The cool but unknown musicians thread

[Zylo]

If y'all are anything like me (and I'm sure you are), you're constantly looking for new groups/artists/whatever to listen to; bearing this in mind, I thought it wouldn't be a bad idea to start a thread to suggest relatively unknown musical artists. That being said, let me tell you what I mean by unknown: Frank Zappa, MF Doom, <insert artists with relatively large fan base that aren't super famous here>, while awesome, are NOT unknown. Here are some examples of people/groups that are (and my first contributions to this thread):

The Deli Creeps
Genre: Experimental Metal (I don't know what else to group them as)
Description: The Deli Creeps are a pretty swell ass group that sing songs about murdering people and pissed off geriatrics, among other things. They feature Buckethead on guitar and Maximum Bob on vocals; while some of you may know who Buckethead is, chances are you've never heard of Bob. He's basically this big ass, crazy farmer that sings, and is thusly pretty damn cool. All of their songs possess a pretty dark sense of humor, so if you're an overly sunny person, you might want to steer clear (for instance, the song Can I Have a Ride? makes reference to popping a baby's soft spot D: ).
Samples: http://www.myspace.com/thedawnofthedelicreeps

Guthrie Govan
Genre: Jazz Fusion
Description: Guthrie Govan came onto the guitar scene a few years ago, and has since become quite celebrated for both his technical ability and the quality of his compositions. Although he primarily plays fusion, he can easily play any genre one could imagine, and do it quite well. His first CD, Erotic Cakes, came out on Cornford Records last year, so if you like what you hear, buy it =)
Samples: http://www.myspace.com/guthriegovan1

Okay, post away, and please try to keep it rather civilized (IE no "LOLZ DAT BAND U POSTED WUZ SO GAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"). Thanks

[Kuya]

All the bands that i liked that were unknown are now known, so i'm out of ideas.

[Rigor]

Widespread Panic - Southern Rock/Jam band. People know about them, just not in all circles. Time Zones is a good song by them if you got the DL powah.

[Demosthenes]

The Dreaming - Current band of the lead for Stabbing Westward, some decent stuff.

[Axil]

Grizzly Bear

&

The Omar Rodriguez-Lopez Quintet

[Maguspk]

The Tokyo Smash

[Ivve]

Charlotte Martin. In high school I was friends with the guy who ran her site, and sometimes I got free Charlotte merch. One example, a bumper sticker that says "I'm normal, please date me." She's a singer/songwriter, and has a pretty good sense of humor.

[Huggo]

Darin Schaffer. http://www.darinschaffer.com/audio.html

A solo artist who uses a bass guitar and a looping machine. I saw him live at an open mic once and bought his CD. He was really amazing. He plays a riff on his bass, then loops it. While that's looping through, he pulled out a cello bowstring and started cranking out these awesome sounds that went on top of it. It's very eastern and sometimes Indian in influence. If you really wanna have a listen to something that is just such good music to chill out to, you may wanna give this guy a shot.

[Koyuki]

Jimmy Chamberlin Complex


Annuals


Ad Astra Per Aspera

[Norelco]

Porcupine Tree

http://www.myspace.com/porcupinetree

[Intense]

Maybe hes well known. Im not sure

Jose Gonzalez
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4_4abCWw-w

[Martinius]

i don't know if these are moreso of the 'cool but unknown' or the 'cool, not really known, but have some following' artists, so i apologize if these don't quite count:

josh rouse. unbelievable singer songwriter originally from nebraska, then nashville, then spain. he's not only a wonderful singer songwriter, but a really wonderful live performer with a great sense of humor.

washington social club: indie band from dc. basically what would happen if the scissor sisters decided to cover the collective works of elvis costello while listening to a lot of sonic youth.

lake trout: sort of famous because their cover of the stones' street fighting man was in the closing credits of v for vendetta. their new album is crap, but their older stuff is like, well to use an SAT comparison, the roots are to hip hop as lake trout is the electronica. all live musicians, but they make drum and bass and techno music.

also a friend sent this to me once, and it always makes me chuckle, because most of us who are into rare/local stuff tend to know people like this or are people like this. please, i preface that this is a flame on no one in this thread, as i think there's a lot of cool positive recommendations and no one bashing other people's suggestions, just sending a smile to everyone:

http://www.loadingreadyrun.com/videos/v ... d+Snobbery

[Snowknight26]

Sunbeam - The king of Trance! They've kind of stopped producing but their old songs are still played at raves worldwide. ;D

[Alvinho]

http://www.myspace.com/ravhidemello

[Ohemgee]

Six Organs of Admittance and with that, Comets on Fire.

[Zanz L. Barre The 3rd]

myspace.com/nocturniametal

myspace.com/moria

myspace.com/agatg

myspace.com/daliband

All my friends bands, Dali band being mine. Obviously unknown, your opinion on "greatness."

[Zylo]

Holy shit, I must have been half asleep when I made the OP, because it's pretty god damned awful (as is the topic title ; ; ).

Tommy Emmanuel
Genre: Instrumental Acoustic Guitar
I'm too lazy to give a description at the moment, but here's a video of him performing one of his best songs (imho obviously), Endless Road: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54tRcKFEUlY . If you have even the slightest interest in acoustic guitar, you should definitely check this guy out ;3

[Savirn]

Cinema Strange - http://youtube.com/watch?v=3bOsbkIvgqQ

Agalloch - http://youtube.com/watch?v=gYMaIzFq1Iw

The Birthday Massacre - http://youtube.com/watch?v=lxku0wFMBb4

[Axil]

Cat Power

[BRP]

Linkin Park