Bands you have yet explore back catalogue

MagicPigDetective

So today I finally listened to a Steve Vai album, something I should have done years ago. This got me thinking, what other artists or bands have passed you by, that you want to listen to properly but haven’t got round to it. There’s so much great music out there to discover, if you have the time. My suggestions:

Frank Zappa. Heard a few songs briefly which sound like he’s taking the piss, but I haven’t heard the deep cuts or guitar playing he’s renowned for.

King Crimson. Never listened to them, read a lot about Fripp.

Captain Beefheart. I really should listen to Trout Mask Replica, just to know myself how bad/mad/good/bad it is. 

Rush. Not familiar at all, no idea if I would like them.

Jeff Beck. The recent discussion left me realising I hane not heard much, bar the obvious one of course.

blobb

What Zappa did you listen to? He does take the piss, deliberately, but everyone is fair game. His back catalogue is so diverse that there is something in there for everyone, you just have to find it. All of The Mothers stuff is brilliant, the Roxy stuff is brilliant, the 80's stuff starts to get a bit caustic and political, the end stuff is pure 'look at what can be done'.

I did a similar thing with Man. I had Whinos and loved it and some of the real early stuff but never went through the 'classics' eventually I started collecting their records and whilst you can never tire of hearing another version of Bananas, some of the east coast / Quicksilver Messenger stuff doesn't do it for me. I'm just going through the offshoot bands: Deke solo; Neutrinos etc... Probably took me 20yrs to get from Whino's to Kamikaze.

It took me a long time to explore Soft Machine in full. That's the one I wish I had done earlier.

UnclePsychosis

I don't think I'd recommend starting on Trout Mask Replica - most people need to warm up to it! Safe As Milk would be my choice for a first time Beefheart listen. 

Philly_Q

blobb said:

What Zappa did you listen to? He does take the piss, deliberately, but everyone is fair game. His back catalogue is so diverse that there is something in there for everyone, you just have to find it. All of The Mothers stuff is brilliant, the Roxy stuff is brilliant, the 80's stuff starts to get a bit caustic and political, the end stuff is pure 'look at what can be done'. 

I bought shitloads of Zappa albums about 25 years ago when HMV had tons of his stuff on sale, for some reason - I think maybe when his catalogue shifted from Music for Nations (in the UK) to Ryko.  It was just before he died, now that I think about it...

I listened to nothing but Zappa for about six months and haven't listened to it much since, but not because I didn't like it.  It's just very different from rock music, much more complex and sophisticated.  It takes a bit of work.

It's incredibly diverse, but I think the stuff from the early to mid '70s is most accessible - Over-Nite Sensation, Apostrophe('), Roxy & Elsewhere, One Size Fits All, Zoot Allures.

Also don't separate the studio albums from the live ones, it's all one big thing.  He'd frequently take bits from live recordings and work them in to studio tracks. 

Definitely worth exploring, and presumably now you can stream it all for free!

zepp76

Creedence Clearwater Revival, I've only heard a couple of their songs but that was enough to colour me intrigued. What albums of theirs would the good people of the fretboard recommend I start with? Anything I should avoid?

Octafish

If you search youtube you can find plenty of albums or tracks uploaded to try...

Beefheart's more accessible

then maybe...

King Crimson (no full albums available, but tracks from two of my favourite albums)

There's loads of Zappa stuff of vastly varied style. There's a lot of satire/humour in his music which is not everybodies thing. I prefer his Mothers stuff up to about 1970. Usually a lot more lyric/vocal based shorter tracks. His 70s stuff becane a bit more drawn out instrumental and jazz/rock fusion with some big guitar solos.

Two of my favourite...

Personally, I don't like Rush or Beck much so can't recommend anything there.

Octafish

Oops looks like I posted the same link twice regards Zappa, not going to edit as means it will mess up all other links. Should be this...

pigface

zepp76 said:

Creedence Clearwater Revival, I've only heard a couple of their songs but that was enough to colour me intrigued. What albums of theirs would the good people of the fretboard recommend I start with? Anything I should avoid?

Cosmo's Factory is their best album IMO.

zepp76

pigface said:

zepp76 said:

Creedence Clearwater Revival, I've only heard a couple of their songs but that was enough to colour me intrigued. What albums of theirs would the good people of the fretboard recommend I start with? Anything I should avoid?

Cosmo's Factory is their best album IMO.

@pigface Thank you, I'll check that out.

axisus

Gotta love Joes Garage - the album that corrupted me as a teen!

Lots of bands I need to catch up on. I'm particularly into catching up with Rush these days. I was a big fan late 70s-early 80s, but gave up on them after Hold your fire which did not interest me in the least at the time. I think that they were a fantastic band, I wish I'd seen them live at some point (Peart has just retired).

EDIT: Also IQ. I bought their first two albums when they came out early 80s and have nothing since. Prog is my main thing and they seem to be highly rated so I need to catch up.

octatonic

I'm pretty ignorant of Baby Metal beyond "Gimme Chocolate."

EricTheWeary

Similar to @Philly_Q I went through a mad Zappa stage and thought I'd discovered an alternative universe known only to the special few. Then stopped listening. 
For Zappa my recommendation is start with Zappa Plays Zappa, I think the live concerts are on YouTube. It's far more accessible to a modern audience ( or even to me) as it's closer to being a best of and doesn't have the awful editing of the old Zappa live concerts and films. Frank was a hard man to like whereas Dweezil seems to be the nicest man in the world. 

