Bands that never made it
 

While we think of the 1970s rock scene as the classics there were also many great groups that just did not make it for many different reasons. No matter how good or inventive the music was sometimes bad luck or bad timing infighting broke up bands just as they were getting ready to take off.
In Montreal from 1971 to 1976 there was one such group; the St.Marc Street Band who could best be described as a Rock and Roar type of band. This was mostly because some of the songs were played with a lead bass that would just blow you away. You should check out some of their songs on their MySpace page and at their blog at stmarcstreetband.blogspot.com/ where you can find out more about this group and see some interesting pics and hear some great music.

Interesting topic, one of my favorite bands that never made it is Controlling the Famous. A wonderful group from CA that was a mix of sounds similar to minus the bear, modest mouse, and their own spin on jazz fusion into their indie-rock. They only released one album in 05 or so.

Here's an example of them. (Btw Riddler you should post a link of music of this St. Marc Street Band if you have one)

The commitments!

lol wut?

goes like this

http://images.retecool.com/uploads/dieED-lol_wut.jpg

http://i1007.photobucket.com/albums/...ons/lolque.jpg



The Commitments as in the band from the movie??

Yes. It was movie about a band that never made it. Get it?

When I think of bands who "never made it" from the 70's, Gentle Giant are usually the first to come to mind. They cut eight straight up prog. classics from 1970 through 1977, yet during that time period were shafted despite the popularity of similarly technical groups like Yes or ELP.

What's even sadder is that even when they had an opportunity to tour around, (such as when they opened for Black Sabbath at the Hollywood Bowl in 1972, among others), their medieval flourishes went right over most audiences' heads and they were oftentimes outright booed on stage and even assaulted by cherry bombs!

I guess it just goes to show you that best bands always seem to be the ones who only appeal to the fortunate few.

I know of several bands that truly deserve recognition, but never got what they deserved.
A good example of this is the Proto-Math Rock/Progressive rock band Cheer-Accident. You know how slint kind of created math rock in 1991? Cheer Accident was formed in 1981, ten years earlier. But guess what? they only have about 3000 listeners on last.fm, and they barely scrape up enough plays weekly.

another criminally underrated band is Storm and Stress. They were an improvisational math rock band that featured Ian Williams, and they only have about 5000 listeners, but that's mainly because of a post-hardcore band of the same name. They released two albums and Ian admits that it was the least successful of all of the recording bands he's been in. But, it's also his most experimental.

I've created a group called the Ian Williams appreciation society, but nobody joined :(