I didn't create this to help you great unwashed out. This was assembled to shut up several friends of mine, the only others whom I've ever known who really had the same taste in music as I have. Yes, I grew up completely surrounded by people who like any top 40 garbage that the man programmed onto the radio for them.

The same logic is being followed today. How the hell can the same people like the Knack that like some scummy popsingers? (I only happened to stumble onto the Knack playing their old hit, while flipping channels during commercials in whatever tv show I was actually watching, and then watched zero more of that "music" show.) How can one be judged against the other?

That's like having a "Political Systems" tv show, with a studio full of partying doofusses choosing between freedom, communism, national socialism, and islamic terrorism according to how well they can dance to each. Huh? Obviously some people like to live under totalitarianism and support killing random people but the people who like those things aren't the same people who like freedom. Terrorism is never a choice on our election ballot here. People who like it live in Afghanistan.

Likewise it's imbecilic to mix rock and any other type of music. People with lousy taste in music may find they can bop to an occasional rock song but they really prefer the same slop their parents and grandparents liked. My (scummy-tasted) friends used to utter, "He's not a very good singer," when I'd play some of my music. So what? Who gives a rat's ass about voice? "Rock singer" is a contradiction in terms. If you care how a singer sounds, go down to choir practice and leave us decent-tasted people alone!

I remember being back on the schoolbus in high school when a dreadful, old, slow-slop song came on the radio, and a friend said to everyone around him, "Ha ha, remember when we all liked that awful old hit?" and everyone else agreed with him. No, I never liked it! I always despised it and was miserable suffering through the torture of hearing it all around me, against my will, from the day it first came out.

When I was a little kid, I despised music. I didn't realize much rock & roll existed. I'd hear one decent song, every once in a great while, in amongst the hundreds of torturous tunes I had to listen to. "Rock & roll" stations would only play one song off any decent album and then bury it under a ton of ballads. There is no such thing as a rock ballad! That's like saying "a kind terrorist." It was years before I found that there actually was more rock around, I simply never got to hear it. (Boys generally didn't buy records back then; that was a girlie thing to do. And all the records that my sisters bought stunk.)

On top of that, they liked to claim that they bought pretty much as many albums as I did. What utter nonsense. I owned over 1,500 albums. The two brothers, whose musical tastes were pretty much the same as mine, counted their records together. Huh? Even assuming that one brother owned twice as many albums as the other (while, in actuality, each bought close to the same number as the other) that would still mean that I owned more than each brother. And the other couple guys, whose musical tastes overlapped with ours a bit, didn't come close to buying our amounts.

So most of my reviewing comments are attached to the lesser-known groups. Most of the unreviewed bands were favourites of all of us. But that's not always the case. Some of the listed bands without comments tacked on were groups which we all disliked. (Please don't try to understand how I ended up with albums by known crummy artists.)

I guess other people get rid of the albums which they don't like and never play. I don't. I don't think my friends did either. Though one did sell me one once. I listened to a Baby Buddha album over at his house once. I liked it but he couldn't stand it.

Hey, this list is not complete. Baby Buddha isn't on it (except in reference to another band.) Nor are the B-52s! There must be some real holes in here, if I could leave out a band I have thirteen albums of (counting foreign versions.) And my 2nd-favourite-all-time group & its related entities are also missing! (Bonzo Dog, etc.)

It's also missing a whole page, from upper D to lower H. I've stuck in my preliminary notes instead but must still be missing about nineteen groups. Was I gonna stick the B-52s under F to be funny? Oh well, I guess I should be happy I'm not missing even more. Any of you readers out there are welcome to come straighten out my basement for me.

I did sometimes comment on bands we all knew but just for fun. Man, it was hard coming up with worthwhile things to say about lots of these groups. So, whenever I did think of something to say, I threw it in. And some of these phrases are simply quips aimed at my friends. Have fun telling which are serious and which are jokes.

Yes, I could now exert a little more effort and turn this into an even more useful rock list but, eh, why should I bother? The only reason I'm turning this twenty?-year-old list into a web-page at all is because I'm looking for something to do, while listening to rock, which doesn't require much mental effort. Likewise the various links. There is no organization to them. I just added a few here & there for fun. No, I have not added in any of the stuff I've since bought on CDs either. Why bother?

Ok, now I've just added a way for you out there to feedback. Yeah, I know you can't look over this page without having an overwhelming desire to comment. Go ahead. And I've started adding (italicized) comments about about a few more bands but only started. Plus added in some of the missing bands.

Halfnelson
Sparks
Spartan Warrior     English metal
Spiderworks     speed metal
Spikes     good Aussie rock
Spinal Tap
Spirit
Jay Ferguson
Spitballs
Spizzenergi 2     British new wave
Split Ends     Florida rock; perhaps they should sue the other ones
Spooky Tooth
Squares     Wisconsin rock
Squeeze     is this rock?
Squires     rock
Squirrel Bait     Louisville rock; pretentious singer but that's not uncommon
Stains     hardcore
Stanya     Icelandic electronic rock; maybe the apparent Icelandic trend towards synthesizers is because Iceland has too few people to populate many regular rock groups
Status Quo
Ray Stevens     hey, Bridget the Midget is so rock
Rod Stewart     I'm so glad I listened to Hoyer
Stikky     goofy hardcore
Stingray     South African? hard country-rock (ie not great)
John Stokes     Dutch rock
Stooges     borrring
Iggy Pop
Stranger than Fiction     English new wave
Strangloves
Straw Dogs     damn good rock
Strike     Italian metal
Stukas over Bedrock     toilet-mouth speed-metal
Styx     commercial poop
Subterfüge     Vegas? new wave
Summer     LA newave
Supertramp
Surfaris     yeah, this is what rock's all about(?)
Lord Sutch
Syren     Scandinavian? metal
Systematic Death     Japanese speed metal
T K O     heavy metal
T S O L     standard good rock
Tales of Terror     fast metal

