talk about all the local bands who you loved growing up who were your friends and/or inspired you

when i think about the bands that have influenced me the most in my life (i guess mainly in terms of playing music myself), the most important ones haven't been popular bands but were local bands that may not have been really amazing or original, but the fact that they were there where i lived playing cool music and i could talk to them and be friends with them and work on projects with them is what made them important. let's talk about the ones you remember, the ones you loved, the ones you saw 20 times at coffeeshops or shitty bars for $5 and then you helped them carry their drums out to their parents' station wagons

I was in those bands, and I never could stand dudes like you.

this is something i think about frequently but starting this thread was directly inspired by vhs & the babies, a great twee pop band. they were playing out of charlottesville when i lived in richmond, so we were never like supertight hangout buddies with them, but my band played tons of shows with them and they pretty much inspired me to go back to playing pop music after playing pretentious noise rock for a while:

another big one was how the west was lost. they played kind of jerky minimal songs and their drummer played in a weird tribal style. all their lyrics were vaguely political and the songs went on for way longer than anybody else's. my friend jamie and i (shittily) recorded their album on four-track, and after their bass player moved away i got the guitarist and drummer to start a new band with me.

i should upload some how the west was lost so people can hear them.

the family: these guys were kind of dicks but they were one of the first local bands i saw that really "performed." they were very make-up/nation of ulysses influenced and their singer would clamber all over the coffeehouse furniture and wear scarves.

'fleshpile', a death metal band from the town i grew up in

theyre all asshole losers and im sure if i heard it now id laugh, but these guys rawked my world when i was about 13

iceburn - early introduction to weird avante-garde music, i credit them and their side projects for opening my ears to jazz. used to go watch gentry (densley) play low volume jazz/improv @ the coffeeshop every week + gentry was involved in a bunch of other ear-opening stuff as well (guitorchestra, coltrane cover group, drone/raga/throat singing, etc. the level of chops from him and all the fellas in that scene was always inspiring

ether - multiple drummers playing tribal beats in odd time signatures, guitars clanging like robot sex, firebreathers/dancers, slide projectors, the occasional pinata....

red bennies - heavy soundgarden/sabbath rock w/ stand-up bass and a rhodes, one of my favorite bands ever. they've since morphed into more of an r&b/soul thing and are still great. dave (payne) was also very encouraging towards my groups when we first started playing, which was a huge boost of confidence for all of us. dave also got me into space-shooter (schmups) arcade games, he used to have about 10-15 of his arcade machines scattered throughtout the bars and cafes around town