What not to call a band

Subject: RE: What not to call a band
From: GUEST,Dave hunt
Date: 05 Oct 09 - 07:17 AM

I have called with these bands
Syphon the Python
Les Miserables and the Proper Pissers
Cwm Dancing (love that one - some members from Wales)
May Contain Nuts

Subject: RE: What not to call a band
From: Mr Happy
Date: 05 Oct 09 - 09:08 AM

'Names that are easily mis-pronounced or misspelt are always a bad move. '

....recalling some time back at Chester FF, a local folkie acting as MC in a marquee concert, announcing a band called 'Sileas' as ' Silly Arse'!!

Subject: RE: What not to call a band
From: Charley Noble
Date: 05 Oct 09 - 09:34 AM

One of my favorite suggested names for our dance band was "Further Ado." I figured no one could plan a special event without giving us a call.

The worst suggested name was "Down the Loo."

We settled for "The Sea Slugs."

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: What not to call a band
From: Doktor Doktor
Date: 05 Oct 09 - 09:45 AM

For a while we had "Earem & Greive" on singers nights

& the ever popular "Come All Ye"

Subject: RE: What not to call a band
From: Mark Ross
Date: 05 Oct 09 - 09:59 AM

There was a duo back in the day in Greenwich Village that called themselves "Free Beer". And then, there was "Breakfast Special" which had as members Kenny Kosek, Andy Statman, Tony Trischka, and Stacy Phillips.

But the worst band name I've ever run across was here in Eugene OR; a punk band that called itself FUCK GOD IN THE FACE!

Mark Ross

Subject: RE: What not to call a band
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 05 Oct 09 - 10:00 AM

The Shy Torques

Subject: RE: What not to call a band
From: Sailor Ron
Date: 05 Oct 09 - 10:15 AM

I was once in a group called "Skidmarks", we didn't get any bookings [mainly because we were crap].

Subject: RE: What not to call a band
From: GUEST,Jonny Sunshine
Date: 05 Oct 09 - 10:29 AM

I have to admit there was a certain naive honesty about the band that called themselves "Bob's little brother's mate's band"

Subject: RE: What not to call a band
From: theleveller
Date: 05 Oct 09 - 10:39 AM

Whatever you do, don't call yourself Whipstaff because that's our name.

Subject: RE: What not to call a band
From: Charley Noble
Date: 05 Oct 09 - 10:45 AM

One of my best names for a sea music band has to be "Roll & Go." We get product placement in many traditional sea shanties.

The only downside has been the persistent attempts by portable toilet vendors to purchase our name. We would never sell out for money!

Cheerily,
Charley Noble
Roll & Go, Inc.

Subject: RE: What not to call a band
From: frogprince
Date: 05 Oct 09 - 10:46 AM

I guess it was Saturday Night Live, years ago, that did a take off on the Smucker's "With a name like Smucker's, it has to be good" slogan. A co-worker's husband came up with something at the time that could be just as "good" for a band: "Dead Rats In A Drain Pipe".

Then again, it just occured to me that "Weird Smell in Corner" has a certain ring to it...

Subject: RE: What not to call a band
From: banjoman
Date: 05 Oct 09 - 11:14 AM

I once played in a band called "The British standard Brown Ale & Black Pudding Band" Didn't get many gigs as they couldn't fit our name on their posters.
We later changed the the name to "Dis Band" which later evolved into The Old Trout Band which is still very active in Hampshire and the Southern counties

Subject: RE: What not to call a band
From: HuwG
Date: 05 Oct 09 - 01:56 PM

I knew some Chemistry students who formed a punk band named "Hoffman Degredation". It's a chemical process by which an organic amide is converted to an amine, and involves the loss of a carbon molecule from the alliphatic carbon chain. <yawn>

By the time they had explained the origin of their name, for all I know with chalk and overhead projectors (no PowerPoint presentations in those days, thankfully), the gig was almost over.

Subject: RE: What not to call a band
From: Anne Lister
Date: 05 Oct 09 - 05:02 PM

I always wanted to be in a band called Lemming Moran and the Tarts. It didn't happen.

Subject: RE: What not to call a band
From: bubblyrat
Date: 05 Oct 09 - 05:07 PM

Many years ago ,"Private Eye" magazine kept going on about a group called "Spiggy Topes and the Turds"....
            I rather liked that.

Subject: RE: What not to call a band
From: DPF
Date: 05 Oct 09 - 09:26 PM

I recently came across a heavy metal band in western Massachusetts calling themselves "Skillet".

