I Have Never Heard These Bands That Start With The Letter S

wasn't the guy from mojo guitars on st marks place in the senders? or is that my mind playing tricks on me?

I have never heard these "S" bands from Joel Whitburn's Top Pop Albums 1955-1996 book:

(At least I don't think I have. At least not much. Unless I'm wrong about a couple, but so what):

Sacred Reich
Sadat X
The Sandals
The San Sebastian Strings
Santana Brothers
Saraya
Saturday Night Band
Savage Grace
Scarlett & Black
Scatterbrain
School Of Fish
Scruffy The Cat
Seatrain
Seawind
2nd II None
The Serendipity Singers
Shadowfax
Bob Sharples And His Music
Shenandoah
Shotgun
Shotgun Messiah
Shy
Shyheim
Side Effect
Sidewinders (rock quartet from 1989)
The Silencers
Silk (folk-rock quartet from 1969)
Silver
Silver Condor
Sky (Detroit rock trio from 1970 w/ Doug Feiger)
Skylark
Sleeze Beez
Smif-N-Wessun
Smokestack Lightnin'
Smoothedahustler
Snail
Sneaker
Sons of Champlin
The Sopwith "Camel"
The Soul Children
Soul For Real
The Soulful Strings
Souls Of Mischief
Sounds Of Sunshine
Sounds Orchestral
South Central Cartel
South Circle
The Souther Hillman Furay Band
Southern Comfort
Special Ed
Spider
Spiders From Mars (sans Bowie)
Splinter
Spys
Stage Dolls
Stallion
Starpoint
Dakota Staton
Steady B
Stealin Horses
Steel Breez
Steelheart
Stone Fury
The Storm
Billy Strange
Streets
Strunz & Farah
Stuff
Suga T.
Sunny & the Sunliners
The Sunshine Company
Supersax
Susan
Sutherland Brothes and Quiver
Sweat Band
Sweet F.A.
Sweet Tee
Sweet Thunder
The Swingle Singers
Synergy

"S" artists who I came close to listing above then decided that'd probably be lying, even though I'm sure I've never heard a Mort Sahl LP, not even "Sing A Song Of Watergate," which may well be hilarious. (There may be a couple of these that I haven't actually heard, but I wouldn't bet the farm on it. Most of them, I've probably only heard one song by. Feel free to discuss them here regardless, though):

Mort Sahl
Sailcat
Saigon Kick
Salty Dog
Sea Hags
7 Seconds
Shakespear's Sister
The Shamen
The Silos
Soho
Soup Dragons
Stackridge
Stampeders
Starcastle (who I still confuse with Stackridge sometimes)
Stargard
Curtis Stigers
Jud Strunk
The Sundays
Sunscreem
Switch

"S" artist who I have definitely heard before (their excellent Australian Joe Jackson imitiation "Who Listens to the Radio" got some radio airplay in Detroit in new wave 1979), but I bet almost nobody else here has (except possibly Australians), and I really wish I had a copy of their album right now:

The Sports

Scruffy the Cat was Boston's entry in the mid 80's roots-new wave thing, after the Del Fuegos, at least. I remember the singer wearing a bandana over his mouth, like a silent film bandit. Not as good as the Dogmatics.

Shy - Brit attempt at riding on the coat-tails of Journey, Foreigner etc (see also : Magnum). Unsuccessful! I saw them supporting Manowar once in London, the singer sang the last song clad in nought but rollerskates, the audience tittered at his small-to-average size manhood.

The Sopwith "Camel" - somewhat in the vein of Spirit, not quite as good but worth a punt.

Spider - utter rip-off of Status Quo but without the CCR bits. Instead, they'd come up with dumbass catchy choruses containing the words "rock n'roll" - Here We Go Rock n'Roll, Rock n'Roll Forever Will Last ("play it loud, play it fast, rock n'roll forever will last") etc. Pretty good actually!

Steel Breez - is this Sacramento's finest Steel Breeze, who hit with "You Don't Want Me Any More" in about 1985? AOR.

Sweet F.A. was The Sweet after they left Chinn & Chapman and tried to go hard rock, to little success.

Synergy was synth wiz Larry Fast, who played on a few Peter Gabriel albums in the late 70's.

