A bit behind in blogging this week, due to the purchase of a new computer. I desperately needed one, with my old computer almost 8 years old, still running Windows XP and running on a Pentium 4. It could barely run video anymore. Migrating over my bookmarks went smoothly, but, unfortunately, the migration I used didn't save all my passwords like it said it would, so I've been resetting some and hoping I remember others.
We did a cover last month, so this month we'll be doing a Forgotten Music entry.
What I love about doing Forgotten Music is not so much revisiting some of my favourite obscure bands, but highlighting what I would call a "no-hit wonder". It would be fun to trot out a true "one hit wonder" like Boys Don't Cry or M, but I love focusing on bands that literally had no time in the sun, so to speak, outside of an obscure track that someone maybe heard once on college radio or on a deep cut session on CityLimits on Much or 120 Minutes on MTV. It also amazes me that, with enough digging, one can find so many bands that recorded something, hoping to be noticed, and then were forgotten. You can find them all the way back into the 1930s and into today. Caterwaul are one of those bands.
Caterwaul are a late 80s/early 90s band that were part of the burgeoning college rock scene that was starting to get huge in the States and in Canada. From Phoenix, Arizona, Caterwaul were a four-piece band that blended the college rock of the time with a vaguely rootsy bent, with lead singer Betsy Martin doing a decent job of aping Johnette Napoliatano and her band Concrete Blonde. Their first break came in 1988, with a record deal with influential taste-makers I.R.S. Records. They put out their first album for I.R.S in 1989, called Pin and Web, which spawned a minor college radio hit, "The Sheep's a Wolf".
1990's Portent Hue was another album that garnered a minor hit, "Manna and Quail". Portent Hue is probably the best the band could create. It's a fair-to-middling college rock album, with just a couple of great songs in a mess of listenable stuff. "Manna and Quail" sees the band more fully formed than the rest of the album, with a gutsy and gritty two-guitar attack, with Martin's voice melodic and brusk.
The band hung around til 1996, putting out their last album on the Lost Arts label, before hanging up their instruments.
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