Small bands...

[Soeru]

Just felt like making a thread to discuss on the few bands out there in which 1(or 2) person/people play all the standard instruments(guitars, bass, drums).
Only 3 bands come to mind:

Bathory: Formed by 1 guy, who died recently. Very early black metal(hard stuff), but later on he did some much more appealable(depending on your point of view) style of music(viking metal).

Probot: A metal band formed by David Grohl(drummer from Nirvana, vocalist in Foo Fighters). Although the band's music isn't incredible, it's quite a feat to produce an entire album single-handedly.

Arsis: A 2-man death metal band from Virginia which hogged the spotlight on my last week's "band of the week" sig. 1 guy plays both guitars, sings, and plays bass whilst the other plays drums. The reason why I mention these guys is that it's impossible to picture it as just 2 individuals after listening to the complexity in their songs.

Those are the only 1(or 2)-man bands I know. What other bands like these do you know? Please don't come up with some DJ, MC, plain old singer, rapper, etc... I'm talking about 1 guy doing all the instruments apart from singing.

[NEV3RMORE]

Burzum (swedish or finnish, somewhere along those lines)and Black Label Society(Zakk Wylde's [Ozzy Osbourne's guitarist] side project, does everything except the drums on some songs) is all I can think of aside from those.


Oh yeah, and Children Of Boredom / Boredomi.

[Slim]

Well in a sense you could include Opeth in such a list. Mikael writes the vocals, lyrics, bass and both guitar parts for most of the songs, with a lot of drum directions.

Trent Reznor of NiN controls them in a similar way...

[Jimmy Onestroke]

Darcy Clay - Recorded an EP in his room on a four-track and died. Miss him, for he is more awesome than you will ever know. Buy his anthology, I doubt it will cost you more than it's worth.

Rikk Agnew - Of Adolescents fame. He took breaks from the band and recorded a couple of his own LPs, playing all the instruments himself. His first, All By Myself, reappears on the Adolescents s/t.

Hella - Two-piece math rock band with what appears to be a calculator with guitar attached, and an octopus on drums. Their debut album, Hold Your Horse Is, is the best debut you could hope to find on this planet. Their follow ups are a little hit and miss, but still more talented than you'd find elsewhere. Plus, they named one of their EPs Bitches Ain't Shit But Good People. Now that's a sign of class.

Lightning Bolt - Hella, except with bass in place of guitar. Also, got better with age. Wonderful Rainbow is awesome.

Atom & His Package - Dude called Atom plays with his package. It's a synth thingo. Apparently his one man band has broken up due to creative differences, make what you will of that.

[Howie]

Burzum (swedish or finnish, somewhere along those lines)

Burzum is norwegian (aka Varg Vikernes/Count Grishnack).

Ildjarn (raw/"grim" Black Metal/Ambient (some) from Norway) is the only one I can think of now.

[Dr Morgan]

Beck
Kaada
Fantomas
Kid606
Sunn 0)))
Scott Weiland
Self
JESU!!!!!!!!!!

Hela sure are great. I love Hold Your Horse is.
Justin Broadrick's Jesu are fucking amazing. Following in the mould of his previous band Godflesh. They is 'teh' rock mafuckas.

Just when I lose total faith in musical appreciation around here, someone restores my faith by mentioning something like Hela or DEP. Great.

[Hangman]

Jimmy made me listen to Hella, and I have to say they sounded awesome.

And now I will add my commercial whore contribution to the thread. The first Foo Fighters album and was written and played completely by Dave Grohl, although I think there was a couple of guest guitar players. This wasn't his first attempt at it though as he had released a tape of his own tunes in 1992 under the name "Late!" with the title "Pocket Watch".

I need to get around to hearing Probot...

EDIT: Also, on Ben Folds debut solo album (Rockin the Suburbs) he wrote all the songs and played all the instruments too. Every song was in C Major. Random info for you.

[Dr Morgan]

The first QOTSA album, the first Fantomas album, the first Foo's album, the first.......

[Crayoneater]

pedro the lion, david bazan plays all the instruments and sings.

i don't like probot very much, i like ben folds and ben folds five a whole lot. ben folds is a really good piano player. and doesn't dave grohl play drums,guitar and sing on most of the songs on The Colour and the Shape?

[Hangman]

On the Colour and the Shape Dave played guitar and drums, and sang.

[youthquake]

Mates of State. a husband wife duo of electric organ and drums. they both sing. they rock.