Acting on a suggestion from @fentonsteve, let’s talk about bands with terrible names. The ones that spring easily to my mind are :
Does it Offend You, Yeah?
I can’t get past the thought of a home counties-based Tarquin hyphen-hyphen in his late 20s, pretending to be edgy. I can hear the voice too.
5ive
No it’s not clever. It’s stupid.
…And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead
ain’t much cop either
…as lampooned by HMHB on one of their sleeves featuring fake albums. They include The Ducks with their… And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Bread.
I always thought there was a ‘the’ missing from that name. I kind of stumble over it in my head, like a line of poetry that doesn’t scan properly. I feel as if it should be And You Will Know Us By The Trail If THE Dead.
Panic! At The Disco were apparently very upset when they’re name appeared in print without the exclamation mark.
Mike Campbell & The Dirty Knobs. I mean, Mike Campbell. Ridiculous.
Great band though.
In Australia, a new(ish) group called…
Bad//Dreems
Only a text-based internet (rather than a word of mouth gig scene) could give rise to that name.
Jealous Nostril
Johnny Borrel’s new band. I thought Razorlight was a pretty naff name for a band but he’s excelled himself with this one.
Yeah, this one. I thought it was a spoof when I first heard of it.
Still, they’re just as god made them. Playing not a college town near you.
We covered this topic on here in the past. My contribution was the mid-80s West of Ireland all-white reggae band called Too Much for the White Man.
Really!
Most names are a bit meh. They sound better when the records are great. Pigeon Detectives though?
!!!
The Beatles
XTC.
The Dukes of Stratosphear.
Dogs Die in Hot Cars. Saw them at Leicester Summer Sundae in 2004. I don’t think they lasted long.
tUnE-yArDs
Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs. (No I don’t have Tourettes…)
My understanding is that they originally planned to call the band Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs;
but were persuaded to drop the last one as it looked a bit silly.
On the gig poster I saw, they were listed as “Pigs X 7”.
Pigs (Seven Different Ones)
Chapeau!
Glasgowvegas
Not only a shit name they were a shit band too.
Glasvegas
Still shit, but not as shit
(Sir?!?) Michael Flabbycunt (sp?) went through a spell of calling his constituency Lichvegas, to drum up investment. Must have worked as there are 2 new record shops.
Bdrmm
Sht nme.
Anyone want to confess to their own band name follies? I used to be in a short-lived band called Domino Biscuit.
I was in a band that for five minutes was called The Natural Sponge Band
Honestly that’s actually not bad!
Far-Q
We thought it funny, never get out of the rehearsal room though – 2 or 3 house parties don’t count as gigs)
Others spoken about, but not chosen:
Dickie Heart & The Pacemakers
Wayne Kerr & The Tosspots
The Day Today had rapper ‘Fur-Q’ in one of their MTV-esque sketches, with his big hit ‘Uzi Lover’.
That RockTV had presenters ‘Harfin Tuport’ and ‘Suki Bapswent’, both admirable names to post under on social media. I’ve got a vague feeling that one of those names was on the Word blog.
Consider The Lilies. We described ourselves as “Southern Italy’s Most Punctual Boy Band”. (We were a trio in our 40s and one of us was female.)
I was also once in a band called Freeloader, and it became really annoying when the DITMH got really big (with DITM), because whenever I told someone our name they responded “Oh I’ve heard of them!” and I always had to patiently explain “No, that’s TOPloader not FREEloader you are thinking of”. I can’t decide if it was a good thing or a bad thing (and Freeloader itself isn’t that bad a name on its own actually).
The first band I was in, at age 16, was The Stairway Ultimatum. Cringe. Kind of The Milkshakes crossed with The Smiths. The second, at 21, was The Kilroys, a more Buzzcocky sort of Housemartins.
Rocky Intensity
and the Shellfish
Ray-zer & The Gillettes
Well, to be honest, if I were coining a band name today, it wouldn’t be the Legends of Tomorrow. That was a pre-Google / pre-TV thing/comic book of that name bit of self-deprecation in 1996. It seems we outlasted the TV thing (tortoise/hare), but Google is of course forever cluttered with those results. I was railroaded (by a great pal in the graphic design game) into letting a LOT website be created a few weekends ago. I reckoned I should just accept it because another friend, in the TV game, has decided the world needs a documentary about me/it, so at some point the general public will want to Google the name. Hey ho. https://legendsoftomorrowband.com/
The band I was in at uni was called The Keynesian Fixed Price Economic Model. Guess what course the two vocalists were pursuing? Later shortened to New Economic Model, to the joy of poster artists everywhere.
Before that I was in Paul and the Dynamics. I was a Dynamic.
A very old friend and a not-quite-so-old friend were Mr. E & The Imaginations.
John, the singer/writer and semi-competent guitarist, was Mr. E and Martin, the bassist, was The Imaginations.
Very occasionally there were 2 more Imaginations, on lead guitar and drums. Mostly they performed as a rather shambolic duo.
