Great Rock Bands that should have had more commercial success ?

[Lotis]

Trapeze. Anyone remember them? NRBQ Sons Of Champlin XTC Rockpile

 

[handyman11]

+1 on Starz .... saw them 2 years ago, older but sounded great ,,,started listening to them more after that ....'Cherry Baby' is a classic ...

 

[White Limo]

Melvins. Damn if they don’t put out some beautiful stuff and get no respect.

As much as I love the Melvins, they were always way too weird for huge mainstream success. But bands like Nirvana acknowledged their influence, not to mention every sludge band on the planet - and that has given them a lot of credibility.

 

[fjblair]

You must be from NC or nearby.

Yep NC. Both of these bands played a lot of clubs and opened many concerts back in the day. Both have a great album or two.

 

[JWes65]

Big Head Todd & The Monsters

I had forgot about this band! I still have the Sister Sweetly CD somewhere in storage. Great band.

 

[Crowonawire]

Wilmer Alexander and the Dukes.

 

[JWes65]

Smithereens

One of my favorite bands.

 

[RobBottom69]

The Ramones. I've been on a Ramones binge lately. I had a chance to get into them in 85 when I was 16 but couldn't get past the minimal playing. Fast forward to 2010, I'm looking for something to listen to on Youtube and type in Ramones, and then got the beauty of those songs. Damn shame I never got to see them.

 

[GulfportBound]

The best blue-eyed soul band of the 1970s . . .

 

[madmarcus1960]

Arc Angels, too bad Doyle Bramhall had issues back then, and Charlie Sexton had his car accident. One of my favorite debut albums of all time. Having Stevie Ray's rhythm section certainly did not hurt.
Doyle and Charlie had 2 of the best smokey voices in addition to their guitar virtuosity.

Arc Angels - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[loveme1965]

And especially

 

[HoboMan]

Yep NC. Both of these bands played a lot of clubs and opened many concerts back in the day. Both have a great album or two.

I was born and raised in NC. Saw both bands live back in the day. Great shows.

 

[Jorge E aka ricv64]

The Melvins compared to some bands are probably doing ok . They survive they tour with a couple as members of another band REDD KROSS . Are they making Led Zep money nope .

The Sons of Champlin a combination of maybe shooting themselves in the foot , tragedy and Clive Davis . Gawd dam WELCOME TO THE DANCE was such a great album . A band that had a following more rabid then the deads at one point

 

[chanley]

Lived next door to the lead singer and his girlfriend for a couple months. Used to see these guys at a Grape Street Pub in Manayunk PA. Man, they were great live. I thought they were really good. Side note, in the late 90's/early 2000's, I used to go to grape street all the time, (lived across the street). There were many times, when I would see an act there, and think something like "how the hell is this band/person NOT making it yet?" So many good acts.

 

[aliensporebomb]

King's X

Max Webster - they were just starting to have success stateside when the band imploded.

 

[Boston617]

Also, even though they're no longer around, Type O Negative should have been way bigger than they were.

 

[supergenius365]

I forgot to add these guys - Mother's Finest.

Nantucket
Mother's Finest

My whole life I've always been stunned how few people know about Mother's Finest, especially here in the South.

Yeah, I saw them play when I was about 14, and was totally blown away. I think that they were ahead of their time - major radio wasn't ready for funk-rock yet.

Side story: I’m sitting in the local shop playing various guitars and the current guitarist for Mother’s Finest, John Hayes, walks in with his ‘59 Strat that he wanted repaired. I got up and looked at the guitar, had a little conversation with the man and then went back to my random noodling at the other end of the shop. After a while, he wandered over to me and asked “Are you a songwriter?“ “Yes” I replied. He said “You play like a song writer.” and walked away. Don’t know what he meant or if it was good or bad. Back to you......

 

[Orm-D]

I always thought these guys deserved more recognition than they got. They just came on the scene at the wrong time.

I was visiting a cousin in Detroit in 1990 and they opened for Rick Derringer and Edgar Winter and they came out afterwards and hung out,took pics, talked with anyone who wanted to speak with them and were very very cool. I wish they had gotten bigger as well

 

[Heathen Guitar Basher]

The Only Ones............ you can't even make up the things that went wrong with them

Big Dipper

The Del Lords

Diamond Head should have been huge even without Metallica's resurrection

 

[supergenius365]

I know they did it to themselves, but the Replacements should have been more popular. Some of Westerberg’s songs are simply amazing. Also from MN - Soul Asylum had so much more potential than Runaway Train.