Obscure Bands Hidden In Plain Sight

Alex reckons if Neds Atomic Dustbin had used a different name they’d have been famous. Or more famous. Which makes me think about local Scottish scenes, obscurity and how I’ll link that to THE WON OVER’s new material going up on bandcamp this week.  

Dundee epic-pop storytellers THE WON OVER have yet to surface in the minds of Scotland’s ‘in the know’ powers that be. It’s a familiar story: highly artistic Dundee band plays mostly around town due to having full-on day jobs. Past bands who have fallen into this category include Jesus Elephant God, Eye, and The Damn Quails.

I really have to laugh at myself here. I could have said One Inch Volcano, Venetian Love Triangle and Katy Bar The Door and 99.9% of people would be none the wiser, whereas I’m thinking “No way! They played T in the Park, In The City, and other stuff. They’re not obscure enough!” I’m kinda glad my Facebook friends point out that any and all of these bands are very obscure as far as they’re concerned.

I did a live review for a print zine in Glasgow back when I lived in Dundee of One Inch Volcano and showered them with praise. It may have been their first ever review in print. Maybe it was their only review in print. I can’t remember. They used to have some killer riffs. As I write this I realise I’d get a lot more blog traffic and readers writing about Glasgow and Edinburgh underground bands [ha ha!]  from the 2000s than Dundee ones but that’ll be for another day.

For many years I thought Esperi would suffer the same fate. Absolutely amazing artist making incredible music yet unknown outside of Dundee. Chris of Esperi very kindly gave me one of his first CDRs of his music and I was blown away by it. I have it somewhere if I hunt it down. I went through a gigantic box of Scottish unsigned CDs a few years ago and ended up binning a lot. I also kept quite a few. Including the EP this tune appeared on. One of my fave tunes ever. I saw it live a few times. Happiness.

The point of all this should be clear by now.

There will always be a band in Dundee that is artistically brilliant but due to the usual circumstance, few people will ever hear them or see them live. Fate hasn’t played its hand yet so we don’t know what is in store for The Won Over.

They have just released two new songs, following up their previous two song release with even more quality songwriting.

If you want to have an obscure band to tell your friends about then THE WON OVER is a worthy candidate.

LISTEN TO NEW MUSIC FROM THE WON OVER NOW

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