no one knows about them except some of my facebook friends but they don't count do they ?

Here's the rather wonderful Mary Jane

1927

Not the drummer from Dirty 3 - the chap with the big hat from Florida;

The track starts about 1.20

You are more likely to bump into Lord Lucan than fans of the following:
Six by Seven
Metafix
Grand Drive
Dolly Varden

http://open.spotify.com/track/5hUlVh9KHWsaxkC1ItOlrD

The Big Dish

i love them

Every odd band I like that I post about always seems to attract a response along the lines of "Oooh.. Great band. Have you heard the deleted live bootleg tapes? I've got some of the original studio acetates if you want a listen.."

Apart from The Fags.

An obscure and wonderful power pop band from Detroit.

They're mine. And, it would seem, mine alone.

And there's Eloy. But my mate Andy likes them as well, so they don't count.

Ben Kweller
Unkle Bob
My Latest Novel.

Maybe I just don't know many people.

When I meet one, I off them. Mercy killing.

One of those early '00s West London wonky, electro-retro pop acts

Single album and the fantastic Hard Bloke, CD EP.

No affiliation.

Only can find one single - Silent Film. It is very splendid indeed.

From above I like Grand Drive, Jim White, Willard Grant Conspiracy.

Also, Ed Kuepper anyone? Mick Thomas?

aka GIRL!

Terrible name. Great band.
Give this five minutes of your time.

from La Dolce Vita

Most of my family/friends etc have navigated their way through life without bumping into extreme metal and grindcore bands like Rotten Sound and Taint.

Slightly more appealing to the Massive-at-large, perhaps. No-one ever seems to have come across this lot. Incredible!

.. the King of Caledonian Cajun Swing. I've never met anyone who knows what I'm talking about (apart from mates that I indoctrinated back in the 80's - altogether now - "You got me jumping into love, don't know what for .....").

Apart from those who attend the shows, it's normally a case of Jackie who? or whose she?

Was going to post a vid, but it turns out youtube hasn't met them either.

doug veitch has bought a nostalgic glow..I had jumping into love on a cassette recorded either from john peel or andy kershaw years ago and had forgotten how much I loved it until mr topaz mentioned it. it really was an extardinary time for people making music.

Off to i tunes i guess now.

and lets not forget from a little earlier the wonders of fox. ssssingle bed. never met any one who mentioned that as part of their collection. At least sober.

I found them on Emusic. Very very Brian Wilson.

They are a two piece who had something to do with Dave Edmunds 'Beach Boy Blood'.

They have just one album and it's on Spotify - 'Art Is On Vacation'.

so obscure that their bootlegs count as "proper albums".

Anyone else?

No-one I know is a fan - despite me going on & on & on about homesongs being one of the best album ever made (in my opinion of course)

It was also the case with the national for a long time before they went huge - pretty much all of my friends own alligator from my pestering.

Does anyone remember? Or is it just me?

Seeing as Jim White's entire UK fanbase appears to be on here;

Marah;

Although they have never maintained the astonishing quality of "Kids in Philly", their excellent second album, each subsequent album has contained at least a couple of crackers.

.....who said he had never actually known a Fulham fan, either at school or work or via his extended family.
Really.
I'm seeing him next month, I'll asked him if that's changed!

Not the song, the Australian band from the 80s. Technically I do know another fan, because my mate Andrew likes them too and we discovered them together when they supported Red Guitars. But apart from him....

Late 70s prog/new wave mix - they could've been XTC except that Peter Gabriel recruited David Rhodes into his band and that was the end of Random Hold...

Still love Siobhan Maher's voice (and she did a rather fine rootsy country album a few years later, Immigrant Flower)

We have Jennifer Finch's two post-L7 bands Other Star People and The Shocker.
Horseland only released one single to my knowledge, but what a single it was. It's called "Love Dies Again" I think it was written by Paul Trynka and features John Rowley of Red Guitars (which is why I bought it)

I bought his first album in 1976, and saw him live 30 years later. In all that time I never met anybody who had heard of him, let alone like him. I still haven't. Great show, by the way.

http://youtu.be/t19TAbDO8lk

also

Superstar
http://youtu.be/PstH9-UyJEI

http://youtu.be/JVl3XBM_CCM

How strange that I should come across a mention to them here:

http://www.songclearance.com/blog/erik-philbrook-stumbling-upon-ron-sexs...

Only the second time I have registered their existence. The first being JimmyShoes' OP

and the chart commandos. Very big on the workingmen's club scene in Gateshead/Newcastle in the late 70's/80's. Championed by early Viz comic. Me and my brother followed them to almost every gig, bought their only single and album and to this day they were/are my favourite live band. Howay Arta!

Not obscure by any means; in fact positively well-known but I've never met anyone else who professes to actively *like* them.

I thought the first couple of albums were wonderful and both times I saw them live around the same time they provided a great night's entertainment.

Darius Rucker's voice can still send a shiver up my spine.

