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

Urban Verbs - Roddy Franz (brother of him out of Talking Heads) band. Eno may have produced their first demo.

U.X.A. - Excellent SF punk band. US version of the Banshees? Last song on their album is called "Death From Above"...

Urban Dogs were Charlie (UK Subs) Harper's other band. I think one or more of the Vibrators were also involved. (Don't worry, S. Osbourne will be along in a minute with the real story.)

Urban Dogs: occasional outfit that started off with Charlie Harper (UK Subs) on vocals and Knox (Vibrators / Fallen Angels) on guitar with Alvin Gibbs (UK Subs) on bass and Andy McCoy (Hanoi Rocks / Fallen Angels) on drums - but which has subsequently had all sorts of diferent punk guns-for-hire in the rythm section.

Were the Unknowns a sort of Sonics-y garage band from San Diego or vicinity? I don't think so, but the Un-SOMETHINGS were, I believe.

Dream Sequence [Sire EP, 1981]
Near the top of the post-power pops, nasty and catchy instead of cute and same, is a Georgia-rooted L.A. quartet led by a guy who wields a mean-looking cane and suffers mean-looking tics, both of which he seems to need. Former Rachel Sweet svengali Liam Sternberg recommended the offbeats and echoed guitar that twist these loose-limbed tunes so neatly. Start with side two, which starts with "Suzzanne." B+

>THEE FOURGIVEN was formed out of the ashes of the Unclaimed. I wanted to do more of my songs, which were still very 60's influenced, but had a more hi-energy, 60's MC5 tinge to it rather than a Count V influence! The band started with Ray Flores (bass/vocals) & Matt Roberts (drums,garbage can,screams), both also from the Unclaimed. This line-up played around for about a year, recorded a couple compilations tracks and did an album called IT AIN'T PRETTY DOWN HERE on Dionysus Records. Matt left the country for "a couple of weeks" and didn't return for several years, so we brought in Ray's skater buddy, Bela Horvath. With Bela, we toured Europe twice, once with the awesome Miracle Workers and once with the latest (and last!) version of the Unclaimed (last because singer Shelley quit the band a week into the tour!). We also put out more comp cuts, a 45 and 2 more LPs before adding Mojo Jones on second guitar for several months before breaking up in early 1989.<

Unknowns: I like the Drean Sequence EP, it's more rockabilly than pop or punk.

Urban Verbs: concur with everybody above.

UXA: Thought they were from LA? But very good, singer is named DeDe Troit. She later did some Slits-esque reggae that was good also ("Backfired", I think).

In terms of the alternative music scene of the early 80s, Washington is probably best known for its hardcore scene (with bands such as "Minor Threat," and hometown-boys-who-made-it Henry Rollins and Dave Grohl. But Washington also boasted an arty music scene as well, with bands like the "Verbs," "Tiny Desk Unit," an "R.E.M" of its own (who had to change their name to "Egoslavia"), etc. The "Urban Verbs" were the biggest of these bands. Yes, they did have their demo produced by Eno. They also released two disks on Warner Brothers. But their sound was derivative, Franz's vocals were affected, and his lyrics were cleverly-artsy by half (I recall that a review -- perhaps Rolling Stone -- said that their second album was a concept album about being an asshole, or some such thing.) Still, much of this criticism comes with hindsight, and I must confess that, at the time they were coming up, they were a very interesting and exciting band to see.

I have never heard these "U" 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):

Ubiquity
The U-Krew
Ultimate
Ultimate Spinach
Underground Sunshine
The Unforgiven
Unicorn
The United States Air Force Band
The United States Maine Band
The United States Navy Band
The Untouchables
UNV
Up With People

I was only in the Army, see (though apparently their band never charted!)

I'm amazed that USA-European Connection's great Eurodisco album Come Into My Heart made it all the way up to #66 on the album chart in 1978.

Also, Ugly Kid Joe charted THREE times (and their highest -- at #4 -- was an EP! How often does that happen?) (The Honeydrippers' EP went to #4 too, but it was their only record. David Lee Roth's EP only went to #15, the loser. U2 Under A Blood Red Sky #28.) (Oops, Mariah Carey MTV Unplugged EP #3, so maybe she wins. But she's had a bunch of #1s, so it's still not her biggest finish.)

Ah, my wife and I met at an Up With People concert, so they are the most important band in my life. Sadly, I don't remember what they sounded like. I think it was shiny happy crap with jazz hands.

I have a couple Ultimate Spinach songs on my hard drive somewhere, a gift from my psych-friend. I'll get back to you.

At some point I had an album by the United States Air Force Rock Band. On the cover, two white guys, two black guys, in flight suits, posing by an F-14. From around 1983. Side one is AC-DC and Journey covers, side two is funk workouts.