Hi Mike – Ive just found your post. I was 17/18 in Watford in late 70’s and Mr E and the imaginations were my fav band – I think I saw them at the pump house bottom of Watford high street, and saw them about 4 times with some younger woman who was really into them. Did John and Martin stay in the music business and have other bands as Mr e was a great band.
My bad band names I played in Dialetrix, The Chunder Shovelers and D’outre Tom T1.
Happy days
Just had a long conversation with Martin.
John is now retired and living in Cadiz.
Spence, their drummer, is in California now. He has a small studio there.
Martin is pretty much retired due to arthritis in his hands. He played a 4-hour studio session as a favour a few weeks back, depping in a friend’s son’s band, and his hands were really, really painful the next day.
He’s sold most of his gear now, but has kept two of his basses, including the fretless one he used with Mr. E.
Sold his old Fender Precision Bass for £4.5 grand and bought a ULEZ-compliant car with the proceeds.
Hi Mike, I’ve managed the convert a cassette to a CD with part of a Watford/Wimbledon gig they did as a four piece – plus I think some studio songs. I got the cassette from some young woman who was really into them. Would Martin value a copy of it if I could convert it to digital?
I have a record by a band called… “People WIth Chairs Up Their Noses.” Surprisingly perhaps it has never been played. This is it! https://www.popsike.com/Plays-with-MarionettesPeople-with-Chairs-up-their-Noses/113056155188.html
A. They were a metal band around in the pre-internet 90s.
The The.
Shed 7. Will this do?
Furniture. I love ’em, but is that the best future journo Jim Irvin could come up with?
Talking of otherwise eloquent and sensible 1980s singer-songwriters…
The Bible. What was he thinking?
Oh yes. A. I remember that.
See also CO.UK slightly later.
In the early 80s there was a band called Oxy and the Morons.
I always thought that was a really poor name for a band.
Jimmy the Hoover
Humpy Bong
Short-lived band formed by former child star and Bee Gees drummer, Colin Peterson, after he and the Brothers Gibb parted ways at the fag end of the 60s. Pretty sure they made it on to TOTP one week
I was one of the (air) guitarists, rhythm, I think, in my primary school playground band, the Walnuts. Peak career moment was playing a special gig for the headmistress, Mrs Purskie, in her office.
See, that’s actually not a bad name. I can see it up in lights…. The Walnuts…
For some reason I own a 10 inch by a group called I Know a Gondola Punter. It’s called ‘Oo Bang Jingly Jang’ and is on Plop Records. Where to start? I have no memory of why or when I bought it or what it sounds like.
My band in my final year at University (as it was so quaintly known back then) were called Block Capitals & the Bold Types. It was easily the best thing about us
I played bass for a university band named Free Beer. We played one gig in a pub. Chaos at the bar ensued. Did I mention we played one gig?
Apocryphal? True?
True – our debut (only) gig at the Granby Tavern, Reading, in early 1990, after a long winter of rehearsing in the basement of my digs, squeezed in between the gas boiler and wet washing. There was a block of flats opposite for student nurses at the Royal Berks, and we once had a rehearsal in our front garden when one of them had a birthday. The neighbours must have been delighted.
I sometimes worked at the Granby in the evenings as a gig roadie, and was told in no uncertain terms by the landolord not to pull any more stunts like that.
My first band when I moved over here was called The Fabulous Dixon Sisters – none of us were sisters. In fact, none of us were women.
One change of personnel (man overboard) and we became The Landcrabs, aka The Mighty Landcrabs. I pushed hard for Gigantic Land Crabs in Earth Takeover Bid – but saner voices prevailed. After a few years, we got bored with that and changed our name to Liebezeit, in a tribute to the Can drummer.
After a further change in personnel (one out, one in) we called ourselves Sweet Sweet Bulbs…
Car Seat Headrest.
Beat me to it
Society for Promotion of ExpeRimental Music – one gig at Southampton University – double bass, guitar, washboard, didgeridoo and banjo, We put more effort into the tie-dyed banner advertising it (which got nicked after the event) than into rehearsal. I have a feeling we got AMM or some such band to headline.
I feel Elbow must deserve a mention here. It’s such an unassuming name and has become so familiar now that you forget it’s ABSOLUTELY TERRIBLE.
It makes me wonder why some one word band names just work and others just don’t:
Elbow – bad
Air – good
Nirvana – bad
Queen – good
Ratt – bad
Cream – good
Oasis – bad
Heart – good
One word band-names, particularly indie bands, could make a whole thread on it’s own:
Ride – bad
Chapterhouse – quite good actually (though really bad)
Curve – bad
Bleach – mixed, but probably bad
Salad – awful
Slowdive – somewhere in-between, though tending to bad
Supergrass – good
Sleeper – bad
And many more I’ve forgotten.
Athlete.
Kornakova.
Shouldn’t Salad be mixed?
I think they were well dressed
Up!
I surely can’t be the only AWer who gets Air and Elbow mixed up
There’s a joke about arses in there, but of course I wouldn’t lower myself…
Thank goodness you’d be scraping the bottom.
