overlooked 90's groups

Lifter Puller (getting their due now, like 4 years too late...)

Hickey (San Fran post-hardcore/pop-punk with an ear for manic melodies and rhythms... Released a ridiculously nuts album on Probe in the mid 90s. Their singer just died in October)

Let me second this. Never read one interview/review/story on them EVER -- but they were pretty cool.

The Mysteries of Life's first album was v. nice. Whatever happened to them?

Second that, if its the Hickey I'm thinking of. The singer wore thick frame glasses (before the era of thick frame glasses)? A young man. I'm shocked...what happened?

http://www.mattyluv.com/

Chavez!

and seconded for the Loud Family

Best band ever, and I've only ever met one other fan...

(Sorry, but if ever there was an inexplicably overrated band -- both Electric Company and Amnesia were vast improvements...)

Kudos for the nods re: Silkworm & Chavez & the Loud Family, y'all - like, duh. On my ballot, I'd also like to include Smart Went Crazy, Guv'ner, Small Factory, & the Mommyheads. And Lotion!!! And the Philistines Jr.!!! God forbid I should justify these selections, though - gimme some thinkin' time.

And, hey, how's about some non-indie/guitar choices? (Not that I know of any, but surely there are a few.)

Treason. Return your striped shirts.

And yes indeed, Disco Inferno, the great and utterly wonderful and glorious and grand. I could go on.

overlooked bands (?):

Halo of Flies, maybe?

I dunno, no idea about these things.

(*insert John D's story about seeing them live and having his jaw drop*)

(*insert Ned posting a comment with a crying ASCII frowney expressing jealousy at not being able to see Supercollider live*)

They put out a second CD on Sony and then got dropped in the 90s major label purge. Jake Smith has his own label and put out a CD last year.

a/k/a the band with liner notes by Thomas Pynchon!

Lotion were a bit similar - great early singles, great debut album, pretty much downhill from there.

Six Finger Satillite -- their albums "Severe Exposure" & "Law of Ruins" are the two to check. They had some other cool songs.

Mule -- I saw these guys live a few times and they rose a major amount of dust. Their music gets a bit repetitive, but there are a few good nuggets on both albums.

Tar & Engine Kid were also both bands that were quite good live, but records are kind of spotty.

JF Coleman of Cop Shoot Cop also did a d'n'b/soundtrackish music under the name Phylr that is pretty good. The first album "Contra la Puerta" is quite good, the second one isn't that hot.

Silkworm's first two albums when they were a four piece are excellent, after Joel left their sound just didn't have the same amount of tension and he was the best vocalist of the three. There is a few good songs on "Firewater" but I hated "Developer" and quit following the group.

Red Red Meat's album "Jimmiewine Majestic" is one of my favorites from that time. I never read/hear anyone give them much props, so I will do so.

Finally...The Grifters are somewhat known, but nowhere near as much as they should be. They are one of my alltime favorite bands, period.

Any love for Small Factory?

Yes! I Do Not Love You was perhaps my first online purchas based entirely on online recommendations, ca.1995, which felt risky at the time. One of the better LPs of its genre, I came to conclude.

Put on Revelater by Jennyanykind as I was moving my CDs last night. Really unique for it’s day and age, though the piano sound would make a Spoon fan intrigued

Surprised I never mentioned the Judybats in this thread, so, the Judybats.

The 360s.

Pale Saints!

I’m certain I’ve said as much in this very thread but my under appreciated 90s are Fuck and Jf*E

Flop are totally overlooked. They released some great powerpop tunes but got lost in the churn of the Pacific Northwest 'grunge' hype.

Someone mentioned 3Ds. They're totally not overlooked here in NZ. They're considered an absolute classic of the '90s Flying Nun roster, which to be fair is somewhat overlooked compared with the label's '80s output.

^^ Also seconding Fuck, who fucked their chances with a stupid name. I guess their lyrics were pretty stupid too though. Some nice songs though.

