The only bands that matter part two

Fuck yeah we’re from detroit -MC5

Carrying on from the last post this blog will flesh out the list of great bands that every musician should know. The last list contained mostly mainstream rock artists with a few other genres of music tossed in for good measure. Today’s post has been provided from one of the world’s great rock record collectors, Dave Furgess. Dave is publishing “200 killer B Sides” sometime in the coming year. When it comes to killer B sides and amazing garage bands Dave is an expert. He has been collecting and buying and selling rock vinyl since the late seventies. I first met Dave in 1980 when I had a punk radio show on WPKN in Bridgeport. Dave would call in impossible requests.

Radio Birdman -Aussie Rock with tons of attitude

“Hi, Can you play the B side of Ultimate Spinach’s third single?” or ” Can you play the B side of the Creation single Making Time? I mean the french single….” Half of the songs and artists he requested I had never heard of, other other half were extremely rare. Very soon I told him to show up with a pile of records and he became an important part of the show. I credit Dave as the first person to play Big Star for me.

Not only would he have music he usually knew the band’s history and would point out the relationships between studios and producers. Now thirty years later he is starting to publish guides to garage music and the beautiful world of vinyl. Rest assured that no one is better qualified to provide a guide to garage bands.

Roky Erickson and the 13th floors elevators. Sometimes madness and LSD make for great music

As a follow on to my last blog I asked Dave to a list of the bands that he believes are important. Unlike my list he skips all of the big bands. He also has some suggestions that are extremely obscure. As an obsessed record collecting maniac he has a tendency to see obscure bands and songs as being more important then they are in the real world of rock stars and pop stardom. Nonetheless Dave’s list offers some interesting musical avenues for anyone that plays in a band to explore. After all any band list that starts with Blue Cheer and contains Manicured Noise, Country Joe and the Fish and The Meters is worth spending some time exploring……

Here’s Dave’s list:

blue cheer, alice cooper, pretty things, soft machine , family ,the groundhogs, the attack, the misunderstood, the pop group, the sleepers, captain beefheart and the magic band, love, amon duul 1 and 2, pink fairies, them, 13th floor elevators, peter hammill/van der graaf generator, spirit, television, guided by voices, suicide, stooges/mc5/src/amboy dukes, faust, tim buckley, beach boys, bee gees, byrds, neu,mogwai, television personalities, peter green era fleetwood mac, flamin’ groovies, replacements, gun club, doors,the move, traffic, grin, ash ra tempel, the nazz/rundgren, the left banke, blues project, steve miller band 67-72, grateful dead 66-71, ny dolls, syd barrett, moby grape,mothers of invention, the sonics, guess who, pere ubu, the pagans, wire, the laughing clowns, the meters, funkadelic, bert jansch, john fahey, desperate bicycles, rich kids, comsat angels, the creation,teardrop explodes, the jam/weller solo, jethro tull 68-71,fairport convention,can, rolling stones, humble pie/small faces,spooky tooth,buffalo springfield, public image ltd, alternative tv, cabaret voltaire, the triffids, the saints, brian jonestown massacre, my bloody valentine, swervedriver, steamhammer, radio birdman, masters apprentices, the outsiders (holland), opal, free, taste,dead meadow, mott the hoople, t rex, birthday party, manicured noise,magazine, dexy’s midnight runners,psychedelic furs, country joe and the fish, the charlatans,human expression,the maze, flying burrito bros, electric flag, hawkwind, harmonia, the wipers, the fall, dome