One of the best 'post-Dead' jam bands - chops a-plenty and enough of a sense of humour to drop off-beat cover versions into the set on a regular basis:

Early 90's Celtic-tinged folksy stuff. The lead singer, Rebecca Pidgeon, went on to marry David Mamet who had a co-writing credit on their biggest album Down From Above.

This is a rather lovely song.

Celtus.

One of My all Time Favourites:-

Am I the only person that likes them. Saw them twice live - curiously, both gigs were in Northampton.

Not completely obscure, but sadly forgotten now, and I've never met anyone else who loved them as much as I did - although I've converted a few people by the simple expedient of buying a copy of their second album (Spinning) whenever I saw it going cheap in a second hand shop, then giving it to the next friend I met.

Live, they were always brilliant. The first time I saw them it was at Ronnie Scott's, when they were unaccompanied by, variously, a group of septuagenerian backing singers, an amazing pianist and a troop of handbell ringers. They could really turn up the heat, even when it was just the two of them with acoustic guitars. I was genuinely saddened when they split, which was at least partly because they never got the breakthrough they so richly deserved. I've seen them both solo - Natasha Lea Jones and Sharon Lewis - and they were great. If they reunited, though, I'd be hanging out the bunting.

Here's the completely fab Mean Girl.

Mighty LA based post-rock, with four excellent LPs to their name:

Very Word-friendly - doing something different messing about with drums and guitars...

Here's two bands in my collection that my colleagues will go "Who's that then?"

Matmos

Boards Of Canada

I played Shakespeare Alabama to death around 1989. I can feel a trip to the attic coming on.

and the chart commandos often used to play the cooperage on the quayside late seventies and early eighties and always went down a storm.

However where are the fans of Wavis O Shave? Now there was a riddle wrapped in an enigma etc.

Jerry Burns, a beautiful singer, a female Blue Nile, produced by Stephen Street and then disappeared off the face of the Earth.

I'm amazed that Chris Mills hasn't been more successful than he is. I'm even more surprised that none of his songs have been covered by anyone that would make him a lot of money!

Never met anybody else who likes the above. Plenty of quality tunes.
Not sure I've ever met another Husker Du fan either.

Another band to inspire a Who? rather than dislike or mere indifference.

They're not German, but come from Cincinnatti, Ohio and derive their name from part of that town. Core members are husband and wife Linford Detweilerand Karin Berquist. Their music is not dissimilar to Cowboy Junkies, with whom they have toured and worked with in the past, in that it tends towards slow to mid paced music centred on Berquist's lovely voice.

The Olivia Tremor Control?

Winnipeg's finest power pop / punk / country outfit have released four heart tugging albums, of which the second, Left & Leaving, might just be my favourite album ever. This is one of the best tracks from it (don't worry about the horrible noise at the beginning - it seems to be a generic intro to this guy's videos):

I love these.

The band I like is more obscure than the band you like.

brilliant.

From when punk/funk almost got big featuring a young Neneh Cherry. Nice picture sleeve too. Anyone else out there like 'em?

Very Scott Walker and reputedly Big in Italy (borne out by number of quilted jackets at Camden Dingwalls).

Ashley Maher. I heard the track Shine on a Q cd and got Hi and Pomegranate on the strength of it. Someone told me she was Virgin's great hope but she never seemed to get off the ground. I think she's still releasing stuff on her own.

I have never knowingly met another fan. I'm pretty sure they exist, if only in the blogosphere.

Even the friends and family for whom I play his stuff don't really get into him. We used one of his numbers as our first wedding dance which got a lot of interest from musically inclined friends, then nothing I'm aware of, not even my wife beyond my little enthusiasms on the car stereo for long trips.

... but Masters Of Reality do it for me. Apologies if someone else has posted them already...

I thought that I was the person who liked Scooter the most in the UK (massive in Europe, to be fair) until I saw them live. Then I realised I was the person who liked Scooter the most in the South.

is excellent and really underrated.

I may be in the minority as one of her male admirers, since most of her fans are female and avowedly 'On the other bus', so to speak.

She has a wonderful voice, and having met her, I can say seems like a really nice person - always has loads of time for fans after gigs etc. Just a shame she doesn't make it down to the Midlands/South that often.

David Ackles, Laura Nyro, David Blue, Peter Case, Hayes Carll, Tom Russell, Grayson Capps, Dan Baird, Chris Knight, Show Of Hands, James McMurty & Rodney Crowell. Never met anybody who shares this but they must be out there.

If we are digging up obscurities that aren't just obscure because they are hopeless, can I recommend Phantom's Divine Comedy from about 1974? No one knows who they were (no data on the cover, no songwriting credits)and I have never even seen another copy of the record. I suspect they might have had something to do with the Eric Burden Sun Secrets band (who were obscure enough in their own right, and also pretty good) because they were both on Capitol at the same time and sounded a bit the same. In any case, I thought that PDC were quite worthy of investigation and even cult status by Doors fans. But I am reasonably certain I was the only person who thought so.

..or pretty much any band on the Innovative Communications label from the early '80s - Baffo Banfi, Clara Mondschein, Mickey D's Unicorn, Richard Wahnfried, etc.

I've been so lonely all these years!