Blackhappy were a great band. They almost made it big, but just not quite. They certainly did get huge in the pacific northwest in the early-ish '90's though. When their second album, "Peghead" came out there was a top 10 call in request show in Richland, Washington that I listened to every night and like four songs from that album topped the show for several weeks at a time. This was not just for local bands either, they were on there with all the big huge bands of the day.
Then they split up and the non-horn playing members formed a band called Shoveljerk (taken from the title of a really cool Blackhappy song) which was okay, but nothing really special and not as fun as Blackhappy. Shoveljerk had one song which got played on MTV a few times, but didn't amount to much. The song was called "Killing My Buzz". It was neopets related.
and since i am remembering local bands from my teenager-years, here is another one.
this is Small. they were from the Tri Cities in Washington and while they weren't quite as big as Blackhappy they still toured a lot, had a couple songs played on local radio and ended up doing a PSA that got played on MTV. eventually they changed their name to Ladybird Unition.
Awesome - I am just listening to black happy again - really amazing guitar playing... and the horns are just....ok off to check out small - I think I remember them.....O I will listen to that when playing MSN - it's frantic!!!
It is truly awesome - gonna have to own it - electric folk-rock.....and he looks and sounds really good!! I'm so pleased he has survived the test of time...
Okay, it's live, but it sounds pretty good and it's actually kinda funny. This song is from R.E.M.s very first EP, five years before they got big with "Stand", so they were definitely still a pretty underground band. And what this? This is perhaps their very first national TV appearance … and it was on a kids show on Nickelodeon. A show hosted by Fred Newman who would eventually go on to host an iteration of The Mickey Mouse Club.
So what we have here is R.E.M. at just about their most underground stage playing on a kids show while some very '80s looking 12 yr olds dance about. Oh and beverages were provided … apple juice of course.
I have not posted any music in a while, so let's return yet again to the glorious time known as the early '90's.
Today we have Helmet. Helmet were generally considered to be an "alternative metal" band. This meant that the band had short hair, didn't look like Guns 'n' Roses and didn't sing about either girls or satan. Interestingly enough they were also harder and heavier than most non-alternative metal at the time (short of death metal or black metal).
Great stuff, Raven - somehow I had missed Helmet! And I really WAS there, in the 90's. LOL
Up this morning at 6am, to get Sam off to a big golf tourney up north. I stumble out and turn on the TV, and what do I find? Ted is in his 60's now, and still rockin' sober!! *clap*
TAD was a bit of a weird band, weird and extremely unlucky. TAD was named after the singer and founder Tad Doyle who originally started out doing it solo, but when his first single got some attention he rounded up some band members and thus was born TAD, the band. Now, as I said TAD were kinda weird, or at least they were presented weirdly by their label, Sub Pop. Now, this was in the late '80s and VERY early, pre-grunge, '90s so you couldn't just say "hey, this band is from Seattle and plays loud guitar based rock" nope, instead the label dressed the band up as loggers and had them fim videos in the forest. This video however was promptly rejected by MTV. This was not the end of their bad luck, not by a long shot. For TAD's second album they were put in a studio with Butch Vig, yes, the guy who produced Nirvana's breakthrough album, and this was before he worked with Nirvana. So, TAD released "8-Way Santa", a really really good album that fell smack dab in the middle of the whole 'grunge' genre, but had a slightly more mainstream / melodic feel to it compared to their earlier releases, while still being heavy as all get out. There was even a video played on MTV, this time for the song "Plague Years", a really really good song. And then more bad luck struck. The label decided to use a photo of two people that was found in a photo album that was purchased at a thrift store as the album cover. They did not even think to contact these people (if they even knew how to). The people were not amused to see themselves staring back from the cover of a record. So Subpop recalled the albums and quickly rereleased it with a photo of the band on the front but that disruption was enough to throw things a bit off track. And then even MORE bad luck occurred. One of the singles from the album was titled "Jack Pepsi" and the cover of said single was based on the Pepsi logo with the word TAD in the center. Pepsi probably would have never heard about this until it was too late, except that a disgruntled ex-employee of the label contacted Pepsi and told them all about it thus causing a lawsuit to be brought about by Pepsi thus completely throwing everything off track. So this really good album that could have been "Nevermind" was not and "Plague Years" which could have been "Smells Like Teen Spirit" was not. A few months later Nirvana came along and fulfilled all the promise that TAD originally had. However, I liked TAD better, I liked them better back then and I like them better now.
This is already longer than anyone would want to read, but i will quickly sum up the rest of their bad luck. Well TAD managed to get signed to a major label during the Seattle Grunge-rush and everything seems like it might be okay after all. However their promotion company decided to make a poster featuring then president Bill Clinton holding a really big joint as the name of their current album was "Inhaler". The new major label was not amused by this and promptly dropped the band. They then signed to another major label. It will work this time, of course it will, they couldn't have THAT much bad luck … could they? They could. Right as the new album was being released the A&R person that had signed the band was fired and all of the bands he signed were dropped, most likely no one else at the label had even heard the album. Something like $650 was spent on the marketing of the album and then it fell into a black hole of nothingness.
And that, more or less, ends that. TAD could have very easily been Nirvana in the public eye, but pretty much every bad luck thing you can think of conspired against them. And so, unless you were hanging around the Pacific Northwest in the early '90s or you have a particular fascination with 'grunge' you probably have never even heard of them.
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