I think every artist mentioned in the OP has had a long and varied career ( ok, Captain Beefheart not so much). With Rush I'd probably start with a compilation as they could write a surprisingly catchy tune. The big ones are albums like 2112 and Hemispheres but many people find then pompous and boring. I wouldn't avoid the live albums or DVDs ( probably on YouTube by now) as a way in. So much prog rock seems to be by people who apparently don't like rock music very much ( that may include Zappa) that it may as well be Andrew Lloyd Webber. But, to me, Rush knew how to rock out a bit and they clearly loved Zeppelin and all sorts of sixties rock and that comes across. So, live they could give it some welly. 

axisus

Rush had different phases in their career. Although I love all the classic early stuff, the big three albums for me are:

Signals (82)
Grace under pressure (84)
Power Windows (85)


Many think that Signals has too many keyboards, but I love it. Their best selling album is Moving Pictures. 2112 got them fame but it sounds a bit dated now. Hemispheres still sounds good to me and has my fave Rush track the epic (9 minute?) instrumental La Villa Strangiato. I think that it is one of the best ever instrumentals, it runs through various sections before returning to the main theme at the end.

blobb

Philly_Q said:

Definitely worth exploring, and presumably now you can stream it all for free!

You know FZ invented the concept of streaming direct from a server? Albeit over the telephone!

EricTheWeary said:

. 
For Zappa my recommendation is start with Zappa Plays Zappa,

Saw them live twice, great gigs. The one where Dweezil played live with his dad on a big video screen was amazing. Vai guested. as did Napoleon MB and Bozzio. Wow, what a line up. Vai was honestly out of this world, I never really had much of a thing for him until I saw him with ZPZ, but he was something else. You could tell how much respect he had for FZ and Dweezil. Came across as a really nice bloke too.

Oh and Hot Rats for accessible Zappa, Bongo Fury (an FZ album) for accessible Beefhart. To be honest I can't really do Beefhart, at least with Bongo Fury Frank does the music and uses Beefhart in the same way he used all musicians in his band i.e. to devastating effect.

MagicPigDetective

Thanks for sharing your knowledge all, I will work my way through the suggestions gradually. With an Apple Music subscription I can listen to anything I like

As to Zappa, I've dived in with You Can't Do That on Stage Anymore Vol. 3. Why? Because in the 80's an older American cousin of mine came to stay and he had this with him, I clearly remember the green cover. I'm enjoying it. The first song Sharleena is a duo lead guitar fest.   

BeardyAndy

This might come as a shock but Cream has been my latest indulgence, I wasn't a fan of Clapton when I was getting into guitar (very early 90s) and left it at that, it was only recently watching a tv doc' about his life and times that I realised what i'd been missing!

blobb

@MagicPigDetective YCDTOSA 3 is the one with the tear gas incident (during cocaine decisions).

It's the 80's band but FZ made every band he assembled rehearse every piece of music he wrote so they all had the full repertoire under their belt. If you want to hear this in full effect try 'The best band you never heard in your life' which the last band he put together and boy were they good. At any point, at any time, he could signal to the band and they could instantly play any section of any piece of his music. Perfectly. 

YCDTOSA 2 is also known as 'The Helsinki Concert' and is regarded as one of his best releases. It's the Roxy band (70's era) in full effect.

FZ was the ultimate control freak - in his world all the other band members were purely staff, he paid them a salary to do what he told them to do (including Vai). He considered them technically exemplary, but creatively incompetent. The only exception to this was Ruth Underwood.

munckee

My shortlist to listen to some/more of is:

Flying burrito brothers
The Band
Frank Zappa
Grateful Dead

More Springsteen, I tried getting into Steely Dan a while ago after listening to some amazing guitar in a vinyl shop and the chap said it was Steely Dan, bought the best of and just not the same.  Any suggestions there appreciated!

Philly_Q

axisus said:

Rush had different phases in their career. Although I love all the classic early stuff, the big three albums for me are:

Signals (82)
Grace under pressure (84)
Power Windows (85)


Many think that Signals has too many keyboards, but I love it. Their best selling album is Moving Pictures. 2112 got them fame but it sounds a bit dated now. Hemispheres still sounds good to me and has my fave Rush track the epic (9 minute?) instrumental La Villa Strangiato. I think that it is one of the best ever instrumentals, it runs through various sections before returning to the main theme at the end.

Interesting.  I would pick the two albums which came just before Signals - Permanent Waves and Moving Pictures.

They came just after the prog, flares and kaftans period but just before the synths period which lasted most of the '80s.  Moving Pictures is probably THE Rush album, but I prefer Permanent Waves which was the first one I bought (on the day of release) and I still love it to bits and know all the words.

They've never made a really bad album though.  Hold Your Fire's my least favourite, ironically that tour was the only time I saw them live.

Philly_Q

Thinking of people with back catalogues I haven't explored.... Buckethead.

He's released about twice as many albums as Frank Zappa, so it would be a daunting task.

I've watched a lot of clips on YouTube.  Obviously he's a shred guy which isn't necessarily my kind of thing, but he has some good tunes and there's something about his style which really appeals (I like his solos on Chinese Democracy).  But I've yet to listen to any of his albums.

UnclePsychosis

Never understood why people find the Zappa catalogue so complex - it's pretty simple...








... when you realise that it's nearly all unlistenable twaddle. *whistles*