I Have Never Heard These Bands That Start With The Letter X Or The Letter Y Or The Letter Z

Y Pants - had a really cute little tune called "Favorite Sweater". As already said, an NYC No Wave version of The Raincoats, but using toy instruments.

The Zones contained former members of Slik, but not Midge Ure. (Or was that PVC2? Or did PVC2 become The Zones? CBATG.) Undistinguished power-pop that failed to break through despite a big push from their record label, who got them onto the otherwise impeccable "That Summer" soundtrack/compilation album. They were also heavily featured in a TV documentary about the music biz, complete with insincerely gushing A&R person wibbling on about how she'd heard "the buzz on the streets, all my friends were saying "you've got to see The Zones!"" yeah yeah pull the other one.

Zounds - umm, wasn't there a band called Zoundz who recorded for the Crass label?

Yipes! -> this can only be said with a text balloon

y pants were really, really good. i heartily recommend this cd reissue.

my brother has played with her in the not so distant past. last year ot two. either as bunnybrains or under some other name. i can't remember the specifics.

EVILDOERS: Dan Bunny (Bunnybrains), Tom Greenwood (Jackie-o Motherfucker), Barbara Ess (Y Pants), Brooke Crouser (Jackie-O Motherfucker,
Swords Project), Mike Fellows (Government Issue, Rites of Spring).

Why no Xtraverts?

Surfy-crampsy? You aren't thinking of the Zanti Misfits are you? Or were those both names for the same band? Or something?

I have heard great things about them but I'm not about to pay import prices to try 'em out....

http://www.forcedexposure.com/bin/search.pl?search_string=Y+Pants&searchfield=artist

The Zippers -- possibly a different band, were a Pittsburgh hard rock/metal act that leaned toward the poppy side of things. A dirtier-sounding Enuff 'Z' Nuff or a cleaner-sounding Dirty Looks. They put out one record in on a major label just before grunge came along and annihilated them.

I got them from the trouser press record guide - second edition - which came out in 1985. i have learned a lot. i only hope i can keep the names straight when i see some of this stuff in record stores ("wait, were they the cool punky hard rock band from california or the really bad new wave band from vancouver???").

Ha ha, I haven't heard that name in a long time. They were some kind of Bay Area cover band I think. I've never heard them but there used to be commercials on the radio every day in SF advertising another show by the Zasu Pitts Memorial Orchestra. The name always made me chuckle when I was a kid.

Y Pants - Post-no-wavers, included on *Peripheral Vision* (w/Mofungo, The Scene is Now, the Ordinairres, etc) I think. (I wish I still had that comp. It was a good one. Arty NYC, circa 1982. My personal favorite band on there was Hi Sheriffs of Blue, I think, who made Delta Blues no wave. Scene is Now were great, too.) Frank Kogan may actually be a fan (his band Red Dark Sweet was part of that scene.)

The Yankees, High 'n' Inside [Big Sound, 1978]
These New Yorkers play it fast and loose enough to dismay pop technicians and even offend people a little. Indeed, I was already hooked on their boisterous Strangeloves/Standells tribute when it struck me that maybe Jon Tiven's wandering pitch, which I find cute, meant the record was warped. It's more likely, though, that his voice has begun to change in his mid-twenties, inspiring him to cover "Bad Boy" (well) and write (a good) one called "Take It Like a Man." A hit that proves once again that rock and roll is about having the spirit, knowing the tricks, and taking the risks. Ivan Julian is DH. A-

The Dodgers, Love on the Rebound [Polydor, 1978]
These California-dreaming Englishmen play it straight and tight enough to establish their professionalism and even bore people a little. More lively than Beatlemania, that's for sure, but these days you can't win the big ones with the same old plays. C+

Y Pants, Beat It Down [Neutral, 1982]
The notion that women's music should be cute has as little theoretical attraction as the notion that it should be organic, and the notion that it should be arty as well has less. But these three Soho gals get away with it, no doubt because at some level deep beneath the ukelele and toy piano they're willing to be ballbusters. The key is a sweet, a cappella version of "That's the Way Boys Are" that's, er, marred halfway through by the sound of a woman screaming in the middle distance. Every one of these (ersatz-Andean?) melodies will sneak up on you eventually, and just maybe paste you one. B+

Bizarrely, this very edition of this very book was on a pile of record-guide reference books, on top of a table about four feet behind my head, when I was answering almost all of these questions, and I never noticed til now. And yep, all these bands are in there -- I could have *so* cheated. But I have more integrity than that. I kinda assuming you were using the first, grey-covered (I think) edition, which I haven't had a copy of for several decades if not centuries. But the second edition still is way more fun than the thick green-covered edition that came out in the '90s, much less Spin's orange "alternative" guide. New wave beats alternative any day!

I have never heard these "XYZ" 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):

Xymox
XYZ
Stomu Yamashta
Yellowjackets
Yipes!!
The Young Americans
Sydney Youngblood
Yukaka

I assume I must have heard John "The Cool Ghoul" Zacherle, right? I have definitely heard Xavier and Yachts and Young & Restless, though maybe you haven't.

Quick quiz: Which band placed more albums in the Top 200 in the U.S., Yello or Yellow Magic Orchestra?

Oops, it's YUTAKA, not Yukaka (which sounds obscene.)

For Yipes!!, see my post from (yipes!) three years ago above.

Yellowjackets - hideous jazz fusion lite I was forced to listen to several times by an ex-friend who claimed to like the stuff (or to watch me writhe in pain)

Xymox - is this as in Clan of...?

Answer to quiz: I'm guessing Yello

Stomu Yamashta (correct spelling should be Yamashita but I guess it was anglicised for the western market) - Japanese percussionist, apparently his Red Buddha album is amazing but I haven't heard it. I do have a cd of him playing a Toru Takemitsu piece which is outstanding, so maybe he'll bear further investigation. I think he went a bit fusion-y into the 70's though.

xp- yeah Xymox started out as Clan of Xymox at one point. Boring goth/pop/dance stuff.

I have definitely heard Xavier

Or have I? What I think I meant, in my tired state when I typed that last night, is that I have definitely heard XAVION, who were an all-black loud rock band recording for Asylum in 1984, but whose album apparently never cracked Top 200. Xavier, in contrast, were an "eight-member R&B group" recording for Liberty in 1982. I tend to get them mixed up. I think I may have heard Xavier's "Work That Sucker To Death," especially if it got played on Detroit funk stations at the time, but I'm not positive. (I was thinking Xavier may have had some sort of marginal P-Funk connection, but maybe not.)

Answer to quiz: I'm guessing Yello

Bingo. They had three Top 200 albums, compared to Yellow Magic Orchestra's mere two. Yello's highest was One Second, which went #92 in 1987; YMO's was their self-titled debut, #81 in 1980. Yello's biggest single hit "Oh Yeah" (#51) climbed higher in the Hot 100 than YMO's "Computer Game (Theme From the Circus)" (#60)-- which did definitely get airplay on Detroit funk stations at the time, fwiw.

The fusion stuff in the 70's used to be known as Stomu Yamashta & Go, which was his backing band. Go went and became Automatic Man. Automatic Man had two albums of fusion-y spacey hard rock with Hendrix-vibe. Led by a guy who called himself Bayete, who is actually more famous under his real name. Very minimal singer, augmented by Pat Thrall on guitar and Michael Shrieve. Thrall went into the Pat Travers Band just as it was becoming an arena rock staple. Automatic Man's debut, s/t, shares quite a bit with Stomu Yamashta and is a good 'un, although a bit of an aquired taste.