I have lived in the Midwest, now the prairie, for the past 50 years except for 1980-82 in Berkeley
there were tons of bands I followed thru the years that barely made one record.
In Berkely we had a band that played on street corners. A couple of them were dressed as pineapples. I only saw them once in a club with a drummer.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PC0Nh-MW_Yhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1R-uCOfcr_Mthe famous head cheese song
I saw a bunch of punk bands that couple of years. Also the other "new wave" bands like Romeo Void. I saw them in a gay bar.
In Wisconsin my main band to follow was Spooner
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lec5066ycghttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ksZ2yjt2maMIf there had not been Cars they would have been big. But they were too similar to the Cars and a few others at the time. The main song writer Doug Erikson survived to write songs for Garbage, but Shirley Manson would not sing his lyrics as they were middle aged men by then so she wrote her own. The other local legend in Wisconsin at the time was Sigmund Snopek
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vCuwdR6CJIohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=raRGnueg8LoI moved on to Cincinnati and there were a few good local bands. This is the only one I found on Youtube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YvrhWoEEB2YGoing back to my native Finland, I am closest to Wigwam, that I only managed to see twice. I am friends with the younger brother of one of the original members.
This is the 45 I had bought prior to seeing them 1970. They played mostly covers of Procol Harum and The Band live
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2TOKvrPoNkkAnd that's about it. We have some covers bands I have seen twice in my current home town but nothing special.
So what obscurities can you dig up?