Fans of the Embarrassment often call them ‘the best band you never heard of’. Band members made some noise in their post Embos projects, in bands such as Big Dipper and the Del Fuegos, but the Embarrassment’s Wicheta heyday passed by before most folks outside of Kansas could notice. Most of their best work is collected on the excellent Bar-None anthology Heyday 1979-1983. There’s also a very good live anthology: Blister Pop.

Their song ‘Sex Drive’ is one of the finest an American rock band ever produced. Like ‘Road Runner’, it sounds effortless, almost tossed-off, and it navigates the territory between the inane and the profound gracefully. The original recording is all energy and power, with Bill Goffrier’s high harmony vocal threatening to push it all over the brink. You can hear it and download it in MP3 form their MySpace page or by clicking this link.

Despite being nearly a quarter century removed from their original tenure together, the Embarrassment’s legacy is well documented on the `net thanks to the support of rabid fans. There’s a very good site at embarrassment.org with history, lyrics and news, as well as a link to the Yahoo! Embos group the site admin runs. Also excellent is the entertainment site lawrence.com, which has an Embos page with MP3 links, a link to a podcast interview with vocalist John Nichols, and three videos I’d never seen before. There’s also

I’m a Don Juan

Celebrity Art Party

Don’t Choose the Wrong Song

I’ve never seen them play live. Some of the songs on their now out-of-print “Retrospective” cassette were recorded in my hometown of Columbus in a bar on North High street that has since been demolished. They did a pair of reunion shows this past summer in Wicheta and Lawrence. The reunion shows came about as part of an Embos documentary that is in the works. Maybe that’ll spark interest in some more shows. Maybe we can all pool our money and get them to come up to Chicago.

There’s a cool gallery of Embarrassment photos available for purchase here: http://www.nelsonandnelson.com/embos/photos.html.