Great Bar Bands with Great CD's

Try the Asylum Street Spankers. Texas swing with a jazz, rock, weird twist. A fabulous band, their website is www.asylumstreetspankers.com.

Brian Lee & the Jump Street Five

Bryan Lee completely lost his eyesight by the age of eight. His avid interest in early rock and blues was fostered through the ‘50s by late night listening sessions via the Nashville-based radio station WLAC AM, where he first encountered the sounds of Elmore James, Albert King and Albert Collins. By his late teens, Bryan was playing rhythm guitar in a regional band called The Glaciers that covered Elvis Presley, Little Richard and Chuck Berry material. Through the ’60s, Bryan’s interest turned to Chicago blues and he soon found himself immersed on that scene, opening for some of his boyhood heroes.

In January of 1982, in the midst of a particularly cold Wisconsin winter, Lee headed south to New Orleans, eventually landing a steady gig at the Old Absinthe House in the heart of the French Quarter. For the next 14 years, Lee and his Jump Street Five played five nights a week at that popular bar, developing a huge following and a solid reputation.

Check out his work at www.justin-time.com.

Thanks for the tips. I'll have to check into them.

The problem that i've run into with hearing great "unknown" bands is that, many times, their live performances EASILY out-shine their studio efforts. While there is no price to pay for having a great sound and a lot of energy on stage, the costs start escalating pretty quickly if one wants to obtain excellent sonics in the studio and work with a good engineer. As such, what you hear from a "nobody" on stage is typically NOT what you get when you buy their "demo" or "small label" CD's. If you really do like their CD but your friends don't, it is probably because you're translating some of the energy that you experienced live to your recorded listening experience via memory. Since your friends didn't see the performance, they have to go by strictly what is on the disc. Hence, the lack of agreement as you are listening from two different points of view.

Having said that, my favourite bar band was "Loudmouth". These guys were kind of "hippy grunge metal with a blues influence". Seeing them live was always a treat, especially if they were playing on the "Sout' Side". Their CD's aren't bad either, but nothing could touch their energy / sound that they had when jamming live. There's just something about a 15 - 20 minute Zepplin / Sabbath influenced "cosmic space jam" complete with a "Chicago blues harmonica" that you had to experience live. Unfortunately, the band was signed, started having internal conflicts about money, etc... and broke up after putting out 2 discs. As far as i'm concerned, that was the biggest loss to the Chicago area "rock scene" that we've ever had to deal with. Sean
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PS... Part of what you hear at a live rock event is speaker break-up / distortion and amplifier compression. As such, you have to be able to drive the system to the point of "explosion" on a regular basis without having anything explode. While "mega-watts" and tons of drivers will play very loudly and very cleanly, it will be lacking the "grungy grit" that you experience live from the distortion that the PA system itself contributes.

If you simply want to rock with reasonably good fidelity, pick up four Klipsch Heresy's and two down-loaded subs. Stack the Heresy's side by side on top of the subs. Each sub should house two sealed 12's per cabinet and be AT LEAST 4 cu ft per cabinet. You can also use four Klipsch Cornwall's or a pair of HIGHLY modified La Scala's to a lesser extent.

For amps, NAD's work pretty well as they are slightly warm and soft sounding ( reducing horn glare ) and offer "soft clipping", so you can drive the snot out of them without damaging the system from hardcore clipping. Use at least one 2600 or 2700 per pair of Klipsch with a separate amp(s) for the subs. This provides a massive "bang for the buck" rock based system.

I was recently at Knittingfactory music club (www.knittingfactory.com) on Magma(www.seventhrecords.com)...
OOPS not virtually but realy, live:-). You might not know this band but for anyone who likes Jethro Tull, King Crimson and a-little of classical music Magma can stay at the top of all rock bands eva eva.
You can get their CDs or records at mentioned website. Don't try to get them from half ebay or any other internet sales since you will simply overpay too much. The backorder waiting on these CDs is from 2 to 4 weeks but the point is that you get them 4x they retail elsewhere. So even if you won't like it you can doulbe or tripple the price and sell it.

Mpls finest...John Freeman(of Magnolias fame) and the Action Alert...great garage/mod power pop....contact Treehouse records in Mpls if interested....