Up with People started in 1965. The debut roster featured a cast of 140 volunteers performing at a summer convention of Moral Re-Armament on Mackinac Island, Michigan. Moral Re-Armament (MRA) is an international group, and so people from many countries were represented in the performance of "Sing-Out 65". The cast of Sing-Out 65 traveled to Japan at the invitation of the Prime Minister, with cast members staying in private homes, including the homes of members of parliament. The cast performed on Japanese television and on the Kabuki Stage in Tokyo. Traveling throughout the country — from the island of Hokkaido in the north, to Tokyo and by train to Kobe — the cast took a ferry to South Korea. In South Korea the cast performed at military facilities and visited the Demilitarized Zone at Panmunjeom. Sing Out Asia was formed from the visits of the US national casts and several albums were recorded from Sing Out Asia.
Back in the U.S., the cast became 'Sing-Out 66.' The show toured around the country, attracting volunteers and led to the formation of three "Up with People" casts (A, B, and C). With these multiple casts the show sang and performed for audiences around the world including the U.S., Canada, Europe, Central and South America, and Japan.
In 1968 the name was changed to "Up with People," incorporated as a non profit organization and severed ties with MRA. Over the years, the Sing-Outs and Up with People played in diverse venues around the U.S., including universities, high schools, hockey arenas, the Hollywood Bowl, National Conventions for Republicans and Democrats, the Air Force Academy, Ft. Benning, Ft. Campbell, and many more. In 1976, Up with People performed the National Anthem at the Indianapolis 500. Most notably, from 1976 to 1986, Up with People performed in four Super Bowl halftime shows.

Signature Song

1. It happened just this morning. I was walking down the street. The milkman and the postman and policeman I did meet. There in every window, at every single door, I recognized people I’d never noticed before.
refrain: *Up, Up with people. You meet them wherever you go. Up, Up with people. They’re the best kind of folks we know. If more people were for people, all people everywhere, there’d be a lot less people to worry about, and a lot more people who care. There’d be a lot less people to worry about, and a lot more people who care.
2. People from the south-land, and people from the north, like a mighty army I saw them coming forth. ‘Twas a great reunion, befitting of a King. Then I realized people were more important than things.
3. Inside everybody there’s some bad and there’s some good, but don’t let anybody start attacking peoplehood. Love them as they are, but fight for them to be, great men and great women, as God meant them to be.

a girl I grew up w/ in ohio joined the troupe around 1976, I was like "that still exists?" a real 60s thing.

there was a hilarious up with people zing on the simpsons years ago:

"And now, get set for our fabulous halftime show, featuring the well-groomed young go-getters of `Hooray for Everything!' Ladies and gentlemen, `Hooray for Everything' invites you to join them in a salute to the greatest hemisphere on earth, the Western Hemisphere! The dancingest hemisphere of all!"

Hooray for Everything were also in the episode where Patty takes the kids to Duff Gardens. HFE do a very Up With People version of "Walk on the Wild Side":

All: Hey, kids. Take a walk on the wild side!
Boy: And all the races sing...
All: Shoo-be-doo, shooby-dooby-doo, shoo-be-do, shooby-dooby-doo,
yeah!

I have one Up With People album. "Shiny happy crap with jazz hands" covers it except that there's a definite Jesus Crispie bend to it all.

Ultimate - Eurodisco on Casablanca. "Love is the Ultimate" was their floor burner.

"Selma's Choice" = one of my Top 4 eps evah! Can't decide whether the highlight is Homer's horrible 12-foot hoagie or Lisa's bum-tripping after drinking the "Little Land of Duff" bilge. Or is it "Homercles cares not for beans!" Classic...

Anyways, Ultimate Spinach were better than Tim Ellison will tell you. Nearly as good as Country Joe & the Fish, their nearest competitor, at least. (They had basically the same fuzzbox-and-Farfisa sound, plus a few good songs, even.)

The Untouchables

"I spy for the F-B-I"

Stiff records released this Blues Brothers styled 60's r-n-b band in the mid-late 80s and even had a few hits.
I believe the album has just been reissued actually.

"Selma's Choice" = one of my Top 4 eps evah!

Omg. I thought "eps" meant EPs and I was looking above for the U group that released an EP called "Selma's Choice" (just wakin' up here).

Anyhoo, way OT, but the highlight of that ep(isode) for me is Homer's internal-than-external monologue: "Yeah, the legend of the dog-faced woman!"

The Untouchables
"I spy for the F-B-I"
Stiff records released this Blues Brothers styled 60's r-n-b band in the mid-late 80s

Oh yeah, those Untouchables. I remember them now. Though I think I remember them being more Fishbone- or Specials-like than Blues Brothers-like. (Maybe I'm just thinking of their clothes, though.) Charting LP came out on Restless in the U.S., fwiw.

xpost - Yeah, Homer and his brain were still on speaking terms in those days, heh.