Unfortunately, they looked serious. Very Serious.

I'm sorely tempted to let them in on the joke.

Subject: RE: What not to call a band
From: Bryn Pugh
Date: 06 Oct 09 - 07:35 AM

Farquanelle ?

Subject: RE: What not to call a band
From: Gedi
Date: 06 Oct 09 - 08:15 AM

how about "The Fold Arts Band"

Ged

Subject: RE: What not to call a band
From: Mooh
Date: 06 Oct 09 - 08:53 AM

Once, for a year and countless gigs, I played with a singer who chose to switch from his own name to a "band" name, in an effort to appear more democratic to the band. He was a tyrant either way. He named the band "By Special Appointment". Folks would approach us and ask what our name was and why the gig was by special appointment. Stupid name.

Some years later there was the band "...and the Penetrators", not related I believe to the many current bands with a similar name. All we got were drunken house parties and the like. Figures. I couldn't keep up to the level of partying anyway.

Peace, Mooh.

Subject: RE: What not to call a band
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 06 Oct 09 - 09:10 AM

I suppose The Nipple Erectors would be, at least, er, eye-catching on a poster.

Subject: RE: What not to call a band
From: GUEST
Date: 06 Oct 09 - 11:57 AM

The Glitter Band

Subject: RE: What not to call a band
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 08 Oct 09 - 05:36 AM

Prick up Your Ears!

Subject: RE: What not to call a band
From: Mr Red
Date: 08 Oct 09 - 11:47 AM

There is a shanty duo in Gloucestershire called the "Two Anchors".

Subject: RE: What not to call a band
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 08 Oct 09 - 01:05 PM

Some Minnesota Bands:

Front Porch Swingin' Liquor Pigs

Trampled by Turtles

Two Many Banjos

Pert Near Sandstone (Sandstone is a town in Minnesota)

Not from Minnesota, but I once met a busker who said he was a member of Shoot the Hostages. Oddly enough, the guy played good Irish fiddle, but you don't hear that in the band.

Subject: RE: What not to call a band
From: Rasener
Date: 08 Oct 09 - 01:31 PM

Too many posts to go and read at the moment.

has anybody done

R Souls

Dicky and the Condoms

Subject: RE: What not to call a band
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 08 Oct 09 - 02:35 PM

Karaoke

Old Skool Disco

Under 18 night.

Subject: RE: What not to call a band
From: Rasener
Date: 08 Oct 09 - 02:41 PM

Vin Garbutt

Subject: RE: What not to call a band
From: Willie-O
Date: 08 Oct 09 - 02:50 PM

If you're not in Canada, you probably don't know about the Polaris Prize, and that this year it went to veteran punk band Fucked Up.

Should have heard all the perorations of that name on the radio the next day...many (as in the case of mentions of another prominent Cdn band, Holy Fuck), called it "effed up". The CBC decided their announcers wouldn't say "Fucked Up" but that it was okay to run the sound clip "the award goes to...Fucked Up."   

There's also another long-running outfit in Toronto "Bunchafuckingoofs". BFG if you like.

Makes me sound pretty tame, which is how I like it.
I used to be in the Seldom Heard, after which I swore off self-fulfilling prophecy in band names. I like The Media Darlings better.

W-O

Subject: RE: What not to call a band
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 08 Oct 09 - 06:27 PM

Vin Garbutt is not a band, it's a speech writer.

Subject: RE: What not to call a band
From: Mooh
Date: 08 Oct 09 - 09:12 PM

There sure are a lot of singers named Kara Oke, or one that gets around like VD, so I wouldn't choose that name.

Peace, Mooh.

Subject: RE: What not to call a band
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 09 Oct 09 - 05:09 AM

Juan Kerr and the Seamen

Subject: RE: What not to call a band
From: GUEST,Ian Gill
Date: 14 Oct 09 - 02:25 PM

I was a member of 'Les Mis and the PP.S' for a while.We weren't that bad actually! Very sadly in the 70's I was also a member of a band called 'Plughole' - who lived up to their name in terms of career progression...what not to call a band, indeed.

Subject: RE: What not to call a band
From: MikeofNorthumbria
Date: 14 Oct 09 - 06:47 PM

HuwG

>>I knew some Chemistry students who formed a punk band named "Hoffman Degredation"<<

Nice one Huw.

When I was a guitar-playing chemistry student many years ago, some friends and I talked about forming a band called "Al D. Hyde and the Ketones". Never got around to doing it, but I believe somebody else eventually used the name and achieved a modest success. Ah well, another career opportunity missed!