Shakespear's Sister had this massive number 1 hit in the UK called Stay, which was unavoidable for about a year. Imagine a cross between Patricia Morrison-era Sisters Of Mercy and The Eurythmics. Eurgh.

Soup Dragons - jumped ship from shambling to baggy, hit with "I'm Free", disappeared.

Stackridge - prog, I always confuse them with Stackwaddy.

Starcastle - American Yes clones, very wimpish.

scatterbrain had a big hit (in oz anyway) with "don't call me dude" mainly due to the amusing video

the sundays are probably the best smiths tribute group of all time, in that they managed to completely transcend their influences

that sounded weird in retrospect

Spider - utter rip-off of Status Quo but without the CCR bits.

Probably a different Spider (though your Spider sounds like they'd be good!) This was a NY-based rock quartet with a (female, I assume) South African singer named Amanda; charted with two albums in 1980 and 1981, which means they probably passed as new wave. Drummer was Anton Fig, later of the Dave Letterman show.

Steel Breez - is this Sacramento's finest Steel Breeze

Yep, guess I lost an "e" there.

Sweet F.A.

Seemingly not former Sweet guys, judging from their names. "Hard rock quintet," scored in 1990 with an album called Stick To Your Guns. Never even heard of 'em, I don't think.

Wait, so were Scatterbrain (from 1990) Aussies? (Whitburn doesn't say where they came from.)

no, americans

The Shamen?
"There's a guy in the place
He's got a bittersweet face
And he goes by the name of Ebeneezer Goode...", no?

"S" artist who I have definitely heard before (their excellent Australian Joe Jackson imitiation "Who Listens to the Radio" got some radio airplay in Detroit in new wave 1979), but I bet almost nobody else here has (except possibly Australians), and I really wish I had a copy of their album right now:

The Sports"

I've heard of them (I've got the single "Who Listens To The Radio?" and maybe others, but no album) and I'm a Limey.

Shamen info from WP:

When the Shamen appeared on Top of the Pops, it was expected that Mr C should tone down the song [Ebeneezer Goode] due to its being broadcast. The group replaced the final lyrics: "Got any Salmon?" - with "Has anyone got any underlay?". The BBC were furious, and dragged Mr C into a room off-camera, to explain himself, only to be told that it was simply a gratuitous rug reference.

"Has anyone got any Veras" is obv. rhyming slang, Vera Lynns = skins. The salmon reference has always bamboozled me though. Anyone?

Shadowfax

Acoustic New Age. I used to like them at one time. I think they were Bahais. Might have been from the Philadelphia area or had some sort of connection to it, since I remember them being around a lot in the 80s. In fact, I probably saw them.

The Swingle Singers

Someone from the older end of the baby boom generation at work used to talk to me about them. I think they do a capella arrangements of wildly different genres (but with a doo-wop foundation?), or something like that. The name is so horrible that I don't think I could ever give them a chance.

Synergy

I think this was a third-rate electronic music outfit.

7 Seconds

Hardcore punk? I think I may have seen them.

I think they were Bahais.

D'oh! I was thinking of Do'ah.

Shadowfax were Windham Hill. Big time.

(I think. Don't trust anything I'm saying here, since this is all about stuff I used to listen to around 25 years ago.)

There was a Minutemen'ish band from the late 80s called Special Ed. By Minutemen, I mean there were like 30 tracks on the LP, and it was sent to the college station where I was DJing. I don't remember what it sounded like now, but I remember it going on my purchase list of the time.

"The salmon reference has always bamboozled me though. Anyone?"

Salmon & Trout = snout = tobacco

Laaaaaaahvely

>>Stackridge - prog.

Not so much, really, more Beatle-y, 10CC-ish pop. I love the two I own ("Friendliness" and "The Man In The Bowler Hat,") the latter produced by George Martin.

As were 2 of the 3 Seatrain albums I used to own. Formed out of The Blues Project, but also featured violinist Richard Greene. Somewhere beween the roots rock of The Band and the art rock of Procul Harum; tough to pigeonhole.

Skylark had a huge hit soul ballad, "Wildflower," in the 70s (Let her cryyyy, for she's a lady, let her dreeeeam, 'cause she's a child) that I'm sure you've heard.

I only know people from the second list. Or is it the third list?

