one the juggler , world of leather , syndicate ...thousands more will come back to haunt me as soon as I send this ...

I went on telly saying they were going to be huge. I still think they had something special (Maria McKee for a start) but they couldn't get it on record.
Bastards!

What would have happened had they been around when Britpop took off properly? They were just a little bit too early and landed smack dab in the middle of the grungey years.

I'm blushing as I type this, but in 1981 I told my dad - as he frequently reminds me - that Haircut 100 would be "as big as the Beatles". How wrong could I have been, on every level?! In my defence I was only 14 at the time...

I wrote a puff piece on the Kashmir Klub website after seeing his second ever live performance, the most crowded concert I have ever attended. He was staggeringly good: his songs were distinctive, emotional big-hitters which melded a number of unusual influences and didn't go quite where you thought they might. His voice was compared by some to Jeff Buckley (as was every second male singer-songwriter coming along at the time, the early "noughties"), though again it had enough personality and strangeness to be highly original.

He had some ecstatic reviews; his first album was a stunner, produced by David Kosten; the second was almost as good; he was good looking and articulate. Surely it would all come together...

It didn't happen did it? The third album was a disappointment, and the last time I saw him - I think - he was working in Muswell Hill Book shop.

I spent 2002 stuffing Nina Nastasia down the throats of friends, family, passers-by, everybody - none of whom really 'got it'. I must have bought about 6 copies of The Blackened Air. I thought she was going to blow Dido et al right out of the water, a point of view strengthened by an astounding performance at the Spitz club.
I still don't understand why she hasn't made an impact. Her more recent albums have brought diminishing returns and now I fear her chance has passed.

I saw a couple of bands within a few weeks of each other at the Nashville Rooms - not so much a venue as an abandoned bordello that had been taken over by squatters - in 1977.

It was obvious that the first band were headed straight for Giants Stadium and the cover of Rolling Stone.

It was equally obvious that the second band just might - provided they had a spot of luck and a savvy manager - aspire to a support spot on a Stranglers college tour.

The bands were The Only Ones and The Police, respectively.

I had great hopes for Diesel Park West after their first album came out, it still gets a spin round the gaff. Never happened for them.

I was also not quite accurate when I predicted that the jangly-guitar-driven anthemic pseudo-Celtoid rock niche was destined to be filled not by U2 but by Big Country.

On the other hand, bands who we thought would never make it......and became huge.

Back in early '91/92 the student union booking guy at Swansea Uni managed to book a series of good up and coming indie bands. I enjoyed Primal Scream, World of Twist,The Family Cat (twice), Dr Phibes and the house of wax equations (good name, crap band), 25th of May (who produced the superbly named cd "Lenin and McCarthy) and finally Blur.

Out of all of this great and good, the only band who I didn't buy a tour shirt of (which was a sign that I thought they were pish) was good old Blur. I can remember leaving the bar loudly commenting that they would never amount to anything. Within weeks it seemed they were on TOTP with "There's no other way".

Good job I was never an A&R man.

I know it might still be early days for Conor and I know he has had US number one albums but I think he should have become absolutely MASSIVE by now, particularly in the UK. His audience are Word readers yet not many on here talk about him and he hasn't had a front cover yet (to my knowledge). With albums the quality of "I'm Wide Awake...." and "Casadaga" he should be playing bigger venues than Shepherds Bush Empire.

I was utterly convinced - they had everything as far as I could see at the time : stonking overblown songs, a fat guitarist and even the sex factor of a young Shirley Manson.

And then.... nothing.

Not a band that I thought were going to be huge, but everyone else seemed to (well the music media). My Parents ran a newsagents in the mid eighties and Lions Roar seemed to achieve total saturation for about 1 month on all the music glossies - Smash Hits, Just Seventeen, Number 1 ... with shifty whispers of being the first band to sign (to EMI?) for one million. I'm sure the band were even talking themselves up on the Whistle Test at one point.

Predictably after all the fizzy tizz they stiffed and sunk faster than the Titanic. I've checked Allmusic, Google and Wikipedia, and there's nothing - it's like they ever existed, but I'm convinced they did.

I loved this band when they hit the scene in 1990 and, yes, evangelised to all my chums who seemed somewhat less impressed. I saw them live and got their first album on CD expecting big things. Their follow-up single to thier one real hit (a cover of California Dreaming) was a re-recording of their song "When I was young" and is still one of my favourite songs to this day.

By the time I got round to going out shopping for their second album they had been dropped, split and the albuim deleted - nowhere to be seen (note to self, be careful putting albums you REALLY want on the Crimble list who knows what might happen in between list writing and event, cf Pallot, Nerina).