Other possible names for chemistry student bands might be "Bunsen and the Burners", "The Harvard Synthesis" , "Hell, Volhard and Zilinsky", or "The Green Yard Reagents". Or possibly not!

Wassail!

Subject: RE: What not to call a band
From: scouse
Date: 15 Oct 09 - 04:23 AM

I well remember in Southampton years ago there was a bunch of guys who called themselves the "Stinkin' Prongful." Sang with a few of them!!
As Aye,
Phil.

Subject: RE: What not to call a band
From: Bryn Pugh
Date: 15 Oct 09 - 05:17 AM

Since there is a thread about the Manchester Sports Guild folk club currently, who could forget Big John MacAtee's Baekelite Nipple Band ?

Subject: RE: What not to call a band
From: Black belt caterpillar wrestler
Date: 15 Oct 09 - 07:43 AM

We did think of renaming "Blind Panic" to "Bland picnic" for a vegetarian gig.

Subject: RE: What not to call a band
From: GUEST,Malcolm Storey
Date: 15 Oct 09 - 09:24 PM

There used to be a band called Blue Anchor up Middlesborough way and of course one of Vin Garbutt's early albums was called King Gooden! and the Watersons performed alongside the Rubber Band.

Subject: RE: What not to call a band
From: JesseW
Date: 18 Oct 09 - 02:38 PM

There's a filk group called Roadkill out there -- I'd be sort of afraid to hear them if they were on tour...

Excellent thread, BTW -- lots of guffaws reading it.

Subject: RE: What not to call a band
From: frogprince
Date: 18 Oct 09 - 09:46 PM

The wife and I spent a while yesterday at a nearby cider mill listening to "The Porta Potty Pickers". No lie. While I don't expect to see them on national television any time soon, they were more than good enough to put on a really enjoyable country-style show; respectable picking, respectable singing and harmonizing, and very diverse and well chosen repertoire spanning everything from stuff at least 80 years old to Guy Clark, Tom Paxton, and Garth Brookes. Just 4 guys from 50ish to 70ish having a lot of fun.

Subject: RE: What not to call a band
From: Luthier2b
Date: 18 Oct 09 - 11:43 PM

The band names that cam immediately to my mind were:
* Stage Dark
* Spot O'pot
* Mike Recker
* Barry Manillow
* Just Paroled
* Klezmer King Krimson
* Aunty Semite
* DOA
* Wrong Date
* Closed For Renovation

Subject: RE: What not to call a band
From: GUEST
Date: 19 Oct 09 - 05:02 AM

One of these days, I'm going to form a bluesy pub-rock band full of fat, balding middle-aged men.

We will be called Prostate.

Subject: RE: What not to call a band
From: Bryn Pugh
Date: 20 Oct 09 - 04:49 AM

A name like mine lends itself to parody.

My former flatmate, Greame, suggested Grim Spew and the Come Stains.

Subject: RE: What not to call a band
From: Jack Campin
Date: 20 Oct 09 - 07:37 AM

A young traditional band would be well advised not call themselves The Kiddie Fiddlers.

Subject: RE: What not to call a band
From: GUEST
Date: 20 Oct 09 - 08:50 AM

"We've All Slept With The Banjo Players New Wife"

Subject: RE: What not to call a band
From: GUEST
Date: 25 Oct 09 - 07:04 PM

anyone remember Pete Ness and the Four Skins?

Subject: RE: What not to call a band
From: GUEST
Date: 11 Feb 17 - 10:05 AM

From Southampton
JABB (just another bloody band)
Bruce Roberts had a band called Fester and the Vomits.

Subject: RE: What not to call a band
From: JHW
Date: 11 Feb 17 - 10:51 AM

'one of Vin Garbutt's early albums was called King Gooden'
and there was Shy Tot Pommie

Subject: RE: What not to call a band
From: Richard Mellish
Date: 11 Feb 17 - 03:37 PM

I'm surprised that no-one has mentioned The Otterby Band, so called because they "oughta be banned".

Subject: RE: What not to call a band
From: GUEST,Tom Mycock
Date: 12 Feb 17 - 05:52 AM

I play in a ska band, we used to gig quite regularly with Catch-It Kebabs, also a local ska punk band called Special Guests.

My own pet hate is bands with numbers and / or punctuation marks in their names, don't know why but it gets on my wick.

Subject: RE: What not to call a band
From: ced2
Date: 12 Feb 17 - 07:20 AM

Snotty and the Nose Pickers