---

Talking Heads
Tangerine Zoo     Rhode Island psychedelic
Tank     metal
Marc Tanner Band     jazz/blues, not rock
Bram Tchaikovsky
Teaze     American metal with synthesizers; with LPs dead, it's nice to still have albums like this unopened around my house
Television     newave
Temple City Kazoo Orchestra     now this band knows how to rock with kazoos
Temptations
Terveet Kädet     Finnish punk
Tex & the Horseheads     "swamp-rock blues"; that's meaningless enough that I won't argue
Them
They Must be Russians     English rock
Þeyr     Icelanders, like Russians, think jazz is rock; as a song title says, "boogie;" odd; jazz punk
Things that Creeped-n-Crawled Right Out-o-the Ground     Cramps wannabees
Thor     metal
3 Dog Night     I know Knezes have at least 1 of their albums, too
3 Stooges
Throbbing Gristle     argh!     jazz
Thrush & the Cunts     not unlike the Cramps
Thrust     Chicago? metal
Thunderclap Newman
Speedy Keen     very marginal
Tina Peel     punk pop
Tingling Mother's Circus     top 40 covers singing group
Tiny Tim
Tobruk     commercial metal     not unique songs but not enough metal bands feature pipe organ
Together     Dutch metal
Tomorrow
Tora! Tora!     metal
(Tom Troccoli's) Dog     dissonant metal
Troggs
Troll
Trouble     commercial/bluesy rock     blues is not rock
John Trubee (& the Ugly Janitors of America)     not rock but great
True Confessions     Canadian power pop     quite good R&R, unexpected from the cover
Trust     French hard rock     rock can be sung in French; who'da thunk it?
Tubeway Army
Tuff Darts
Crossfires     preTurtles surf rock
Turtles
Tuxedomoon     what you'd expect a group named after a Zappa song to sound like
12th Night     commercial UK metal
28th Day     ethereal new wave
Twerpoderps     Okinawan metal
Dwight Twilley     "early Beatles" ha! but ok powerpop
Twisted Sister
Twisters     Redondo Beach rock
T(yrannosaurus) Rex
Tysondog     good UK metal
U F O
Ulysses     Dutch rock
Urge Overkill     Evanston hard rock
Urgent     commercial rock, not bad
Uriah Heep
Utopia
V(oice) O(f) A(uthority)     speed hardrock
Luc Van Acker     Adam & the Lizards

---

Van Halen
David Lee Roth     I figured he'd suck after leaving V H but he rocks
Vanilla Fudge
Venom     UK metal
Venus & the Razorblades
Villanelles     ok rock
Virgin Prunes     good punk
Virulence     speed metal
Virüs     British hardcore metal
Visual Discrimination     unimaginative speed metal
Volcano Suns     Massachusetts rock
Elvis Von Borman     no better or worse than the other 4 Rhino "Elvis Impersonators"
Vonbrigði     Icelandic punk
Vortex     Dutch hard rock
Wack Mags     elemental Philly rock
Wackers     like a million other bands
Dudes     I hope Dave didn't recommend this to me; former Wackers slag
Wah! Heat     English club power pop
Waitresses
Warning     Dutch hard rock
Paul Warren & Explorer     good new wave
Rusty Warren     disappointing
Warum Joe     French punk
Waysted     decadent metal
Wazpp     wierdo pop
Wedge     LA surf
Wednesday Week     female power-country-pop + guy guitarist
Weirdos     LA speed metal "punk" what's the difference?
Lisa Whelchel     rocks my pants off
Vince Whirlwind
White Heat     Flemish? hard rock
White Lie     hardcore
White Wreckage     Pittsburgh hardcore
Who     how can anyone consider this pop group the 1st metal band???
John Entwistle     1 good song
Keith Moon
Wig     Texan rock
Wild Blue     commercial rock
Wild Knights     LA rock
Wild Man Fischer
Wild Man Jr     pretty close
Scott Wilk + the Walls     plenty good newave
Da Willys     bluesy
Winos     garage band
Ada Wilson & Keeping Dark     English power pop
Wire     British dance punk
Wishniaks     Philly REM-wannabees
Wizzguy     Dutch metal
Roy Wood's Wizzard
Link Wray     hard rockabilly
Wreckless Eric     boring
Würm     speed metal
X T C     x is a good letter for newave bands
Yello     bizarro technopop
Yip Yip Coyote     are they really copying Bow Wow Wow? were B W W big enough to be copied?
Adrian Zmed     believe it or not, he can actually R&R
Zombies     why'd I listen to Greg?
Zounds     British new wave

Ok, now I've just added a way for you out there to feedback. Yeah, I know you can't look over this page without having an overwhelming desire to comment. Go ahead.

Dale pretends I can't have anything worth hearing. Marshall was surprised I had Redd Kross. David follows Roger's lead. Rog is blinded by jealousy for my Beatles collection. Dale voodooizes that my albums are half Beätles.

This does not include singles, EPs, cassettes, CDs, videos, digital files, or albums I have taped. I did not list most of the non-rock (eg comedy,) the joke crap (Brady Bunch, &c,) or the failed experiments in record selection. I am the King of Rock Albums; I am the Emperor of Heavy Metal. Read this & weep and quit claiming all I have is wierdo stuff.

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This page is at http://www.lincoln.tripod.com/rock/index.html.

Posted 22 June, 2005; last adjusted 24 May, 2011.