Finally tracked down a copy via eBay about a couple of years or so ago. Bar the single it wasn't as good as, even at the time, I would have expected but still very listenable.

Their singer Siobhan Maher did a few songs with Oceanic, decamped to the States, did an acoustic pop duo album with Debbie Petersen of the Bangles(Kindred Spirit - not at all bad), married Ray Kennedy (sometime Steve Earle cohort) and released a rather good country folk tinged album as Siobhan Maher-Kennedy (Immigrant Flower). It included a rather good cover of Richard Thompson's "I want to see the bright lights tonight" which ended up as the theme for some BBC TV sitcom.

Their debut was heard on the car radio while queueing for the Skye ferry, bought at Tony's Records on Park Street in Bristol the following week, championed to every person who came to my flat for weeks, and blasted out across St. Pauls at all hours of the day and night.

These days? A half removed graffiti smudge at ankle level on the toilet walls at the Rock 'n' Roll hall of fame.

Sadly nobody does the boxer beat anymore not even my best mate Pete from school who swore blind that they would rule the world. Same goes for lack of sales of Pig Bag to papa or mama or anybody really

The shock of Anarchy, not least it's cover, together with a fiercely good live show at Guildford in 199something made me wonder why they weren't huge. Of course, along comes I fall down and they were, briefly. I was delighted but the, um, "strength" of that particular song pales a little with time, shall I say. Some crud follows, then the superb WYSIWIG and the even better Readymades, showing progression into a more folk tinged hue. another weaker one follows. Exit the shouty members and the accoustic band aren't even remotely embarrassing, with Singsong and a Scrap up there as amongst the best of 2007.
I think I prefer them as a minority taste....

I was sure Icing On The Cake was going to be THE sound of the summer of '85. But good as he is, he's never been the sound of anything. Not even Robbie Williams could change those fortunes

Rip, Rig & Panic. I thought they would go all the way.

Same for:

King Trigger. I loved RIver. But it was never a hit

The Mood. Those pegs.

Northside.

One The Juggler. Gypsy chic. Passion Killer was marvellous.

It's Immaterial. They drove away from home, and out of my life forever.

. .

Soup Dragons. I'm Free was the sound of the summer of '90. But no sound of the summer of 91 or thereafter.

that most of the bands and artists I constantly rave about never made it big. 'Bigness' always ruins things.

Thought not. They even had a song called "Immaculate Fools". You'll never guess what the album was caled. Supported Tom Robinson, as I recall.

I saw them support TRB and also if memory serves The Boomtown Rats at Hammy Odeon.I thought they were v good and to be the next big thing as did the record company obviously!! I admit to telling mates that The Levellers were going to be as big as U2 in the late 80's/early 90's...playing gigs in London would have helped,but then they hated "the man" so mega stardom wouldn't have suited them anyway.

A couple of years ago I was dragged along to see Elbow at The Astoria. I quite enjoyed them but thought support act Longview were great and would in no time at all be headlining with the likes of Elbow in support. One album and they disappeared.

I'll never understand why they aren't one of the biggest bands in the world.

Highgate's answer to Marvin Gaye. A great debut album , a not so good second one and then dropped. Until recently has been releasing quality albums on his own label. Latterly covered by Robbie Williams on his Rudebox album (the track is Lovelight). Probably thought tha was his pension sorted but we all know what happened there.

Does anybody remember the Screaming Blue Messiahs? They were great live and weren't they the next big thing in about 1987? Things were a bit desperate then (pre Stone Roses Post Smiths) but I still play Good And Gone to this day.......whatever happened to them?

... were touted by Select as the next Stone Roses back in the day. As a callow youth growing up in Devon I only caught the post Reni Roses so was delighted to hear of a new band who would carry the torch. Added to the hype was an album called Yakuza with an anime-inspired cover. All good so far.

It was utter bobbins. I felt betrayed by writers who could have fallen for such a brazen piece of wankery. I have only just started to find that trust again.

P.S.- Mr Quantick? Lion genius, sir. Lion genius.

Bought all 3 albums.
Thought any band fronted by Bette Bright, Eric Shark & Enrico Cadillac Jnr were bound to make it.
Travelled all over(Scunthorpe, Hull and London) to see them.
Happily accepted their switch from art school pop to semi-punk jangly guitar thing.
It was surely only a matter of time before they were huge....
And to rob salt in, I only seem to find out about their reunion gigs six months after the event.

