Are there any band/singers/musicians you missed out on at the time but came round to or “got” years later?
In my case it would be The Sound. I still can’t believe they passed me by in 1981. I was a massive fan of Echo and The Bunnymen by then, and The Sound were ploughing a similar furrow, even being on the same label at that point. Hindsight persists with the view that this reason might be why they never quite “made it,” as the Bunnymen got all the attention, maybe due to more obvious hooks but also due to Mac’s post punk idol image. But From The Lion’s Mouth, The Sound’s second album, should have been a real competitor to Heaven Up Here, released later the same year.
Although I knew the name at the time I just never quite investigated. I came to the band just a few years back when the albums were re-released and have since devoured them all, although for me the standout is the album I mention above. Winning is one of the best songs of the early eighties but what a tragic end their singer and songwriter, Adrian Borland, had in 1999. Very sad.
Anyone got any other stories about bands they came very late to?
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Sewer Robot says
I’m tempted to say their name would have been a hindrance, but then I think of the quite successful careers of the blandly vague Sterephonics and The Internet..
Kaisfatdad says
There was a band called The Internet??
At the time it was probably cool and forward looking but now….About as exciting as Toaster or Skirting Board!
Paul Wad says
The Internet are ace.. There are quite a few bands who, had they known such things as internet search engines and eBay were on the horizon, they might well have thought of a different name. The The spring to mind.
Freddy Steady says
I’m pretty sure there was a band called co.uk
fentonsteve says
Yep – surprisingly enough, just the one album…
https://www.discogs.com/artist/1399462-COUK
Carl says
The Go-Betweens are my big regret.
It wasn’t the case that I heard them and dismissed them, their very existence seemed to have passed me by, until years after the first split. I’m sure there must have been features/reviews in the likes of Q, but they just never registered with me. A curse upon my lack of attention.
Now I think they were brilliant and had I bought 16 Lovers Lane at the time I would probably have worn it out.
With respect to The Sound, my flatmate at the time was a huge fan, so I heard those early albums and saw them a few times too. Excellent band.
Nick L says
Oh The Go-Betweens were indeed a great band @Carl , I saw them a handful of times from 1984-88 and they could be a bit inconsistent but always interesting live. They were a bit of a rarity in that they were just as good after they reformed too, Oceans Apart is a fantastic album.
Wish I’d seen The Sound live. I imagine they were terrific live, in a Joy Division kind of way.
Freddy Steady says
16 Lovers Lane is just, well, lovely. Still sounds sonically superb.
dai says
First band I ever (properly) saw live! Ironically supporting the Bunnymen in 1980. Never really got into their stuff, maybe I should try….
fentonsteve says
Not so much missed out on at the time, as I was only one year old at the time of their release, but I spent my first 25 years not listening to Blue or Tapestry. Because: old hippy women, and I was a shoegazing/BritPopping/AcidJazzing indie kid.
I borrowed a Carole King demos 2CD from the library, and saw Joni’s Paris Theatre set on BBC2 after an evening at a pub gig.
You know what? They’re both in the top 100 lists because they’re both great.
Guiri says
I love Lloyd Cole (and the Commotions) these days but had no real clue as to his existence until Antidepressant in 2006. Think that was thanks to Word. I’ve made up for it since and own the lot but wish I’d known about Rattlesnakes at 13 or so because it’d have been even more perfect.
Same with The Lilac Time. I still remember pondering whether to buy the 7 inch of Return to Yesterday in a bargain bin and going for the Trashcan Sinatras instead. I wasn’t necessarily wrong but it’s a shame it took me 25 more years to listen properly.
Good that hardly anything goes out of print these days isn’t it?
Must listen to the Sound. I know Adrian Borland produced Felt’s Me and a Monkey on the Moon, a desert island disc, but I’ve never investigated. Spotify seems to have plenty, so that’s good.
Nick L says
The day Perfect Skin went into the chart I went to see the band at Kingston Poly. I was 16. That felt like the right age for it, and surprisingly loud they were too. Followed him ever since.
Never knew that about the Felt album though, will have to investigate.
Guiri says
Lucky you. Do report back. Even after 30 years I still listen regularly. Think it’s a perfect album and quite unlike anything else Lawrence ever did (and even less successful if such a thing is possible).
Nick L says
Just listened to Me and A Monkey On The Moon via Spotify on my drive home. Really enjoyed it. I’d heard a couple of tracks years ago and enjoyed some earlier Felt stuff but never the whole of this album. You can also sort of sense the start of the progression to the Back In Denim project a couple of years later, which I’ve loved since release.
Guiri says
Brilliant. And yes definitely. Mobile Shack in particular is moving in that direction. Wish he’d do something like those albums again. Go Kart Mozart only goes so (not very) far.
Paul Wad says
I was a latecomer to Lawrence and all his guises. In fact I think I bought my first Felt CD after reading a lot about him in Luke Haines first book. After that I went on to collect all his CDs, etc and I’m a firm fan. But for several years I was annoyed with myself because I was firmly into the Britpop thing and remember that edition of Select magazine, proclaiming Suede and Pulp to be the best things since sliced bread, but probably because both those bands were favourites of mine the fact that Denim (my favourite of his guises) were also on the cover of that magazine totally passed me by. I had somehow got to about 15 years ago without the existence of Lawrence ever registering with me.
