Alquin: Sailors & Sinners.
Alquin was locally considered the best band in The Netherlands - and this was when Golden Earring was conquering the US charts with Radar Love, and Frank Zappa considered Supersister quite an interesting band*.
Out of frustration, Alquin called it a day then. Which pissed me off majorly. Sure, they were competing with us - very successfully in my not so humbe opinion. The band I was playing bass guitar in was compared to Rush at the time... even though the members of this band, including yours truly, declared this to be a silly comparison. But the Alquin guys were more successfull, and as far as I was concerned, that was more than well-deserved.
Alquini recently restarted (in almost the same configuration) as of late, just for the fun of it. These days, contrary to other reunites, they feel that they have nothing to prove, and they can do pretty well whatever floats their boat. Imo, their boat is floating better than it ever did. Rather than ride on the retro wave, they stick to doing what floats their boat now. To me, that is integral to why their current CD release oozes quality. They are still not giving in to commercial success.
*) On the same note, Frank Zappa called Allan Holdsworth "the most interesting guitar guy on the planet". While I wholeheartedly agree with this, and while I find that Allan Holdsworth is one of the most innovating jazz composers and jazz musicians of today, that isn't taking Allan anywhere. Just imagine... here is a guy that folks like Carlos Santana, Joe Satriani, Eddie Van Halen, Steve Vai, and fergawdssake Frank Zappa call "a major influence", "the most interesting guitar guy on the planet" and "winner and still champion" on guitar, and someone who is likened to Claude Debussy harmonically... and he's making less money off his music than Jeph is making off QC. Fuck...!