Anybody remember Cactus World News...I think they were signed to U2's label and big things were promised.
Silent Running....more Irish anthem bearers.
House Of Love....Too early for Britpop and still bafflingly only a cult/critics band.
Findlay Brown....in these days of inferior singersongwriter reverence, how is he not massive?
Neal Casal....should be all over the radio with album after album of quality country rock/pop a la Jackson Browne, but not a chance. Dayjobs in Ryan Adams band.
Comsat Angels...It didn't matter how many times Independence Day was released, it was never going to stick. Shame.
Fields...recently bored friends championing this lot, and their lp is great, but their chance is gone I feel. Rubbish name and obvious potential confusion with Field Music hasn't helped.

Just fantastic live and great on record. Wonderful songs and a great choice of cover versions. Eef Barzaley solo is also the business.
Got to agree with David H,Lone Justice great live patchy on disc. Ollabelle , group featuring Levon Helms' daughter,thought they might be huge in Americana circles.
Wayne "The Train" Hancock should be the King of Country,instead we have s**** like Toby Keith

Just wanted to echo previous comments on the Screaming Blue Messiahs.

I think their first album was actually Gun Shy which included the excellent Twin Cadillac Valentine, a perfect example of a great song which probably didn't mean anything but the combination of the three words in the title just sounded good

Both from the same year, I think (1996). Nicolette's album "Let No One Live Rent Free In Your Head" should've been a serious hit, or at least a serious cult. But it pretty much disappeared. She was guest vocalist on the second Massive Attack album, and sounded like Eartha Kitt on 90s chemicals (a bad thing, you say? Why, no). The record was easily as good as any of Bjork's post-"Debut" albums and would've appealed to the same people.

Lotion's album "Nobody's Cool" was a lovely under-rated guitar record. REM was the usual comparison, and on the surrogate band theory they should've cleaned up with REM fans, who had been ill-served by the rubbish "Monster" album. In fact, if I remember this right, Lotion got compared to REM and Husker Du so much that they recorded a version of "Flip Your Wig" with the lyrics to "Gardening At Night". But they had their own thing going and should've drawn more interest. Thomas Pynchon was a fan and wrote the sleevenotes to the album, which doesn't seem to have helped...

Never could see why they were just not huge. OK, maybe not the prettiest band in the world (though Robert Vickers and Amanda were pretty) but the songs were wonderful. Hooks and everything.

They supported REM and then gave up for 10 years - with solo careers that never really took off.

Microdisney were another one, but even I could see that their attitude was going to kill their talent.

Were Ride too big to be considered for this? If not, add them to the list.

Strangelove's critically lauded debut album Time For The Rest Of Your Life arrived brimming over with potential singles. The band were clearly in the business of writing epics, veering between overblown ‘back of hand to the brow' angst and full-on melodrama. Patrick Duff's melodic, full-bodied vocals seemed purpose built to echo out across stadiums. I had them pegged as the goth U2.

In spite of receiving good reviews and airplay on Radio One, the group never really made a connection beyond their core fanbase and slowly faded away, engulfed by the blokey hubris of Britpop.

More indie jangling that should have been huge but wasn't.

Why isn't Patty Griffin a massive star?

Were they not reasonably large, or were they unrecognised at home, bigger in blighty as many americans of this genre are? Mighty good, whichever way. The Louris/Olson harmonies are as gloriously ragged and heartwrenching as the original Lindisfarne. Both their solo CDs of late last year are in my amazon wishlist, and both have each other on guest vocals. Caitlin Cary, another ex-Jayhawk, is also tip top, tho' better with Chad Cockerill than in Tres Chicas. She does quite a good solo version of Withered and Died by that bearded man we keep going on about.

Okay. Now I never thought that they were going to be world-beaters, but for a year or so in the early 1980s they were right up there for me alongside The Fall in terms of bands-I'd-want-to-be-in.

Scratchy guitar, drum machine, spiralling vocals. I'd happily follow them around their gigs in Brum. It wasn't even for their agit-Pop stance, or ex-Mekons heritage. It was simply that for a brief period of time John, Jon, and "John" were for me the definitive 80s "indy band".

Stupid name, but a cracking band. From the amount of radio play they got on Radio 1 around the time of their debut ("Bellybutton") I'd have sworn they had bigger hits than they actually did; they only cracked the Top 40 once with "The King is Half Undressed", which only made it to No. 39.

Shed a guitarist (Jason Falkner, whose own solo career is worth a listen), released an even better album ("Spilt Milk") and then split acrimoniously, with one member pretty much leaving the pop industry for good, focussing now on writing songs for Cartoon Network and Disney.