Anyway, the Silos are boring-as-all-get-out Americana with a violin that Weisbard liked in the SPIN guide, so I wound up with two of their cassettes. I can't remember anything about them, except I think there's a song about a wedding that reminded me of "The Deer Hunter." But that could've been 10,000 Maniacs.

My wife really really likes Shakespear's Sister, and I remember "Stay" and one other song from when they were big. One of the ladies was from Bananarama, right?

I really liked slow dancing to "Love Is on the Way" by Saigon Kick. Their green-covered CD is widely available in dollar bins, last I checked.

Curtis Stigers made Nick Lowe filthy rich by covering "What's So Funny 'Bout Peace Love and Understanding" on the Bodyguard soundtrack. He had a hit around the same time as Shakespear's Sister, but I forget what it was called.

Oh, shit, and Sons of Champlin! I have a buddy who's wayyyyyyyy too into Chicago, and he has all the Sons of Champlin albums. Bill Champlin joined Chicago in the '80s, I wanna say, and sang lead on "Look Away" and "I Don't Wanna Live Without Your Love," and won a Grammy for writing "After the Love Has Gone" for Earth Wind and Fire. But before all that, he played in this tasty West Coast chop-rock band. I think their albums are rare and expensive now.

I've only heard one song ("Border Town") from the Souther Hillman Furay supergroup, but it's just great...makes me think of what Laura Nyro might have written had David Geffen successfully recruited her to Asylum Records and Laurel Canyon...

I should add that Sons of Champlin are not good, if my description tempted you to spend a lot of money on one of their albums. (xp)

Soho were those twin black chicks who scored with "Hippychick", constructed from samples of "How Soon Is Now"? back in '90 or so...

I'm surprised you haven't heard Savage Grace, who played the Detroit bar circuit sporadically in the 70's...I wanna say they had something to do with either Frost or the Amboy Dukes, but I could be wrong about that...so I won't...

"The Storm" I'll hazard a wild guess that this isn't the band I was in which gigged sporadically around Reading for a couple of years in the early '90's.... anything to do with Pauline Murray & The Storm???

School of Fish had a "modern rock" hit in 90/91 with "Three Strange Days." I remember liking it at the time but haven't heard it in forever.

Sadat X - Brand Nubian rapper. I heard his debut (I think) which was pretty snoozeworthy.

Smif-N-Wessun - Brooklyn rappers best known for "Bucktown." Later became Cocoa Brovaz due to hounding by the copyright stormtroopers at Smith and Wesson (cf. Kleenex ------> LiLiPUT).

Souls Of Mischief - Jazzy, Native Tongues-esque Oakland rappers who get a lot of love. Their '93 'til Infinity frequently shows up on best hip-hop albums lists. Mutated into Hieroglyphics.

Steady B - Bland 1980s Philly rapper currently serving life.

Streets - Not THE Streets, right? Teachers of the fine art of hotel expressionism?

Sweet Tee - Was JUST listening to her not even half an hour ago in the form of "The Feeling" by Tin Tin Out featuring Sweet Tee. Good late 1980s rapper.

The Shamen - Classic early ravers from Scotland. "Move Any Mountain," "Make It Mine," etc. Vocalist Mr. C (cute!) always reminded me of The English Beat's Dave Wakeling (cute too!).

Stargard - Funky disco which Escort does much better today. Best known for being sampled in Peter Heller's majestic "Big Love." And didn't they have something to do with the odious Sgt. Pepper flick?

Sunscreem - I saw their name last night on a thread about bands that will never be discussed on ILM. Alors... Trancey, very white Brit dance. "Love U More" was a hit. I used to spin their "Catch" towards the end of the night since it was speedy but felt quite "driving home along in the rain."

along = alone

Remember Sunscreem
sunscreem

Debut album is pretty good, never heard any of the later stuff.

Shamen - same period (more or less) as Sunscreem. Kind of written out of history but En-Tact and Boss Drum are fantastic pop-dance records. Earlier more indie/psyche stuff is less sucessful but has it's moments, especially 'Jesus Loves America'.

Soup Dragons - Indie chancers going dance, hit big with I'm Free then went off to try to crack America. Drummer went on to join Teenage Fanclub. Lead singer Sean Dickson formed the far more interesting 'High Fidelity and Sushil Dade post rock/jazzers 'Future Pilot AKA'.

