost (UK, Angst-Pop)

Inlet (UK, Folk-Pop)

The Folded Men (USA, Synth-Pop)

Valley of Voodoo (Brazil, Doom-Rock)

Francis Soir and the Evening Crowd

Space Wumph (UK, Psychedelic)

Dick Swinger's Big Brass Band (UK, Club band)

Essell Edgehammer (German, Metal)

Tight Jean and the Belters (USA, Teen Pop)

Farther Parsnip (Greece, unsure, Folk Rock?)

Dead on the Floor (German, Disco)

Butterslide (unknown, Pop-Rock)

Phoenix Carbon (USA, Synth Pop)

Fat Bob and the Skinny Dippers (USA, Surf-Pop)

Snakechain (USA, Rock)

Were Huis (Dutch, Pop Metal)

Tipper (UK, early Glam Rock)

Ed Zakkerly and the Precisionists (UK, Club band)

Grip (UK, Folk Rock)

Mandy Tuesday (French, Angst Pop)

Lucy Gent and the Poppy Seeds (UK, Psychedelic)

Penny Zance and her Cornishmen (UK, Psychedelic Folk)

The Time Flies (Anarcho-Psychedelic)

Archie Bauld and the Combe Ouvres (French, Club band)

Deathsponge (UK, 80s Glam-Metal)

Moz Quito and the Ecuadorian Set (Ecuador/UK, Folklorica)

Inker Mann (Dutch, male vocalist, clubs)

Andy's Mountain Men (USA, Appalachian Hard Folk)

Jean Patches (Belgium, Lounge/club crossover act)

Sidney Bridges (Australia, Club singer)

Snow Tipped Hats (Switzerland, Lederhosen-Punk)

Peter Piper and the Pickled Pink Peppers of Paradise (Ecuador/UK, Folklorica)

Malcolm Overs and the Strands (UK, RnB)

Mal Content and the Happiness (UK, hippy rubbish)

Mal Linger's Hideout (UK, Mods/Jazz)

Thor's Day and the Friday BBQ (Australia/Norway, Surf Rock)

The Four Toons (UK, Ska)

Barbie Kew (USA, Surf Rock)

Galloon (Dutch, lounge)

One Too (Japan, early Psychedelic)

Herbert Gardiner (UK, Clubs)

Art Tikke and the Icelanders (Iceland, proto-Goth)

Tisha Moore (UK, Club/Goth)

Bagful of Trumpets (USA, Free Jazz)

Triangle Fury (Danish? Acoustic duo)

Eight Hour Variation (USA, Minimalist)

The Norfolk Broads (UK, female harmony)

She's Early (USA, Pop-Punk)

Warren Underground (USA, Psychedelic/Club crossover)

John Castle Group (UK, Hippy-Psychedelic)

Glitter Bag (UK, Glam rock)

The Night Flowers (UK, Surf Rock)

Back Beat (UK, Mod/Jazz)

The Sky Scrapers (USA, Elevator music)

The Dial (UK, Mods)

The Letter Set (UK, Pop)

The Variations (UK, Psychedelic/Pop crossover)

Signpost (USA, Surf Rock)

The Right Directions (UK, Surf Pop)

Tissue and Cloude (France, Jazz-Pop)

Tripp Hout (Dutch, Club singer)

Every Thing Together (German, Blues-Rock)

White Horse Waves (USA, Surf Pop)

Dog Fist (UK, Metal-Rock)

[mybandnames]

Dog Fist

Hardcore metal before anyone had heard of heavy rock let alone metal, this British band had released two EPs by late 1968 - a clear year before Black Sabbath released their first album.

Although none of their EPs charted in the UK, they had a cult following in Germany and Belgium that sustained them in Europe even though they were starving to death in the UK. 

Initially a club band called Foxy Bob and the Paws, their transition to a heavy band came about after two of their amplifiers caught fire during a gig. This resulted in a momentary burst of volume approximately 50 Watts louder than the standard 50 Watts audiences were used to talking over. Not only were the crowd deafened by the volume, but they, some at least, fell in love with the heavy distortion the guitar and bass were enjoying as the speakers roared into flame. 

While there’s no evidence to support this, it’s rumoured the band spent the next two weeks trying to replicate what they’d heard by setting fire to the rest of their equipment (and allegedly that of rival bands on the club circuit). 

Sadly the band ran out of money (and equipment) just as rock became a thing in the UK and they split up. Rumour has it that the lead singer, AKA Foxy Bob, joined the local fire brigade while the rest of the band were last seen in Dover boarding a ferry heading towards Germany.

[mybandnames]

Francis Soir and the Evening Crowd

Hailing from Paris, Francis made her name playing dinner time shows in the Moulin Rouge and the infamous Le Club des Moutons. Her one British hit came after a chance and unfortunate encounter with a drunken record executive from PYE records. 

According to legend, the executive used his business card to get back stage at Le Club and then forced his way into her dressing room. There he found her in a state of undress, and made a lunge for her. Also in her room at that time was her fiancé, who was under investigation by local police on charges of extortion and gun-running.

Brutish but not stupid, he persuaded the now-sober executive to sign Francis to PYE records and get her into the charts. Using any and every means necessary, the executive bought so many copies of her 1963 single, the darkly brooding L’amour est une Arme (Love is a Gun), that it eventually peaked at No 12.

Having saved his skin, the executive fled to Cuba along with Francis, where they traded the glamour of hit singles for a potentially healthier future hand-rolling cigars for tourists.

[mybandnames]

Fat Bob and the Skinny-Dippers

Fat Bob was one of the many fathers of the free love movement and had multiple children to prove it. 

Bob sprang to fame and peaked in 1964 with a minor hit called Hot Tubbing. Top slotting at No 27 in the UK and 35 in the USA, it was a largely forgettable tune that some say only got any traction because of Bob’s bikini-clad backing singers. All 16 of them. 

His return to the void began with the first few bars of his next single, Sausages Are Not The Only Fruit, taken from his only album, Anyone Want Some Bacon?

#hot tub #fat bob #bacon #sausages #pop #hits #charts

[mybandnames]

Why are you here?

The history of popular music is littered with unmarked, abandoned and forgotten graves - the last markers of the many artists who, perhaps very briefly, climbed to the top of the greasy pole of stardom only to slide back down into the blackhole of obscurity. Some may never have made it out of the hole...

This site celebrates all those who’ve helped build the mountain we call Rock n Roll. Read on to find out who these people and bands were and why they’re worth remembering.

P.S. If you’ve any photos, recordings or anecdotes of any of these artists, please forward them to us so we can add to their stories.

See also the Artist list for people I’m still researching and will write about in the future. This list is updated regularly.

#pop #rock #hits #charts #dance #fame #stars #stardom