Good rock bands you randomly discovered that few people have heard of

I discovered Titus Andronicus when I saw them open up for Bob Mould.

Petey USA. Kind of an emo-coded Noah Kahan with some heavy influence from LCD Soundsystem. Dude absolutely rips live.

Coldplay

Television was a great punk band 1977 onward for several years with guys who were virtuoso musicians, a rarity in the punk world. "Marquee Moon" always regarded as one of the best debut albums ever. Was real fortunate to see them play live. Their music holds up better now than a lot of 70's music does. Fleetwood Mac 1967-70 with Peter Green also wildly underappreciated.

almost everyone knows who that is

Yeah, I have. That's where I learned what LAMF stands for, as that's the name of their album.

My fav of that album linked below.

But how tragic in what became of him - Johnny Thunders. I can't even write it here, so sad.

But I;'ve read interviews with his bass player, and the guy went on to be a successful Wall Street stock broker or something of that ilk.

Idk, there's something to be gleened here. Not sure what it might be, but definitely something.

Yeah, that's classic stuff there!

And so it turns out that some of the paths of the bands we've been discussing cross, and cross in big ways.

Richard Hell was part of the early Television band, but ran into conflicts with Tom Verlaine, and so he split off and formed the band with Johnny Thunders and The Heartbreakers, which we've been discussing in the previous post.

Richard Hell is a genius, and his work was groundbreaking. It came to fruition in Richard Hell and The Voidoids, a seminal punk band.

If there are iconic songs from that era, and there are (like Marquee Moon, for example), this is totally one. And like many of these, it transcended the time and genre and have stood the proverbial test of time, and here it is:

Slift (French Rock, Ummon is an excellent ablum)

I've gone down some power pop rabbit holes lately after watching the Big Star "Nothing Can Hurt Me" documentary. Some of the bands were mentioned in the movie, and others I discovered tangentially or already knew about:

Let's Active

20/20

Shoes

Off Broadway

Holly and the Italians

Mayflies USA

Dwight Twilley / Phil Seymour

The Records

The Rubinoos

Also:

Material Issue

Jellyfish

Material Issue:

The Afghan Whigs. Can't say enough good things about them.

Trip Shakespeare. I went through a very heavy alternative phase as the movement peaked as a marketing category 30 years ago and stumbled on them through heavy reading of the Trouser Press Record Guide. They were written up as one of the few indie bands to actually benefit from singing a deal with a major label. Here's a deep cut from that album, which sounds like it should be on the soundtrack to either an indie film or next season of "Stranger Things:"

Now do Zipgun!

Saw them in Dallas in the 90's. They didn't even play the main stage, they were in some side stage. They were good!

I remember one of their songs - Snow Days.

Ok, here you go:

Back in the late 80s, I came across a Chicano blues band from LA called The Wild Cards. Bought the album. Saw them once at a club in Tribeca. Just as good live as you'd expect them to be from this cover.

Here's Little Richard's original:

Oh, dude, you totally smoked me with that one.

Never heard of them!

But get this - they're from Seattle and the sound pretty darn good.

Don't know how i missed that, but thanks!