Four white guys in glasses, jeans or khakis, “They looked more like nerds than punks.”

But “punks” don’t come from Kansas, even Wichita, Kansas. “Art punks,” maybe?

The Embarrassment were a band in a bubble, almost the only kids their age in their town to latch onto Alice Cooper, move on to the Velvet Underground, The Sex Pistols, Jonathan Richman and Bowie and take their place among the “art punk” nerds like Talking Heads.

They came out of Wichita and toured the country on bills with The Ramones, The Del Fuegos, The Replacements, hitting CBGBs and all the hot spots of the early ’80s too-cool-to-be-New-Wave scene.

With guitar-bass-drums driven “blister pop” tunes like “Elizabeth Montgomery’s Face,” “Jazz Face,” “Dino in the Jungle” and “Sex Drive,” they sound as representative of their era as any of their contemporaries, “So much better than R.E.M., Hüsker Dü,” enthuses Freedy Johnson.

But as the title of a documentary about them reminds us, “We Were Famous, You Don’t Remember: The Embarrassment.” They were (almost) famous, earning the attention accolades and assistance of musicians like John Cale and music-loving filmmaker Jonathan Demme (“Silence of the Lambs”), who committedTalking Heads to film in “Stop Making Sense” and knew The Next Big Thing when he saw and heard it.

As filmmakers Daniel Fetherston and Danny Szlauderbach’s interviews and history makes clear, The Embarrassment was never quite were that “next big thing.” But Evan Dando of The Lemonheads, Grant Hart of their midwestern contemporaries, Hüsker Dü and others, including best-selling political historian (“What’s the Matter with Kansas?”) Thomas Frank come in to sing their praises.

And they, the band’s manager, three original band members (Brent Giessmann,John Nichols, Bill Goffrier), journalists and fans speculate on how a band that came from “a part of the country not at all culturally significant” could emerge, make some noise (especially in the hipper college town of Lawrence, Kansas), take their shot and gracefully if dispiritedly give up when it didn’t happen despite four years of touring and recording.

The film can’t make high drama out of a story that’s been echoed hundreds of times with scores of white boy/guitar rock bands over the decades. Maybe they could have been the “next R.E.M,” in a sort of “make it big” best-case-scenario. Or they could have labored on, respected, with a devoted following, and endured on a lower tier of fame and financial reward like The Replacements, as another devotee suggests.

Four guys “determined to play music and make art,” they never really left Wichita, setting up shop in a railroad-side Flatiron Building there between station-wagon-with-a-UHaul-trailer tours.

But as other docs about bands that didn’t quite get over make plain, that’s a wearing, limiting and deflating way to live. It’s no wonder most DIY/be-their-own-road-crew ensembles, even with the help of famous and influential fans, throw in the towel.

The “how we got together” interviews are conventional “met in the the sandbox in my backyard.” Of course aspiring “art punks” were bullied in a shitkicker “cowboy town” like Wichita. Nothing unique about their getting into music, “learning while we played,” forming a band under this name or that one, finally finding their tribe, (50 hipster” kids in Wichita) then catching on in Lawrence story arc either.

The film never gets past the superficial. The most “personal” bit concerns a rental house that they threw a “house wrecking party” concert in and trashed, making their local newspaper as they did.

The musical education of the first two guys to meet, drummer Brett and guitarist Bill, was augmented when Brent’s older brother shot himself and Brent inherited a vast record collection. Wait, what?

Original bassist Ronnie Klaus “disappeared,” and while the reasons for the band breakup — exhaustion, futility — are mentioned, no discussion of efforts to find Klaus for their reunions are gotten into. Where’d he go and why did they not talk about trying to track him down? Is he still on the lam for wrecking his rental house?

Most band-that-didn’t-make-it histories aren’t as romantic or melodramatic as “Almost Famous.” You’ve got to work with what you’ve got, but make the most of the drama that’s here.

Still, it’s always nice when musicians who mattered to their fans are memorialized in movies like this. As most of us mark the waypoints of our early lives with songs, the attachments are real and last a lifetime.

They weren’t “famous. But thanks to this film, we will “remember” The Embarrassment, maybe even dig for a tune or two on Youtube, like this one.

Rating: unrated

Cast: Brent Giessmann, John Nichols, Bill Goffrier, Ron Klaus (archival footage), Evan Dando, Grant Hart, Freedy Johnson, Thomas Frank

Credits: Directed by Daniel Fetherston and Danny Szlauderbach. A Factory25 release.

Running time: 1:36