Mysterious artists who made a handful of impressive recordings, then completely disappeared from the radar

Henry Grimes... then he came back

This record is pretty dope
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WzaUnO1S4E&feature=related

I mentioned John Davis as he very abruptly upped and left the music business on the day his last album was released and has never been heard of publicly since

well, he did do this, also, after Blue Mountains.

http://www.discogs.com/John-Davis-2-Dennis-Callaci-Room-For-Space-EP/release/430932

super-lol at first google result for van vliet painting

― ٩(̾●̮̮̃̾•̃̾)۶ (sic), Wednesday, 9 November 2011 11:58 (1 hour ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

I get a link to the "Radar Station" pages of his paintings...

Ah, this time I get a link to "AllPosters" who are selling a poster of one of his, for £39.

I mentioned John Davis as he very abruptly upped and left the music business on the day his last album was released and has never been heard of publicly since

well, he did do this, also, after Blue Mountains.

http://www.discogs.com/John-Davis-2-Dennis-Callaci-Room-For-Space-EP/release/430932

That's from 1996 though - he had quite a few solo releases before exiting from music, apparently on One Part Lullabye's release date.

Maybe Cornelius? What the hell has he been doing lately?

Henry Grimes... then he came back

True, but he was on more than a handful of records (around 15-20, maybe more) before he left the scene.

LOL @ someone named "The Legendary Hassan" being known (???) for being on a single recording and never heard from again.

Is DJ Yella still active?

The way jazz dudes work, 15-20 is a handful, isn't it?

Also...Shuggie Otis

Normally, yes, but this is 15-20 records in only 10 years.

LOL @ someone named "The Legendary Hassan" being known (???) for being on a single recording and never heard from again.

The Amazing Randy to thread.

Erik Voeks - one great power pop lp - sandbox - in 1993. a single or two thereafter. then ran a record store in the midwest. has been playing live as of recent but still no recorded ouput since!

http://f0.bcbits.com/z/42/64/4264054051-1.jpg
Connie Converse disappeared in 1974, leaving behind a haunting body of recorded music that would remain virtually unheard for the next 35 years... Written through the 1950's, Connie's cache of original material instantly reveals itself to be uniquely inspired and years ahead of its time.

ilher so much

whatever happened to bill withers? i think i heard he became a carpenter, maybe?

I dunno if having a major documentary made about you in the last few years counts as "completely disappeared"

but yes he ran a construction company for awhile

Had not heard of Connie Converse until this moment, and this is fantastic -- thanks!

I get a link to the "Radar Station" pages of his paintings...

PROVING INCONTROVERTIBLY that he stayed ACCESSIBLE BY RADAR when he moved into painting do you see

Is DJ Yella still active?

famously became a porn director after NWA, the adjective excluding him from this no matter what he's doing now

(also how many NWA records is he actually on?)

(I think he was on some of Eazy's solo stuff too though btw etc)

Kid 'N Play

If by "completely disappeared" you mean "released more records, had FOUR feature films, a Saturday morning cartoon, a Marvel comic, and still do the occasional reunion show or TV nostalgia appearance," then absolutely! but I'm not sure everyone else is quite operating under those criteria

tugboat

Q Lazzarus

david baker

for almost forty years max ochs entire recorded output consisted of two tracks on a compilation record. they are pretty fn good though.

there are probably a bunch of these on the Nurse With Wound list, like the amazing Sand.

Jim Sullivan

(also how many NWA records is he actually on?)

good enough for me:

Jerry Heller witnessed Dre and Yella's work together and wrote in 2006 of an almost eerie understanding between the pair, as they crafted high quality beats and productions with almost no words or full sentences needing to be spoken.[citation needed]

Pianist Lowell Davidson. Made one (insanely brilliant and flawless) record in 1965 for ESP-Disk with Gary Peacock and Milford Graves, never made any other recordings, not even as a sideman. Died in the late 80s. Graves has said that the record only hints at what Davidson was capable of live, and that Richard Davis, replacing Peacock for live dates, was an unbelievably perfect foil for Davidson.

Maybe Cornelius? What the hell has he been doing lately?

Saw him last year playing in Yoko Ono's band

marissa marchant

lock thread

I have to add the Jamaican stripper, Margarita (I've also seen it spelled Marguerita), who was the girlfriend of Don Drummond (one of the Skatalites and among the all-time Jamaican musical greats.) Apparently, they had some stabbing game that functioned as sexual foreplay, and as these things will, it got out of hand and Margarita bed to death. Drummond was later incarcerated. She sang only one song on record, the amazing "Woman A Come," which has to be heard to be believed.

wilderness.

