The Residents

This group has stayed anonymous for over 35 years and yet only a few of their albums are out of print, and they are now signed to the Mute label. There is a link to download their "Hunters" album at my other blog Eclectic Synthetic.

Tom Waits

These videos speak for themselves.

CAN

"Vitamin C" Live Video

"Paperhouse" Live

"Mushroom" video

Oingo Boingo

There will, as usual, be much to say about this group, until then here are some videos. The first is when they were called The Mystic Knights Of Oingo Boingo, when Richard Elfman was the leader. It is their appearance on The Gong Show.

The next video is from Richard's film "Forbidden Zone"

Finally, we conclude with a 1994 music video to te song "Insanity"

The Kinks

The Kinks are one of those fantastic groups that literally helped shape the face of Rock music. One of the few British Invasion groups that wrote nearly all their own material as well as producing much of it. The guitar interplay between brothers Ray and Dave Davies is exceptional. Dave's unpredictable solos are a brilliant contrast to Ray's very tight power chords. There will be so much more to say about this group in the meantime here's a performance of You Really Got Me and a video of Sunny Afternoon.

Black Sabbath: Soundtrack To The Apopcalypse

Black Sabbath is a group I have liked since the unusually young age of 8. I used to love scaring my friends with the intro to the song "Iron Man", I'd play it in the dark, and some used to run right out of the room. I lost a brother to drowning when I was 5 years old, and the song "Solitude" helped me to laern to grieve his passing. I also always loved how the dark introspective lyrics on "Paranoid" made it seem alright to frown some of the time. So I grew up literally relating to the lyrics and the vibe Sabbath created. The music was never boring, always challenging, and most of all, creative. There is some echo delay guitar work on the Paranoid LP similar to that which U2 is often praised for. There was also experimentation with new sounds, and rhythms that showed that they had strong musical ambition. The group wasn't dark or evil as much as they were sensitive people reacting to a seemingly insane world-Steve Engler

King Crimson

This is one of the most important progressive rock bands of all time, remaining influential since the 1960s to the 21st century. We will have a lot more to add to this post about this remarkable group. In the meantime, here is a video performance for Beat Club of "Larks Tongue In Aspic part 1", also a live performance of "Elephant Talk"