Have you have ever played in a band that never really got anywhere? I imagine most musicians have......
Usually people don't really want to know about dead bands, but I think we should create a list of those bands that never made it! Let them have the moment of glory that may have passed them by!

So if you know of a dead band and you want everyone to know more..... Just add a conversation below!

Dead Bands

Mehelium

Mehelium were an Adelaide four piece band that got together in November 1993 and broke up in mid 1995. They played original music and built up a small live following. They even got interest from Mushroom Records.

Submitted by danielt@adelaide

Deathfish

We were bad, really bad.

We eschewed the traditional rules of being in a band: we had no name (deathfish was as close as we got) we had no fixed lineup and we had no songs. Luckily for the listening public, we also had no gigs.

Personally I still can't play the guitar and never deserved to be in anything resembling being a band. We had musical differences, we had sessions where we didn't invite certain members of the band for various reasons and eventually we just stopped.

John was on drums mostly and mostly because he was the one with a drum kit. Declan was a natural born drummer, he had rhythm, style and attitude, you could actually listen to him playing drums and enjoy it without the need for it to be the backing to anything else. Naturally he was on guitar. Andy played guitar but mostly that had nothing to do with the rest of the band. And I played pretty much anything I brought along from my dad's collection of musical instruments. There were other people at different times but it didn't really matter, there was nothing that could save us.

Submitted by TopCat

The Suede Chain

The Suede Chain is a band whose music is difficult to describe, although alternative-rock-meets-classical-music comes fairly close.

Submitted by TV's Frink

Padlock Penis

Padlock Penis - Auckland's first acapella punk group.

Submitted by Ac-1D

John Otway

Sang 'Really Free' - one hit and then a life on the pub circuit.

Submitted by Peta

A life of playing in dead bands

My first band was 'Three Guitars Clash' - there were three of us,
all of us *played* guitars and we had a clash songbook.

Then I discovered various strange substances and played in
'The Blossom Children' at college - kinda free form - our best
tune was playing the riff to Bily Bragg's "The Saturday Boy" at
quarter-speed for about ten minutes while a fat guy called Tony
in a toga intoned his errm poetry over the top.

Then a covers band "Maim That Tune" - pretty self-explanatory
really.

Sang in a huge hippy band "Peacenik The Leaf" which swelled
some times to include strings, brass, backing singers etc.
Highlight was when we did 'Freebird' by Skynyrd and the lead
guitarist played the solo with a rubber chicken with a slide taped
to its back.

Then in London after I dropped out of Uni I was in a band "The
Abridged Introduction To The Twelfth Book Of Joshua" which
started out with good intentions of actually writing songs and
stuff (well, we wrote ONE) but ended up doing yet more covers.
We weren't particularly good, but we did have a sofa that we
brought on stage with us. During "Comfortably Numb" the
guitarist would sit on one side for his big solo while I sat reading
the paper. Boy, did we rock. Boy replies - not really.

Last proper band was "Collision" and we wrote all our own stuff,
cut an LP, played a lot around Stoke, Manchester, Sheffield etc.
then split up a year later when the drummer started to wear a
suit and got himself a real job. We had two of the biggest
setbacks in any band career - (i) one of our number was a great
mate and completely tuneless and (ii) the soul crushing
awfulness of spending 90% of the time supporting other bands
without headlining finally took its toll on us. Lame trivia note - the
Fairlight synth that we used for doing some samples on our LP
had previously been used for (a) the plate-smashing bits of Kate
Bush's "Babooshka" and (b) [allegedly - according to the
producer] some of the sound-effects used on a certain
"Restaurant At The End Of The Universe" radio comedy LP.

That's it, apart from the odd solo LP here and there since then.
Pretty much a life wasted on dead bands, but I wouldn't have
had it any other way

Submitted by The Wisest Fool

Fairfield Convention and the Disciples of Sid Barret

1987-1989 in Teeside. Played "folk and crap". My husband was
originally Alexander McKenzie who joined The Barley Crush
Band so he had to became Mercedes McCambridge instead.
The other members of the band were Weevil Pericles and Bill
Froog. Their biggest hit was "I can drink more than my girlfriend, the '89
remix". .

Submitted by technoyokel

Deity

The omnipotent 'Deity' formed in September 1995 with the truly
celestial line-up of Adam Dodd on keyboard, Rupert Hill on
guitar, Dave Molan on bass, Alex Burghart on drums and ...
there may have been a drummer but I forget. They played a
memorable one song gig for Rupert's sister in his bedroom just
before Xmas 1995 and then went their separate ways.

Submitted by A

The Godz

The Godz were on radio locally (and I did hear it
once on a not-quite-so-local station), but I don't know how far their
popularity actually spread. They made two albums -- 'The Godz'
and 'The Godz II'. (Creative names, eh? Don't remember off hand if
there were any subtitles.) Their biggest hit was also their first single,
"The Godz, Rock and Roll Machines" (o/~ The godz are rock and
roll machines o/~) With creativity like that, it's probably no wonder
they're a dead band.

Submitted by Anonymouse (40077)

Full Moon

Full Moon died due to apathy (of the band members). They were good, but never made it beyond "bar band" status.

Submitted by Anonymouse (40077)