Diamonds in the rough

Today's FRIDAY QUESTION asked readers to identify some "diamonds in the rough" in their music collection, works that might not be widely known, but are worth getting to know.
Here are some artists to investigate...
Dave B. -- The Gear Daddys. A band from Minneapolis. I believe they are not around any more, but should be. A mixture of the Bodeans and Ryan Adams.
Brian C. -- Jason White, who was part of the Freedom Forum troupe that performed "Freedom Sings" in Dubuque (April 2004), has a CD, "Tonight's Top Story." He's a singer-songwriter who is an intriguing storyteller.
Rick T. -- An all-time great but forgotten song, Floyd Cramer's "Last Date." It's done on the piano and is one of the many songs out of Nashville that are considered classics.
Inger H. -- The Weakerthans. Intelligent, heartfelt lyrics paired with catchy melodies and a bit of punk (in style as well as attitude) make the Weakerthans the best indie band you've probably never heard of. Besides, anyone who can write a song from the point of view of a cat, without making it sound stupid, should be rewarded with gold-selling records and a pimped-out ride. They may not be unknown for long, however: The ending credits for the film "The Wedding Crashers" feature one of their songs.
Erik H. -- Here is the weirdly nerdy (or is that nerdly weird?) story of how I learned to love the Irish Plantation Orchestra.
A few years ago, I made a deal to swap a mix I made of children's songs (here is where it starts to get weird) for a copy of the StarPhoenix newspaper of Saskatoon, Sask.
I sent my mix to a girl from the Great White North, then I waited. And waited. And waited quite a bit more.
Her package never arrived.
Finally, I figured I had been duped. Oh well. You live and learn. I was out a blank CD and whatever time it took me (five minutes?) to burn a copy of the mix.
Then, completely out of the blue, a package arrived from Saskatoon!
It turned out, the other person in the trade had become ill and it took her longer than expected to recover. Yeah whatever.
Still, she felt bad enough about the delayed deal that, in addition to the Saskatoon newspaper, she included a CD of the Irish Plantation Orchestra.
Who?
Imagine The Specials crossed with the Mighty Mighty Bosstones, if all of the band members were drunken students at the University of Saskatchewan.
*THAT* is the Irish Plantation Orchestra!
The CD I received is utterly fabulous -- it presents a raucous live gig that sounds like it was recorded in a vacant church on some Saskatoon street corner. Which I think is exactly what happened.
Songs such as "Charlton Heston" and "Piltdown Girl" sound like lost college radio classics. Only, I don't think these guys appeared much on college radio.
Wanna know the level of obscurity for this band?
If you Google "Irish Plantation Orchestra" you get three hits:
1. A "Not Found" URL that should be a 2000 gig listing on a University of Saskatchewan Web site.
2. and 3. Track listings for Irish Plantation Orchestra songs that I included on two subsequent mixes I posted on the Art of the Mix Web site.
I am so sorry, but when two of your three Google hits reference Erik Hogstrom, you are oh-so-obscure.