There's an enduring cult appeal - A limited edition boxset of demos/rarities still fetches silly money on Ebay - but they should have been huge.

its not that i thought they were going to be HUGE, but i thought they deserved to be. my other favourite band of the time was the la's and even now their name is bandied around by speccy youths who werent even born during their heyday. i love the la's but its sad that almost nobody has even heard of the trash can sinatras.

the tcs faded into oblivion and bankruptcy after go discs became independiente and signed travis instead. perhaps their first single was prophetic: "obscurity knocks." maybe they should have written one called "megastars" instead but that was not their forte...self-deprecating, witty wordplay, and great melodies were more their style. not to mention frank reader's amazing voice. thankfully their american fans were able to help them keep the band afloat, and they are still writing and performing new material.

I'm sure I saw a group called Telephone Bill and the Smooth Operaters when I was at Kingston Poly. I had been drinking Carlsberg Special Brew that night so I don't remember much. Thought they were good but never saw any recorded product. Does this ring any bells with anyone else?

Saw them playing the toilets in the early Nineties, and I was POSITIVE they would be massive. Good songs, looked great, very au courant without sounding like they'd jumped a bandwagon.
Got signed, bought a load of expensive equipment, disappeared.
The singer/guitarist/songwriter is now the non-writing guitarist in Fountains Of Wayne and the bass-player was the last bassplayer of Luna, and now is Britta out of Dean and Britta.

I thought these would be MASSIVE. They made one album, a grand double called "Everything Picture" then split. The keyboard player re-appeared but I've heard nothing of the rest of them since.

are The Mutton Birds and The Webb Brothers, both great bands who you could only see in small evnues although both played the Shepherds Bush Empire on occasions. Sadly both are defunct although I still hope that The Webbs will reappear, or at least some of them.

A cracking band from New Zealand - saw them at some great gigs between 1994 and 1997. They starting playing in the UK about the time that Crowded House split up and I thought they might fill the gap left by that great band. They were even managed by one of Peter Gabriel's former managers. How could they fail? Well after releasing a couple of records in their native country they signed to Virgin and were dropped after releasing one record with them....

1) The Scars

Greatness beckoned.....All the ingredients to be huge were there: Brilliant pop single ('All about you'). Check. Classy debut album ('Author! Author!'). Check. Charismatic lead singer who sported in vogue togs. Check. Striking LP cover. Check. Great band name. Check.

Bought the singles, bought the album, even bought the T shirt.

Unlike almost everybody else.

2) The Dancing Did

Dark horses admittedly but after 2 storming singles, a decent live performance and an interesting rustic angle I was convinced of future success....

The Dancing Didn't.

if only for the number of members they had - if they each bought one copy of a single it would be top ten.....

Others I thought would be huge: That Petrol Emotion; Mekons )speshly Ghosts of American Airmen); Kathryn Williams; Scarce; Screaming Tree (better tha Nirvana and QoTSA); Doves and Nova Mob

if only for the sheer plethora number of ex- and current members they had - if they each had bought one copy of a single it would be top ten.....

Others I thought would be huge: That Petrol Emotion; Mekons (speshly Ghosts of American Airmen); Kathryn Williams; Scarce; Screaming Trees (better than Nirvana and QoTSA); Doves and Nova Mob

...about the Screaming Trees. Maybe they'd have stood a better chacne if Mark Lanegan had killed himself, although to be fair he's given it a pretty good go.

Dare I also mention Gene? Flawed and could never escape the Smiths wannabe tag, but I'm pretty confident that if they started out now - when sounding exactly like an early 80s UK band is no impediment to success - they'd be huge. And 'Olympian' is still a great track.

May be too early to tell but had high hopes for The Dears which seems to have fallen on stony ground.

We're not talking Rolling Stones here but, in relative terms, I just can't understand why Jim White isn't as well known as, Will Oldham or Iron & Wine. He has produced some great records over the years and yet his last one, Transnormal Skiperoo, appeared without mention last year. I saw him last year playing to 120 people downstairs in the Carling Academy, Oxford whilst 1000+ teenagers were indulging themselves in Duckyfuzz. Criminal.

and I thought these people would more than pass muster:-

City Boy - couple of great albums then a single 5705 reaches lower end of top 20 and they are all set to..... fall back into oblivion which is a shame because they were witty and had a good ear for a tune.

Tom Tom Club - Out of the ashes of the Talking Heads - Wordy Rappinghood had them all set for stardom and then nothing. Saw them in Camden about 4 years ago and to be honest they still had a good groove but it was obvious their time had passed.

Latin Quarter - A superlative single Radio Africa, a pretty good album and i have never heard from them since.

