The Piltdown Men

Under Appreciated

THE PILTDOWN MEN
 
 
Instrumental rock music is common in the surf world, but there were instrumental rock bands that predated the surf craze.  One is the past UARB the Piltdown Men.  But the most popular instrumental rock band of all time is unquestionably the Ventures.  Still, surf rock and rock instrumentals are indelibly linked these days.  The website Rate Your Music shows a list of the Top 50 Surf Rock Instrumentals as rated by visitors to their site; they include 4 tracks by the Ventures and 7 by the British band the Shadows
 
(December 2014)
 
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Ten years ago, in December 2009, I wrote the first of my 82 posts on Under Appreciated Rock Bands, i.e., rock bands (and artists) who did not have a write-up as yet in Wikipedia. It wasn’t much to look at, just four short paragraphs, but I got a lot wordier and more wide-ranging as the years went by. I had hoped to keep this up for at least 5 years, if not 10 years; as it happened, my last post was dated December 2017 – 8 years later, and 2 years ago.
 
For two of the Under Appreciated Rock Bandsthe Rip Chords (who had a major hit in the surf era with Hey Little Cobra) and the Iguanas (punk icon Iggy Pop’s first band, and the reason that he came to be called Iggy) – I managed to write my post literally the month before someone started a Wikipedia article on them. For another two – the Piltdown Men and Haymarket Square – it turns out that there was already a Wikipedia article on them; for the latter band, I just plain forgot to look! And one of the UARB’s, Wendy Bagwell and the Sunliters was not even a rock band – and I just found a Wikipedia article about them also, so I suppose I didn’t look closely enough when I started that post either. But I don’t care at this point: They are all Under Appreciated, from one end to the other, even for the handful who do have a Wikipedia article these days.
 
(Year 10 Review)
Last edited: March 22, 2021