Silencers - worthy, Scottish pop-folk-rock act. As dull as it sounds.

Shakespears Sister - Siobhan Fahey's post Bananarama project. Second album and mega single 'Stay' are utterly fantastic slices of glam-gothpop.

Sweet Tee - made the impeccable 'I got da feelin'' in 1987 which was produced by Salt N Pepa head honcho Herby 'Luv' Bug. Surprisingly she's till going and looks very rowr on her myspace page.

I found a CD copy of Sweet Tee's album that accompanied "I got da feelin'" in Music & Video Exchange a year or two back. Rather endearingly entitled It's Tee Time. As others have said, she was pretty good.

Swingle Singers: doo-be-doo a capella arrangements as RS suggests - I have their very first LP, Jazz Sebastian Bach - BUT it's not all cheese; they've also been involved in some ultra cred modern compositions, e.g. they provided the vocalists for the first performance and first recording of Luciano Berio's "Sinfonia". They've been around since the 60s, and are still going, although the line-up has altered considerably over the years with singers coming in and then leaving. I think even founder Ward Swingle may have retired now.

Sounds Orchestral: British studio based easy listening group, again started in the 60s and kept going. John Schroeder was the mastermind behind them. Had a big US hit with "Cast Your Fate To The Wind". Best known now for ladies in various states of undress on the covers of their albums (most of which you can pick up cheaply second hand in thrift stores and charity shops).

I think "Swingle" is actually someone's name, but it still sounds so awful.

Strunz & Farah - New-Agey world-music stuff, Latin/Carib rhythms with a pair of hotshit Gipsy Kings-style flamenco guitarists on top. Vocals in Spanish? or entirely instrumental? Can't recall at all. (Why do I own this?)

Stampeders - Everyone knows these Calgarians for "Sweet City Woman" from '71, right? The rest of the time, a poor man's James Gang minus much of the funk. Still, a "Best Of" is worth a buck or two.

Salty Dog - Last-wave hair metal from 1990 or thereabouts. Closest thing to a hit was "Come Along", which I thought was pretty great (rocked like Collective Soul's "Gel" five years early). Can't remember anything else.

Saraya -- shitty pop metal band with sexy chanteuse of singer, Sandy Saraya. Saw 'em too many times, had a little mileage on radio and MTV in late Eighties. Were harder to take than Bad English in front of 500 little girls at a Phillipsburg theatre.

Scruffy The Cat -- horrid poppy roots rock indie band from Massachusetts or thereabouts. My ex-wife used to like them.

The Silencers -- poor to vile New Wave act. Had one album, they were dressed like Mafia gunmen.

Silver Condor -- hard rock band full of 70's-80's session aces -- Earl Slick, Kenny Aaronson, etc. Singer was leased to Blue Oyster Cult for making of Imaginos. Have both of two albums. Second is best. Solidly fair.

The Souther Hillman Furay Band -- poor man's Eagles.

Spiders From Mars (sans Bowie) -- imagine Man Who Sold the World without any of the punch, played by your block party band.

Stone Fury -- singer doing his Led Zep thing before he started Kingdom Come and really did his Led Zep thing.

The Storm -- California metal band, passed off as poor man's Queen. I didn't think they sounded like Queen.

Susan -- Made one major label album of poppy hard rock. One song, "Marlena," stood out. Were on Live at the Rat too. Guitarist Ricky Byrd went into the Blackhearts and was heard by a zillion.

Sea Hags -- Denim & leather metal band from soCal. Leader died of drug overdose almost immediately upon release of major label album. Also might've been the guy Inger Lorre of the Nymphs infamously blew onstage at some Cali gig.

7 Seconds -- the most preachy of the early army of very dull extremely politicized hardcore punk bands and enshrined for it.

Anyway, the Silos are boring-as-all-get-out Americana with a violin that Weisbard liked in the SPIN guide, so I wound up with two of their cassettes

Once had an opportunity to do a bill with the Silos and declined because they were boring-as-all-get-out American and beloved by Weisbard in the SPIN guide.

Special Ed -- no idea but everyone knows they want to hear a band crazy and tasteless enough to name themselves in this way. Was there ever a band called The Retards and should they have been filed under "R" ?

