The Lilybandits -- Shifty's Tavern

Once upon a time -- 1997 or 1998, I'm thinking -- there was a Columbus band called The Lilybandits. They were the second greatest band to ever not emerge from Columbus, right behind Ronald Koal and the Trillionaires. This is because nobody ever emerges from Columbus. Occasionally some local yokels head out to New York or Nashville or L.A. and experience a modicum of success. But The Lilybandits never made it past Stache and Little Brother's, and on a good night you could find 50 or so of the local diehards, crowded up against the stage, clutching their bottles of Rolling Rock and swaying to the sounds of the sweaty guys up there playing their alt-country asses off.

All Music Guide, an exhaustive music reviews database where you can find anybody and everybody, has this to say about The Lilybandits. You can click if you want, but here's the deal: there's nothing there. There's a placeholder without content. And that's the story of The Lilybandits. They had no image to speak of; just five nondescript guys who looked like they held down boring day jobs, and probably did. They only made one album, and it was called Shifty's Tavern. It sounded like Counting Crows if Adam Duritz had balls, and it featured a batch of superbly catchy tunes driven by chiming guitars and banjos and mandolins and a lead singer with a great, gritty voice.

I pulled out the album yesterday and played it for the first time in years. It's still great. And no one has ever heard it. There appears to be something of a Lilybandits cult in Europe, and you can find an import version of the album on Amazon for something like $52. Domestically, somebody in Louisville is selling it on eBay for $39. I recommend that you pass on both. But if you're the type who scours used record stores in Columbus, Ohio, I bet you could hunt down a copy if you're interested. It's wonderful stuff, and it reminds me again why Columbus is the premiere place where great music comes to die.