Favorite obscure album (1 Viewer)

[Rachael B]

Captain Beyond was very big with southern rock fans. I saw 'em play. Their two albums have been issued on CD even if they're OOP now....I'm not sure on that. A prerequisite for albums from the LP age being atleast somewhat obscure ought to be , never been on CD, IMO.

Since CD's came along, it's hard to argue that groups on big 5/4 labels are truly obscure. Many indie CD labels have released in such small quantity that their artists could be considered obscure, IMO. Here's a possible example....has anybody heard of Elvis Hitler? I have a CD by them called Disgraceland which features their college radio "hit", Green Heaven.....which is Purple Haze's music with the lyrics for the Green Acres TV show theme sung to it. It's definitely relatively obscure. How much so, I'm not really sure...???

I have a lot of jazz albums from the 50's and 60's that somebody gave me. One album that didn't play well but was intresting prompted me to search data bases for the artist and I never found a thing. That's truly obscure, just wiped out of music's recorded history.

Captain Beyond is not so obscure by comparrison at all.

 

[Rachael B]

Klaatu, definitely not obscure! It's been on LP and CD. Klaatu had alot of notariety in he 70's as a mystery group. For a few years nobody knew who the members were. Speculation ranged from Paul McCartney, Emitt Rhodes, and even Todd Rundgren. Then.....all was revealed.

 

[Aaron Silverman]

Self-proclaimed "vinyl junkies" are not the measuring stick by which bands are labeled "obscure."

 

[Aaron Silverman]

Well, if your standard of obscurity is "no mention in any music databases," then sure, Captain Beyond isn't terribly obscure. Mine is more like "the average person who was around at the time of the band doesn't remember them."

 

[Aaron Silverman]

I will give you this: In The Court Of The Crimson King is not an obscure album.

Starless and Bible Black. . .maybe a *little* obscure. Awesome though.

 

[Rachael B]

Arron, of course I'm out of my gourd....I follow the sign of the shoe, mate! I collect music heavily which is definite proof I'm gourdless! In the 70's Captain Beyond was very popular in the south. They aren't well known now like thousands of past groups, yes. They were one of the pack of so-called southern rockers along with Wet Willie, Cowboy, Grinderswitch, and the many better known ones.

I'm suprised you knew Elvis Hitler!

All we're talking about is the definition of obscure. I'm not sure what it is. Ask Henry, he started this.

 

[JohnRice]

Lighten up guys. I know a hell of a lot more music than most people (not some of the ones here, admittedly) and some of that stuff is new to me. In the Court of the Crimson King? Definitely not obscure. I have Mr. Cairo and Short Stories, as well as Animation.

I'll start with one rather obscure album by a very well known musician, Peter Gabriel's OVO, and toss in a couple excellently weird Cow Punk albums from the early '80s, Sundown and Long Dead Gone by Rank and File. Their third and last album sucks donkey balls, though.

 

[John Garcia]

Team Sleep - Team Sleep www.teamsleep.net One of Chino Moreno's (Deftones) side projects. Sort of a local favorite.
Sloth - Dead Generaton Saw them live and was very impressed. Album is very good. www.slothmusic.com

 

[Dennis Nicholls]

Are we allowed to discuss The Incredible String Band here?

 

[Henry Gale]

Don’t throw it to me Rachel, Aaron’s already on to my bullshit.

“We're vinyl junkies. This is what we do.”

I knew I wasn’t gonna get away with that.

 

[Harpozep]

I like H.P. Lovecraft (1967) by the group H P Lovecraft. I was only six when it came out and found it in the late 70's,. So I don't know how obscure it was/is, but when I found it no one I knew had heard of them. But these same folks I knew also never heard of Spirit which I listened to a lot.
Most folks in my town were burnouts listening to Led Zeppelin! I heard over and over ," Zep, He's the best!" :rolleyes
Also, "Songs That Made America Famous" By Patrick Sky. Lots of racial and otherwise funny stuff on that album.

 

[Joel Stein]

Aw, Elvis Hitler and "OvO" aren't that obscure...

How about "The Funky Organization Of Henry Cain"...

 

[Rachael B]

Henery, just make up some new BS rules for the thread. If time is declared an obscuring agent, lots of 60's and 70's albums will become obscure enough for obscureness.

You are right about the original run of Captain Beyond having a reflective front cover. I sold both my original CB albums and Fripp & Eno's No Pussyfooting to an avid collector sometime in the 80's. I remember that deal. I never rebought any of those 3 albums when they finally made CD in proably small-ish runs. I felt like they were albums I'd listen to once and then sit on the shelf. I heard Sufficently Breathless, on CD, at a party about 10 years ago, give or take a year...my memory on this is hazy.

Henry, you da man! It's your thread.

 

[JohnRice]

Well, Joel, I only said OVO was fairly obscure, considering it is from such a well known musician, as well as being pretty recent. Kind of in Mick Fleetwood's The Visitor territory.

 

[Joel Stein]

OK I gotcha. Well, then, I'd say Rabbit Proof Fence might be more obscure than OVO.

 

[Rachael B]

Rabbit Proof Fence sounds like it might be good after Mr. Ed Jumps The Gun...."Wild Thing, you make my...." ?

 

[KurtEP]

I'll bite. My favorite obscure album (well, EP really) is Smokey & Miho (Eponymous) I also finally just got another copy of their followup; Tempo de Amor (left the other one in a car I sold, dammit :frowning: ). Both were inspired by Baden Powell's Afro Sambas (which I also have), as I understand it.

 

[Jonathan Peterson]

Sebastian Hardie - "Four Moments"

 

[Henry Gale]

The Gaslight Singers

One summer night, many years ago, I walked into Chicago’s legendary Gate of Horn and found this group on stage.
Three guys and a beautiful girl with amazing pipes.
She was Martha Velez.
Several years later I picked up a copy of Billboard and found a psychedelicized
Martha on the back cover being promoted as a new solo artist.
That album, Fiends & Angels, had a unique group of English rockers backing her up;
Eric Clapton, Jack Bruce, Mitch Mitchell, Rick Hayward, Christine Perfect, Brian Auger, Chris Wood, Jim Capaldi...etc.
A year later I ran into her in Woodstock. We got to know each other well enough that she would greet me from the stage during her shows.
Martha had a few solo albums on the Sire label and worked with Bob Marley on Escape From Babylon.

But, back to “The Gaslight Singers”
There were 2 LPs, the eponymous disc and “Turning It On!”
They include first class renderings of many folk standards from that period.
I keep hoping Collectors Choice music discovers them, and the rest of Martha’s discography.

No CDs = obfuckingscure! Rachael said so. (well, not in those exact words)

 

[Jeff Ulmer]

CB was definitely pretty obscure by the time I discovered them in the late 1970s, and has been for the last 30 years anywhere near here. I had the only website for the band for a decade or more. There are now a pair of '73 live clips on YouTube, something I thought I'd never see.

How about their third album, Dawn Explosion, with Willy Daffern on vocals? Not nearly on par with the first LP (for which I have three versions on LP including the lenticular cover, plus 2 on CD), but Oblivion is classic CB.