favourite artists who are obscure and deserve a greater mention

[tali122]

who are your favourite brilliant artists who are obscure and deserve a greater mention ? mine are :The Hooters,Jude Cole, The Blessing, Secret Affair, Gene, Scatman John, Blue Mercedes,Ziggy Marley,Glen Goldsmith,Amy Grant,Electronic,The Fixx,Lou Gramm,Wannadies,The Alarm,The Outfield,Wang Chung,The Big Dish,Magnum,Honeymoon Suite,Terrorvision,John Parr, Dare, Gun,Gaydad for possibly making the greatest record ever with the tony visconti produced "To Earth With Love"
any fans of the above?- what is in your list?

[Starman 2112]

Rush - Acclaimed by musicians, but don't sell many records, especially in the UK. Yet when they toured the UK last year they played 2 nights at Wembley Arena, 2 nights at Birmingham NEC, Manchester Evening News Arena and The Scottish SEC in Glasgow. 

[littleoldme]

Off the top of me head:

Alabama 3
Amsterdam
Bell X-1
Beulah (the male group, not the female soloist)
Brendan Benson
British Sea Power
The Bush The Tree And Me
Clarkesville
Ed Harcourt
Eileen Rose
The Fiery Furnaces
Half Man Half Biscuit
Heather Nova
Marah
Matthew Jay (deceased, but that hasn't stopped Elvis)
Matthew Sweet
The Mighty Wah / Pete Wylie
Natalie Dawn
Nerina Pallot
The New Pornographers
The Shins
Shivaree
The Sleepy Jackson
Thea Gilmore

All fairly new, except for HMHB, Matthew Sweet and The Mighty Wah, who have been around since the 80s, and Alabama 3 and Heather Nova who have been going since the early 90s. Get that little lot in the charts and I'll be happy.

[surfer mike]

Yes big fan of Rush, ed harcourt, the hooters, lou gramm,secret affair etc.

Long since dead but judee sill deserves a mention..

As does..

XTC, the beat,emilians torrini, boards of canada, stephen fretwell, carina round,yeah yeah yeahs,el presidente, aqualung, wire,world party, the roots,jamie lidell,the dead 60s,bedouin soundclash,black label society,zero7,puressence,shawn colvin,india arie, my bloody valentine and catherine wheel..

And many many others

[tali122]

surfer mike- was gonna mention XTC but thought they werent obscure enough!- peter pumpkinhead- what a fantastic record

[THECORBYLOON]

Ed Spanner and The Goat Herders
Cyrus "Fingers" McDougal
The Styromen
New Rebel Arcade.........  

[cherrybomb]

Electric Soft Parade

Teenage Fanclub

Wry

Catherine Wheel

[surfer mike]

Tali.trouble is a lot of the artists we have mentioned we have all heard off, probably because we are all music nuts, but to non music nuts the songs of the likes of andy partridge and xtc are sadly obscure enough...which is a shame..

[OBonio]

From my Indie Kid days :
My Bloody Valentine
Ride
Curve
Jesus and Mary Chain
The Wonder Stuff (NOT that Size of a Cow rubbish)

From my brother-influenced rock tastes :
Savatage (Gutter Ballet, Chance... fantastic stuff)
Queensryche (Operation Mindcrime... yummy)
Senser

Nowadays :
Planet Funk
The Crystal Method
Overseer (you will probably know some of his tracks)

[whattheheck]

Agree with surfer mike, as music nuts we probably have heard of a lot of these artists but may not have heard their actual music.I'd like to thank all the people who subscribe to these threads for opening my ears to a lot of music I may not have listened too otherwise.tali22 started this one off, heard of most of the artists mentioned (but not all), nice to find another fan of Jude Cole, excellent,found the Gay Dad (didn't know these) track which was raved about, not bad, but that led me to 'Black Ghost' by the same band - fantastic.There is so much music out there you can't hear everything and you're not gonna like all the stuff your fave artists do, so give the ones you haven't heard a chance as well. With that, here's a couple of my 'slightly' obscure ones :-

Vertical Horizon, Dougie Maclean, Quill & Sonny Landreth (there's loads more but...)

[tali122]

whattheheck - gaydad split up some years ago but its good that you liked them(joy, transmission, jim) are just a few of the great tracks- lets hope more people get to hear them-spread the word!
"baby its tonight" by jude cole is an amazing song

[malcy]

Martin Stephenson and the Daintees

The Triffids

The Senational Alex Harvey band

Nanci Griffith

Christy Moore

[SQReader]

The Sensational Alex Harvey Band. Look 'em up. Scotland's greatest ever rock'n'rollers.