Peter Hammil & Rob Halford (Judas Priest)

 

Yes and No. Here in the States the answer is 'yes'. There is no press to speak of and very little airplay save for the odd track on some college radio station. That's on the band itself as they never toured the U.S. You'll get the odd music fan in his 40's or 50's who remembers the band from their college days in the 1970's when your hipper young Americans would turn onto the more experimental European bands.

 

In Britain, at least, there have been feature length articles in all of the major music mags (and even good coverage in the regular newspapers). I think that even if they're not familiar with any of the music, the average Brit music fan (or maybe slightly above average!) has at least heard the name Van der Graaf Generator. And I saw them 7 times in '05 in the U.K. when they played in auditoriums that ranged in size from 1,500 - 3,000 and always drew a very respectable crowd (some were sold out completely). So, that alone would tell you that there is a healthy following. They're not ever going to be on the 'charts' with a single or album, but they're not completely 'obscure' either. They're at least somewhat known. And they're even more well known in other European countries (but probably less so and more obscure in others still).