Les Rallizes Dénudés kind of fit here, no? No-one knows what Mizutani is up to these days.

I thought he's spending his days converting tapes to CDR and mailing them to Volcanic Tongue?

Cornelius did a song for the Scott Pilgrim movie, the one the Katayanagi Twins play at the battle of the bands.

he's been gigging recently too, saw his band a few years ago, they were great.

Lana Del Rey

hey guys naming artists who didn't really disappear at all do you notice how this could actually be an interesting thread if you stfu w/artists who didn't actually disappear? thanking you for yr attention in this matter.

lol. i mentioned the band "wilderness" above, and concerned that i missed an update, or some reappearance, i scanned the internet. nothing. no news since 2008, when they released their last album. that's actually where the band's wiki page bottoms out.

i liked this band. if anyone's heard an update about them, i'd like to hear it. i assume they just quietly disbanded.

Late of the pier?

Kurt Heasley/Lilys... this guy is some sort of genius to his fans who are mostly serious music geeks.

john scoggins had one LP (a pretty good one) on a tax-scam label in 1976 then disappeared

http://www.discogs.com/John-Scoggins-Pressed-For-Time/release/2965217

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ifTOh8cDPo

folks on another board trying to track him down found some early-2000s arrest for impersonating a police officer, and nothing else.

supposedly he was in some band that might have recorded a single or an album but google does not help in the slightest with that.

OK so he might have had a band named "the ramparts" that played CBGB in 1977. that's all i got.

why not put this here too:

Jonathan Halper's "Puce Moment" soundtrack (two tracks, "Leaving My Old Life Behind" and "I Am A Hermit"). Literally cannot find out anything about this music apart from Kenneth Anger's vague and predictably mysterious comments. Don't know if it was ever even released as a single independently of the film or what. Very proto-Velvets/Syd Barrett stuff, p incredible. Recently covered by Franz Ferdinand for some reason.

John Davis released a very lovely album this year and no longer qualifies for this thread.

this seems like a silly example to include but i do think this 1997 bass reworking of shirley murdock's "as we lay" is a 10/10 a+ single and vocal performance by dana harris:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jh9OoWTkCz8

it charted at #59 on the billboard hot 100 that year, but there's little trace of her anywhere else. apparently she was featured on a couple songs on the almost-unknown 2nd album in 2002 by one-hit-wonders b-rock & the bizz (of "mybabydaddy" fame -- also a classic single imo); i haven't heard them but have been tempted to buy a dirt-cheap copy of the album out of curiosity. (b-rock produced her version of "as we lay.")

it's also possible she was the uncredited female vocalist for the 1996 single by another one of b-rock's (failed) acts, southsyde boiz. it was a shameless ripoff of the quad city dj's hit from the same year -- serviceable but not particularly good, and the vocal, if it is her singing the chorus, is pretty indistinctive, probably sung to sound exactly like the quad city dj's singer. the woman in the music video lip-syncing to the chorus does look just like dana harris tho.

Connie Converse: Connie Converse - How Sad, How Lovely...

Hermann Szobel is kind of a legend in prog circles. Austrian eccentric prodigy who made one crazy record (sort of avant-jazz-prog, except that he'd apparently never heard any prog rock in his life, to the extent that he seems to have been under the impression that "King Crimson" was the name of an actual British king) for the Arista label at age 18 in 1976 and then disappeared, never to be heard from again.

one-time King Crimson percussionist Jamie Muir probably belongs here

George Murray, Bowie's brilliant bassist in the last half of the 70s. Last seen on a Jerry Harrison solo album and then apparently got out of the music business entirely.

i wish someone would reissue those Shelagh McDonald records mentioned above. or re-reissue them in an easy/affordable way.

yes! was just trying to track down some of her stuff recently and it seemed like even the early 00s comp was pretty pricey.

George Murray, Bowie's brilliant bassist in the last half of the 70s. Last seen on a Jerry Harrison solo album and then apparently got out of the music business entirely.

― Elvis Telecom, Monday, January 18, 2016 9:45 PM (24 minutes ago)

i suppose there are a billion of those old blues guys out there, but bayless rose.