I wondered what was going on in Liverpool in the late 70s, early 80s with band names like Echo and the Bunnymen, The Teardrop Explodes, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark and Frankie Goes to Hollywood. Good drugs I guess. It’s strange how a ridiculous name can become almost normal with familiarity (and making great music helps)
@Dai
The Teardrop Explodes was a caption in a Ray Lichenstein painting while the Echo from which E and the Bunnymen derived their name was an early drum machine of theirs.
Not sure about OMD but remember the NME used to have fun making anagrams of the band’s full name
TTE comes from a proper comic, not yer art muck..
Yes am aware. Unusual band names nevertheless
Sub-Mariner #40 (August, 1971) is the comic.
I say thee nay! ’twas Daredevil #77.
(Page 17, panel 2)
Two-part story, wrapped up in Sub-Mariner #40.
So twas sorry.
It could have been worse. McCluskey and Humphries were in a band called Hitlerz Underpantz at one point.
Re: 1980s Liverpool bands with funny names.
Let’s not forget Shambeko! Say Wah!
Not sure why Pete Wylie changed the name for every album more or less. Had a top 3 single as Wah! and then never used the name again to my knowledge
Spizz Energi, Spizz Oil, Athletico Spizz 80, The Spizzles. From Solihiull.
Teardrop Explodes is probably my favourite band name ever. Echo and OMD I give a pass to because I love them. Frankie less so. The Crucial Three, involving several members of the above (I forget which) works brilliantly as a piece of teenage hubris.
One of the Word podcast lot – Rob Alexander? – once mentioned a band called Piss in a Dead Boy’s Mouth which I wish I could unhear. You’re welcome.
I vaguely remember a photo article in Word of signs at Glastonbury plugging bands with awful names on the minor stages. As I remember my favourite was Not In The Face! (exclamation mark band’s own).
A New York Jazz-Punk trio called Headless Torsos, plus a later quartet version of the band with a vocalist, Screaming Headless Torsos.
I first read that as Headless Tossers, which actually works quite well for a punk outfit.
Anal cnut? Not an easy band to promote …
As were a Leeds” band in the nineties Scuzzf*ck.
F*ckbuttons, anyone?
Bare Naked Ladies weren’t built for the Google age.
see also The Vibrators
Butthole Surfers
Clive Pig & the Hopeful Chinamen…… Different times…
I went to primary school with Clive Pig’s younger brother, Richard.
“Pig” was short for Piggott.
Surprised we’re this far down the thread with no mention of The Presidents of the United States of America. I mean, really?
A Flock of Seagulls name and haircut.
Though I believe they’ve turned nasty lately.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-67104820?fbclid=IwAR2gNRQZ1jws5kJQgh1DdfCJ8H7TmhgJTVDPVjs22mmguuFq-mjlw3KWjks
Wet Leg – I always imagine a dog relieving itself.
Oh I forget about that one. Yes, truly dreadful. But in a way it works, as it got me curious to listen to them to find out what kind of a band would call themselves that. (I shouldn’t have bothered: arch, arty, indie guitar pop, nothing special).
There was that band that just had a squiggle for a name, which was supposed to be pronounced “Freur”
https://www.allmusic.com/album/get-us-out-of-here-doot-doot-mw0001788645
Featuring the two geezers who went on to become Underworld. I really liked them, and bought all their records, including the Holland-only second album on import.
Named Freur by an audience vote on The Tube, if I remember. The squiggle referred to by Sounds as “Elephant with a stick of Rhubarb”.
Them
The Who
The The
My god
THe Moors Murderers
Gay Dad
My Dad is Dead
English Teacher
The Circle Jerks
Pissed Jeans
Just remembered another one. I’ve probably missed it up there ⬆️ though.
The Music
Bit of a soft spot for the album though
There used to be a punk band called The Velvet Underpants. Actually that’s quite a good name.
…as in Hugh Reed and The Velvet Underpants?
Sultans Of Ping F.C.
Where’s Me Hamper?
theaudience (and, for bonus irritation points, written just like that). Still, it did give us the rhombus-faced, gazelle-legged, cast-as-Catwoman-in-a-superior-universe, Sophie EB. Miaow!
American blues-rockers, The Record Company.
Probably championed by Garry Bushell, “Oi!” band Angela Rippon’s Bum
Smashing Pumpkins.
Are they terrific pumpkins or are they pumpkins in the art of being broken??
This just in: Psychedelic Porn Crumpets, of Perth, Western Australia.
Sydney punk band The Slugfuckers didnt seem to get much media coverage.
A quadrifecta (sp?) of crap names…
Extra Dollop, followed by Floater and The Won’t Flush.
👏👏
Just looked up terrible band names.
Among them was Penis Flytrap, I can’t decide if that’s brilliant or terrible.
It’s brilliant surely?
Talking of brilliant.
Brilliant. Not such a brilliant name maybe
The world of Industrial/EBM seems to have more than its fair share of rubbish band names. I give you.
Apoptygma Berzerk
Cultivated Bimbo
E_Rection
Fektion Fekler
X-Marks The Pedwalk.
Cat Rapes Dog
Genital A-Tech