And then came the real kicker. It seems I saw Denim live, although I only found this out recently. I went to watch Pulp at Wembley Arena and they were supported by Edwyn Collins, so I was puzzled when I read that Denim supported them that night. Until I remembered that, yes, there was another band on first, but me and my mate had never heard of them, watched about half their first song and then went to the bar until the support act that we had heard of was due on. I walked out of a sodding Denim gig!!! It’s up there with sitting in the bar at the Brighton Centre in 1994, not bothering to watch Oasis’s support band, only realising it was The La’s as they were doing their final number. So I saw Denim and The La’s live, but for a combined total of less than one song.
Leffe Gin says
“Jeff Buckley is playing a small venue nearby solo? No thanks, I’ll wait until he’s back with a band.”
Bingo Little says
Ouch.
Carl says
I had a similar experience.
He was playing at The Garage, Islington on a Sunday night. I thought, no I’ve got to get up early, tomorrow. I’ll catch him next time.
Bingo Little says
Ouch redux.
fentonsteve says
Jeff does a Glasto warm-up gig in Cambridge the night before Glasto. I don’t go as I’m heading down to Pilton early to get my tent set up. I’ll make sure I see him there.
After lunch I walk down the hill towards the Pyramid stage.
“Thanks, Jeff Buckley”. Oh shit, he’s gone on early and I’ve missed him. I carry on walking past the Pyramid stage and go and watch 1,000 Yard Stare (or someone) on the second stage, sulking that I’ve missed Jeff.
Only when I get home and read the next NME do I discover I’d heard him being thanked by Ben Watt for doing guest BVs for EBTG, and he’d performed his set immediately after them (while I’d been sulking in another field).
The Good Doctor says
I love The Sound too but I think they’d stopped touring before I was going to gigs.
My main one is Cardiacs who I have banged on about on here before but while I regret not getting into them sooner, I was vaguely aware of them via the music press and I’d seen a clip of them doing ‘Tarred and Feathered’ which I thought was too whacky and knockabout for my (then) tastes (it is a bit hardcore that one but I love it now). I also remember picking up a Cardiacs mix tape in a shared house I lived in the mid 90s and my housemate said “oh that’s a tape my mate made for me but I can’t get into it” and I tossed it aside remembering it was that band I’d seen and disliked. I wasn’t ready for Cardiacs until many years when someone posted a clip of ‘Dirty Boy’ on this forum – and then it was it was too late as Tim Smith had already been struck down with his illness.
Annoyingly they played quite a few gigs that I could have easily seen if only I’d taken a chance on that mix tape!
Paul Wad says
Crikey, when it comes to being late to the party for great bands/artists, I’d be better off listing whole genres! I try not to think of all the great artists I could have seen if I’d only opened my earholes a little wider at the time, because I get annoyed with myself. Particularly as some of my now favourite rappers died young, as rappers have a tendency to do.
But The Sound are a good one to choose, as it was only a year or two ago that I first heard anything by them, when they were recommended on a post-punk blog that I had read. I bought a boxed set of their first three albums, along with EP tracks, a live show, live sessions, etc and the quality from the first track to the last makes me wonder why they never broke through and became a much bigger name. But I think it’s great that after spending the past 5 years listening to so much music going back decades that’s new to me, and thinking I must have exhausted certain avenues by now, that I can still come across bands as good as The Sound. Tonight’s ‘new’ artist is the rapper King T. I don’t know how come I’ve got through the past 5 years without hearing anything by him before, but I’m glad I have now.
Cookieboy says
Radiohead…
I went on a long holiday and had for my entertainment a discman and a handful of cds, all of which I flogged to death. One of them was a compilation album that had Everything in it’s Right Place on it. I thought it was terrible, dreaded it coming on and skipped it repeatedly.
Years later one of my friends was trying to persuade me to give them a listen and I refused. I remember telling him they were the soundtrack to an autopsy.
Years later again I heard Creep for the first time since it was current (I took no notice of it at the time) and it struck me what a tremendous song it actually was. I picked up a two disc Best of not long after and now have every one of their albums on my ipod as well as a bunch of “tribute” cds featuring other artists covering their songs.
To be fair to myself Kid A would be no one’s idea of a good starting point for the band so I can forgive myself for hating Everything in it’s Right Place. I remember someone describing it as, “It’s what people who don’t listen to Radiohead think Radiohead sound like.”
Mike_H says
At the Isle Of Wight Festival in August 1970, Miles Davis played.
In his band were Jack DeJohnette, Dave Holland, Airto Moreira, Chick Corea, Keith Jarrett and Gary Bartz. Dave Holland was playing electric bass and not very happy doing so. I suspect Keith Jarrett wasn’t particularly happy on electric piano either, but a paying gig is a paying gig.
I was there but I don’t recall seeing or hearing a single note of it. I was probably off somewhere in the campsite either sleeping, scoring or getting high.
Moose the Mooche says
Or fuckin’ in the bushes.
Rigid Digit says
Were Oasis playing that day too?
Moose the Mooche says
Oh dearie me. Do you Oasis fans hear John Lennon singing and say, “Who’s that bloke trying to sound like Liam?”
pete says
Couldn’t be arsed going to see the Sex Pistols at Leeds Poly. I think I had some homework to do.
Also, when I was at University the bloke I shared a flat with had a day out in London to see Joy Division.
Yeah, I couldn’t be arsed.
hubert rawlinson says
I was at the Poly then, just upstairs from the hall.
“Well they can’t play so I shan’t bother going”
Hey ho.
salwarpe says
I got deep into The Sisters of Mercy in autumn 1985, 3 months after they’d played the final Hussey/Adams lineup gig at the Royal Albert Hall. I had to wait 5 years to see them. In the Wembley arena shed. From halfway back in fixed seats. With Tony James. Playing songs from Vision Thing.