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

Forever famous (in my mind) for being the band in the first episode of the Young Ones. The featured song "Eleven Past Eleven" (or whatever it was called) was perfectly serviceable Jam-wannabe stuff and I never want to hear anything else by them.

Nine Below Zero were a staple on the UK pub rock circuit for a long while. Their 'Live At The Marquee' LP captured them at their peak.

xpost!

(Can't contribute usefully to this thread as I haven't heard any of the list either... aside from maybe Nine Below Zero, but I remember nothing about them.)

Nervous Eaters were, I thin', a Boston band. Much heralded in new wave rags, their first major label album did not supposedly have the verve they delivered in person. "Loretta" I do remember liking.

Judy Nylon was some NYC (?) chanteuse in a duo called Snatch. "IRT" was a demo-quality song I remember hearing.

I had a New Musik single. Kind of semi-proggy English new wave?

Trixie A. Balm!

http://www.laurenagnelli.com/TrixieABalm.htm

Wazmo Nariz -- New Wave goofball on IRS. Not to be confused with gender-bending lablemate Skafish.

Nervus Rex -- saw 'em live a couple times and liked em, but their LP seemed limp in comparison. Lauren/Trixie went on to join the awful pseudo-folkies Washington Squares.

Nikki & the Corvettes -- Detroit girl-group trio w/backing band. Beg to differ, I saw them live too and they sucked. Records on Bomp!Guitarist Peter James (sic) previuosly was in a short-lived but v.good Motor City-style hard-rock band, the Torpedos.

Nitecaps -- NYC rock/soul band that I loved and all critics hated. Teenaged lead singer X Sessive strained his vocal cords for all they were worth. Bassist Peter Jordan was a longtime NY Dolls cohort and also played in Stumblebunny (wait for the letter "S") The Nitecaps album on Sire was a big big disappointment.

All I remember of Wazmo Nariz was the song "Checking Out the Checkout Girl", which is OK Boingo-ish New Wave. Very cheesy Bryan Ferry vibrato on the singer.

Snatch's "IRT" is great! "Ever get molested on the IRT?/Well, big sister better listen to me...You see all the adverts stuck on the wall/And you're missing all the perverts playing with their balls." I always wondered why two American girls would call them "adverts".

Oh well, xpost. The critics in New York loved the Nitecaps, m coleman! At least before the record came out.

Necessaries - East coast (boston maybe) anti-hook/anti-power popsters, I think; probably at least as boring as the Individuals, who as I recalled shared an audience.

Nervus Rex -- Zizaggy Boston (I think) electro-punkish corporate fake new wavers, kinda likeable as I recall, but maybe that's just because they had a really colorful album cover

New Age Steppers - Adrian Sherwood project featuring Ari Upp and I think a pre-fame Neneh Cherry. I used to own an album once, which was sadly not as good as you'd hope.

New Musik - I mentioned them on another thread last month. Notable for making the best Epic Nu-Disk 10-inch, since it had their Mi-Sex-like (but not as good) electro-robot-punk-pop hit "Straight Lines", the title of which honestly depicted their lack of being able to more in rhythm, actually.. I think I still own both the 10-inch and the (less good) LP..

Nikki & The Corvettes - Totally cutiepie post-Quatro/proto-Gore Gore Detroit bubblepunk girls. Lotsa fun, and extremely crushworthy for all red-blooded American males. Good best-of a couple years ago, and Nikki even put out a good new single two years ago or so.

Not - There is a cool Slavic (Polish) late '90s/early '00s new wave weirdo band of this name, but I doubt this is them, since all these other bands are from 25 years ago or more.

MOVE in rhythm, I meant. Um, that is cryptic. What I mean is that they mainly seemed capable of moving in a straight line, which is fine since that's what their hit was called.

Also, I mean "Zigzaggy" for Nervous Rex, whatever that means

That's about the extent of it, I'm afraid.

I was apparently completely wrong about the Necessaries. I'm probably confusing them with somebody. Or maybe I just assumed they would be a boring pop band, since their name sounds like one. I would never have guessed that Arthur Russell was in the band!

I think Wazmo and Skafish came out right at the same time, and got compiled together a few times too.

xxxpost
Arthur, didn't Jahn Xavier play bass in a late version of the Voidoids? Think he's credited on the great "Time" single. Anyway there wasn't much love for the Nitecaps around the Voice/NY Rocker as I recall, not that it matters now. In the early 90s Jahn waited on me at Barnes & Noble one day and I think I freaked him out by knowing his name & remembering his band.

I don't know, maybe I'm remembering the press wrong. I thought everyone's reaction was, like, "Wow, X-Sessive isn't just a loudmouth teen punk anymore, he's got soul!" or something like that. But maybe it was short-lived good will. They used to cover the Detroit Emeralds "Feel the Need" live. It was really funny seeing Jahn/X singing those lyrics. I wonder if they ever recorded it?

Judy Nylon and Patti Palladin appeared on "R.A.F.", which was the B-side of Brian Eno's single "King's Lead Hat".

Their EP "Hat" gets me in a nostalgia mood.. ah early youth & train sounds.

I'll 'fess up to liking that Nervus Rex record, too.