Apart from Radio Africa and, possibly, America for Beginners, its all too twee and smug. Sadly Tom Tom Club were also a better idea than a reality as their first LP was just Wordy Rappinghood and then all filler. Sniff 'n the Tears should have been good, when you hear Drivers Seat, but, buy the LP, unlistenable claptrap.
But, I really expected more of King than 2 LPs and a dull bloke doing MTV/VH1 links. They were excellent at Reading '75, had a promising first LP,the excellent single, Love and Pride and, IMHO, a better 2nd LP, including the still surprisingly good Taste of Your Tears.
Shame, really.

I was convinced that Curve were going to be huge on three separate occassions. I distinctly remember the last time when they released their third proper album, Come Clean, telling anyone and everyone that now was finally their time. It wasn't. Obviously.

Can't believe I didn't think of them when first posting on this subject. Not really a case of 'thought they were going to be huge' as I came to them quite late. More 'still completely baffled that they weren't huge'.

Listened to all of 'Hate' and half of 'Universal Audio' on the way into work this morning (delays on the Hammersmith & City Line)and every single track is magnificent.

Maybe it was their cycling obsession that worked against them? Kraftwerk were never the same after the cycling took over from the electronica.

Everything that Paul Young could have been.Bless.

(And isn't that Tim Finn on guitar...?)

...or should i just get me coat.

Tiger were The Killers ten years before The Killer were The Killers. They made one album, had an NME cover and then sank without trace. Comsat Angels fans may like to check out The Sound who were a cross between the Bunnymen and Joy Division (lead singer Adrian Boreland also took his own life, sadly, at the end of the nineties.) Lowlife were a fantastic Scottish band which featured original Cocteau Twins bassist Will Heggie. They made about five albums with little or no success. All have now been reissued.

Oh, and lets not forget The Chameleons. A band that made songs that would fill stadiums, but rarely played to more than a few hundred. Their first album is probably my favourite album of the 80s.

Now I liked them. Mid-eighties methinks, had a cracking single called Country of the Blind, still got it at home somewhere. Splendid stuff, whatever happened to them?

The Automatic

Radical Face

Forever young I cannot stay, HEY!

The Alarm anyone.....surely destined for greatness. Bono saw the Peters mullett and they rest, they say, is history.

The Outfield's "Voices of Babylon" really stuck out amid all the abysmal SAW dross on the radio in those dark days of pre-Madchester 1989.

Ignore the rather contrived promo clip and concentrate on the highly polished, memorably Police-influenced music. If they'd produced an LP to this standard I'm sure they'd have been huge.

Great call on the Rainmakers by the way. Cracking hit single.

Hope it's not too late to add to this thread. Just played back the last but one podcast and came here to mention the mighty Hurrah! A clutch of singles on Kitchenware before signing to Arista for their first album proper 'Tell God I'm Here' released in early '87. I saw them at The Astoria around this time and it remains one of my favourite ever gigs. Next day I told my fellow sixth formers they would soon be as big as U2.

In hindsight they were caught somewhere between C86 era jangle pop and stadium bombast, but to my 17 year old ears that was fine. Follow up album 'The Beautiful' emerged two years later but bombed big time just as Manchester was starting to happen. No matter, I still give both albums a regular spin.

It took a change of lead singer, a change of style and a subtle change of name before they became huge.

The other bands that should have been huge are:

The Waitresses - magnificently observed pop music that still sounds good.

Fingerprintz - It wasn't just me that thought they would be big I'm sure the weekly rags were behind them too.

XTC - Never as big as they should have been.

There was a phase in my life that was all about doomy yet poppy new wave acts. Two immediately spring to mind - releasing classic debut albums (in my mind anyway) then in the case of The Sound becoming big in Holland I think but nowhere else...a BBC 'In Concert' C60 haunted me for years until I tracked down the CD re-release of eponymous debut. And yes they could and should have been U2.

The second one, Modern Eon - on dindisc the trendy for 15 mins home of doomy electro pop - literally one album and out. I might be the only one in the re-release queue if it ever makes it to CD or emusic...the scratchy vinyl is treasured

Finally, on the Comsats front I'm sticking with 'Fiction' as the best album and remember a gig poster for Salford University circa 1980 that read - U2, support Wall of Voodoo and The Comsat Angels. My interest reversed the order..

Popped into ear on the i-pod this a.m., reminding me how good they were and indeed are. Sort of Beach Boys meet the Eagles, when neither were a dirty word.

Perhaps it was their own attitude that killed them, but surely this lot should have been huge? I always believed that they would have done better if they used the Harvest imprint of EMI, rather than Regal Zonophone. It just seems right, probably because 'Meddle' and 'The 3 EPs' seem like close relatives to me.