How often have you listened to a singer or a group currently out there or perhaps even from the relatively distant past and asked yourself why they weren’t better known, why they weren’t making it or hadn’t made it? You think they sound great, or that they are at least as good as some of the stuff everyone seems to be raving about.
I guess this is why most of us don’t run record labels. But even for those who aren’t in the business, it sure seems like a crapshoot. I remember a conversion I once had with a guy who ran a small independent label in Toronto and I asked him what he was looking for when he signed new acts, what made him think they would be successful. Bottom line is that he was modest enough to admit he couldn’t really put it into words, but had a pretty good idea once he heard it. Okay.
Another thing I used to hear is that labels would sign a bunch of acts, release their music and then let the market decide, basically cutting most loose when the hoped-for breakthrough didn’t come. One of the problems here is the common complaint that there is an inherent bias in this approach based on how much promotion a label will put behind an act.
However things work now or used to work in the past, the fact is that we have all heard bands we thought would go further, and wonder why they didn’t.
On point, I was recently leafing through some stuff and came across a band name I knew nothing about. They were called the Blue Things from Hays, Kansas, and were around between 1964 and 1968. They recorded one LP and several singles for RCA Records in ’66 and ’67. The consensus on them is that they are remembered as one of the best bands to come out of the Midwest in the 60’s, never got any farther than that and are pretty much unknown anywhere else.
A totally unscientific survey of their popularity can be surmised by having a look at the comments section under any of their several videos posted to Youtube. Clearly, they were, for a brief period of time, very important to a lot of people.
The Wikipedia entry on the Blue Things does a good job of detailing with their rise and fall, changes in labels, changes in membership, and changes in their style of music, so if you’re interested in that sort of thing, you can find it here.
About the music, Richie Unterberger at AllMusic writes this:
[Their lone album is] still one of the finest overlooked folk-rock records of the 1960s, combining some of the best elements of the Byrds and Beau Brummels in its mid-tempo electric-acoustic arrangements. The 1966 psychedelic single tracks “Orange Rooftop of Your Mind,” “One Hour Cleaners,” and “You Can Live in Our Tree” are also fine cuts that show the band progressing at a furious rate, with psychologically complex lyrics and unusual fuzz and violin-ish distorted guitar textures.
Even before reading Mr. Unterberger’s piece, I listened to several tracks and certainly came away wondering why I had never heard of them. As one commenter under a Youtube clip said about the band’s lack of mainstream success, “Somebody fucked up.” I think that’s about right.
Could have picked any number of cuts, for no particular reason than that I like it, here is “The Orange Rooftop of Your Mind.”