Nyam-Nyam

Secession

Dave Roach

Cayenne

Brass Impact

(the other bands on it that i HAVE heard are dali's car, icicle works, tones on tail, the fall, gene loves jezebel, the cult, the mighty wah!, gary numan, and john rocca)

I have never heard these "N" 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):

Najee
Natural Four
Nature's Divine
Ned's Atomic Dustbin
Nemesis
Michael Nesmith & The First National Band
The Newbeats
The New Birth
New Colony Six
New England Conservatory Ragtime Ensemble
New Life Community Choir featuring John P. Kee
New York City
Nice & Smooth
The Nighthawks
Willie Nile
Nine
9.9
The Nite-Liters
Don Nix
The Nixons
Nonchalant
Norma Jean
Freddie North
The Notting Hillbillies
Heather Nova
Novo Combo
Nuclear Valdez
Bobby Nunn
The Nylons

'70s R&B vocal group The New Birth actually placed eight albums on the chart, but if I heard them, I have no idea when it would have been.

And yeah, it seems like I should have heard Willie Nile or Ned's Atomic Dustbin or some of the others up there. But I honestly don't think I did.

Don Nix -- Memphis singer/songwriter who wrote "I'm Going Down," a song performed by everyone -- and I do mean everyone -- who played hard rock electric guitar in the Seventies. See Beck, Bogert & Appice, Leslie West, Neil Young, Nazareth, etc. Wrote every song on Moloch's debut and only for Stax, not that it mattered.

Native Tongue were a jittery, agitated post punk group from Boston. Early 80s. A great 12" and a pretty good LP. "Speaking in Captions" from the 12" is worth tracking down. 12" was on Detente Records in 1981; the LP a year or two later on Modern Method, the label run by Newberry Comics, the Boston-based record store (now chain).

The Not were also from Boston. Slightly later, from that period when US bands were shifting out of punk/hardcore to melodic guitar rock (Husker Du, Moving Targets). Find out more (and listen to some mp3s) here: http://notmusic.org/news.html

No Direction were, if memory serves, a similar band from South Dakota. Lasted a bit longer. Here's some more about them: http://www.trouserpress.com/stage/entry.php?a=no_direction

The Now were a UK punk band. I think from peterborough. Late 70s. Great 7": "Development Corporations." Sounds like the Pistols with a Casio ska beat. This is a great thing. "Into the 80s" is also an anthem. Their site is here: http://www.the-now.com/public_html/TheNow.html

Ned's Atomic Dustbin - Early 90's grebo/baggy band from the Midlands (Stourbridge?), surprisingly a hit on the US college circuit with album God Fodder and single Kill Your Television

Michael Nesmith & The First National Band - Ex-Monkee's country rock band. Thought you'd know about this, Chuck.

Notting Hillbillies - Mark Knopfler's Roots/Country side project

Norma Jean - Godlike vocalist for Chic

Heather Nova - Tori Amos/Aimee Mann alt-rock singer songwriter

I think there were a few Nixons. One was from Denver and morphed into Grimace in the early '90s:

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=202837728

Michael Nesmith & The First National Band - Ex-Monkee's country rock band. Thought you'd know about this, Chuck.

Oh, I've always known about that band. Just never heard them! (And I've heard of Norman Jean, too; just never heard of her solo album til now.)

The Nixons who charted were a "rock quartet" in 1996; Whitburn doesn't say where they came from.

The Norma Jean album's ok, it is a Chic production after all, but it's clear they were keeping the best stuff for themselves.

Natural Four

They were a soul quartet that released a a couple of records on Curtis Mayfield's Curtom label in mid-70s. My vinyl player has been broken for quite a while so I haven't listened to them for ages, but if I remember correctly they sounded quite smooth and not very distinctive. They are, however, responsible for one of my favourite record covers ever:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v655/lixnixn/naturalfour.jpg

Look closely at those "mountains", and think about what you see... Gives a different context for the record title and the guys' expressions, doesn't it?

So that's where basement jaxx got the idea.

you would like the new colony six, chuck!

i've been playing those nesmith records OUT. can't get enough recently for some reason.

maria went to college with heather nova. and johnny temple of girls-vs-boys. she's okay. he's okay too.

I bought a used copy of Native Tongue's LP a few years ago on Xgau's recommendation, even though he only gave it a B. I like it more than he does, I think. Here's what he wrote:

Native Tongue
Yowl [Modern Method, 1983]

What can it mean when all I'm sure of after playing an album a dozen times is that the band likes Wire a lot? But in the end I give them considerable credit for keeping their taut drone on my turntable long past the point when I've sent umpteen similar bands to the warehouse. Which reminds me that in today's permeable musical atmosphere it's conceivable they've never even heard Wire, just Wire's ideas. And actually, I'm also sure they feel "Hoodwinked," the lead cut that kept me coming back after six or seven spins. I bet I even know why they feel hoodwinked. But not because they helped me figure it out. Recommended to rabid formalists and rabid Pink Flag fans. B

diggin' this video of Miller Miller Miller & Sloan

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWGSyh8-f4U&feature=player_embedded#!

the first bit of guitar sounds like Glenn Branca. the rest, does *not*.