How About Some Deep Cuts?

I've occasionally mentioned the local music scene here in Cincinnati, even though I didn't spend my college years here in town. Still, they did have an impact on me, demonstrating that once in a while a bunch of local folks can hit it big. 

Or at least big in my own mind.

The Raisins not withstanding, there have been some big acts that originated here in Cincinnati and the local region. Bands and acts such as The Isley Brothers, Bootsy Collins, Pure Prairie League, Blessid Union of Souls, 90 Degrees, The Afghan Whigs, Walk The Moon, The National, Adrian Belew (King Crimson) and even older icons such as Doris Day and Rosemary Clooney have called Cincinnati Home.

My mom still has the '45 for this.

But for every band that has made it, there are the corpses of thousands that never even got a shot. Still, there's a lot of bands that did generate a local following, and a few of them found themselves with local airplay. 

Or, say, an actual album or eleven.

This was about 6 of them. From Reddit, and
the redditor who found these is incredibly lucky.

Back before WEBN became their current soulless corporate self today, they put together a series of album projects, all featuring local acts, that were local cult classics. Even though you'd expect them to at least be album oriented rock, since that's the format WEBN played under, the albums were a very eclectic mix. Folk, Pop, Funk, and even the occasional Classical piece were mixed in with the Rock music. But there were also some real Comedy/Novelty gems in there too, which is what I remember the most about them.

A lot of those novelty songs got airplay on WEBN, because they wanted to sell the albums, but they have since entered the local lexicon as touchstones for my generation.

Such as Dan Barr's Bus Full of Nuns from the 8th Album Project:

What made the video more hilarious to locals was that it also featured longtime Channel 9 news anchor Al Schottelkotte and 70s/early 80s Channel 5 news anchor Tom Atkins. Al, in particular, was very straight-laced, and seeing him lip-synching to the song was had us laughing our heads off as kids.

There's also the Doctor Demento favorite by George Uetz, a professor at the University of Cincinnati:

Obviously given its refrain, my high school classmates and I would occasionally sing this song at football games and other events. From the 3rd Album Project (1978), it still received occasional airplay up until the early 90s.

Speaking of sex, there's also this quirky song by The Modulators from the 9th Album Project (1986):

Yes, the song predates the WEBN album project by a few years, but as you can imagine the lyrics got sung a LOT by my classmates.

Of the three listed above, I think The Modulators are still active locally, while George Uetz is now a Professor Emeritus at UC and The Dan Barr Band at least had a video uploaded to YouTube in 2011.

I'd completely forgotten about the song "Just Chili" (which Dan Barr created as "Dave and the One Ways" for Album Project 9), but yeah, that song got a lot of airplay too.

None of these bands ever struck it big, but they remain a part of the local landscape for people who grew up in the 70s and 80s. 

EtA: Corrected a formatting issue.