Long Fin Killie
Bows

Long Fin Killie were great, but I don’t know how much more “looked” they could have been… they were so unique and creative, but definitely not for even mainstream “indie” taste (in the US, anyway)

Jf*E were hot sh1t for a minute, at least in the “scene”… but yeah, they didn’t end up becoming the Strokes or anything

Subskin Cables
Sacred Miracle Cave
Hitting Birth

prob dozens more

Fuck and Flop are some of the more hilarious band names I have seen lately.

Fuck had the funniest busy-cartoon-landscape album cover.

Xpost: yeah I guess you’re right.

The followup project “Bows” didn’t get much attention, probably because it was too late in the game for trip-hop despite them doing a very unique take on it.

I still have my old Virgin Brief History of Ambient CD compilations, and I was surprised to find out that Towering Inferno did so little. One album, Kaddish, a track on Ambient IV, and that was about it. I have the impression that the recording budget was huge and the album lost a tonne of money. One-half of the band died in 2005.

I remember it was a big thing in the early post-rock scene. It's a bit like Scott Walker's later stuff and it's sad they never worked together. I can't think of much to say about them but they existed.

My first thought was The Books, but I'm not sure they qualify either as a 90s band or as overlooked.

well their first record was in 2002 and every album felt like it was discussed endlessly on message boards like this one

but yeah one would think for such an innovative and supposedly influential band there'd be a ton of Books-inspired stuff left in their wake, I think the reality is what they did was so unique and labor-intensive that nobody could really duplicate it

similar story for AnCo's MPP I think

to all the groups I’ve overlooked before

Continuing through the CD pile and going through more Chapel Hill bands, I wouldn't have thought they were forgotten because they were on a premier indie of the time (Bloodshot) and Greil Marcus talked them up, but Trailer Bride only has a few hundred Spotify listeners.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wm1xtbKVO0w

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gibuGcpZF7A

Floraline. Band from Atlanta who put out one album on Minty Fresh in 1999, after which it seems no one in the band ever released anything else, so admittedly they're pretty easy to overlook. That one album is really lovely though.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YoUHJV1pF2c

omg Trailer Bride!!! I remember them! Her weird singing was so refreshing to me.

Oh yeah, Trailer Bride! From that era of distinctive female-led Bloodshot bands, though being on Bloodshot then, rock was just part of it, often a sharp part of the attitude/boldness: also Moonshine Willy, The Meat Purveyors, Neko when she was covering Loretta Lynn (7"-only, originally, and non-obvious choices of material), as well as Scott Walker, writing like a combination of those, working w Kelly Hogan and the Mekons and others---but back to Trailer Bride: xgau also endorsed them, and I think that's how I got to them, like with most of the other early 90s acts on here, so, whatever the audience for indie etc. may have been aware of, reviews did count for more back then, as bendy indicates
Thanks to this reminder, I finally thought to check bandcamp, and here's the s/t, pre-Bloodshot, and some reviewers say not as good bandwise, but I haven't yet played it:

https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a3167590376_10.jpg

Trailer Bride’s 1996 self-titled record is a long-lost relic of the blooming Chapel Hill, North Carolina music scene of the ‘90s. Superchunk, Polvo, Archers of Loaf and other indie rock darlings were leading the town’s indie rock movement while Southern Culture on the Skids were pushing the alt-country genre forward. Then comes Trailer Bride who combined both of those worlds with a gothic, lo-fi sound that centers around Melissa Swingle’s atmospheric vocals and cryptic lyrics. Swingle started Trailer Bride following the demise of her band Pussy Teeth and would later go on to form the indie rock duo The Moaners with Laura King (Bat Fangs, Speed Stick), but the dark, southern sound that defines Trailer Bride’s debut record provides a mystifying listening experience a quarter-century later. No Depression said it best in their 1997 review: "They’re impossible to describe, but whatever you wanna call it, they sound really good.”
credits
released November 5, 2021
1996 Melissa Swingle under exclusive license to Yep Roc, LLC.

Swingle’s Moaners are good too, but I don’t know if any other post Trailer Bride projects put out records. These days she’s running the Chapel Hill bar in that video, The Cave.

bendy bringing the NC <3