Scruffy The Cat -- horrid poppy roots rock indie band from Massachusetts or thereabouts. My ex-wife used to like them.

-- Gorge, Friday, 14 March 2008 17:43 (7 minutes ago) Link

I can understand this evaluation through the lens of an ex-wife, but they were actually a quite entertaining mid/late 80's roots rock band with a taste of jangle/power-pop. Charlie Chesterman was very good with his joyful guitar and endearing lyrics. They did lose the plot near the end of their run with Moons of Jupiter, so anyone only familiar with that release isn't getting the whole story.

Was there ever a band called The Retards and should they have been filed under "R" ?

Boyd Rice and Adam Parfrey had a band called The 'Tards, the joke being that the musicians were supposed to be retarded. More liberal baiting I guess.

Strunz & Farah - New-Agey world-music stuff, Latin/Carib rhythms with a pair of hotshit Gipsy Kings-style flamenco guitarists on top. Vocals in Spanish? or entirely instrumental? Can't recall at all. (Why do I own this?)

I have one of their albums too. I still play it occasionally. It's a little New Agey perhaps - but not too much for my taste. Some songs are instrumental and some have Spanish vocals. Mostly flamenco with Afro-Cuban rhythms as you mentioned, though some songs are more atmospheric with a Latin folk vibe and traditional instruments.

School of Fish had a "modern rock" hit in 90/91 with "Three Strange Days." I remember liking it at the time but haven't heard it in forever.

I liked this one at the time too. It's got that crunchy, early-90s Butch-Vig guitar sound with croony vocals, like contemporaneous releases from Smashing Pumpkins and Overwhelming Colorfast (don't know if Vig was involved though).

I have still not heard these bands filed under "S" in J&O's International Enclycloped of Hard Rock & Heavy Metal

Santers
Saracen
Sassafras
Schloss
Screams
Screen Idols
Servant
707
Shaftsbury
Shanghai
Shanghi
Sheriff
Shiva
Sid Rumpo
Silver Train
Silverwing
Slack Alice
Snopek
Speedway Boulevard
Split Beaver
Richard Steep
Stingray
Stonebolt

707 were a Detroit band...did the theme song from the classic Barry Bostwick sci-fi thriller Megaforce in the mid-80's...also had a regional hit with "I Could Be Good For You"...they were neither hard rock nor metal...

Saracen - 80's hard rock / prog types, somewhere between UFO and Rush style-wise. Not exactly what the public wanted to hear at the time, hence they sank like a stone after one or two albums.

Shiva - see above.

Silverwing - early 80's attempt to ape Van Halen and Kiss on a budget of about £1.50. "Rock and Roll Are 4 Letter Words" was a good title I guess. I think they changed their name to Rox or Roxx and dropped the visual horror elements in favour of more mascara, then disappeared.

Snopek - is this Violent Femmes keyboardist Sigmund Snopek III? If so he had an ok-ish line in keyboardy prog a la early Utopia.

About half of those bands I remember from Kerrang's "Armed And Ready" new bands column, but can't say I ever really heard them.

Split Beaver is a really stupid name for a band.

It's right in there with the Special Eds and Hairy Clams of the world.

Skunks (first list)were an Austin trio featuring Jesse(not Ned)Sublett and pre-True Believers Jon Dee Graham.

And the Silos do not either suck. Their first full-length record, Cubais tremendous.

If you've ever seen a late-night commercial for a CD comp of the greatest power ballads then you've heard Canadian one-hit wonder Sheriff and their song "When I'm With You" ... or more accurately you've heard "BAY-BAHHHH AYEEE AYEEEEAHH AYEEE AYEEEEAHHHH oh i get chills when i'm with you OOOOOWEEEEOOOHH OOOOOWEEEOOOOOHHHHAAAAHH"

^^^pretty accurate

Streets - Not THE Streets, right?

Nope. Atlanta rock quartet, 1983, featuring Steve Walsh of Kansas. How he got to Atlanta I don't know.

The Skunks from Texas did "Earthquake Shake" (which is on Bloodstains Across Texas, by far the best Bloodstains comp!) and then changed their sound to new wave/power pop - this is off the original list but never mind. I have their power pop album, it's not that good really unfortunately.