Band names: how far is too far?

[harmonicamoon]

I thought that Pussy Riot was over the top. But after seeing the names up thread it is quite lite.

Band names have changed a lot since The Beatles, Rolling Stones, Pacemakers, etc. But I enjoy the creativity of today’s band names.

[nearwildheaven]

@Accidental_Martyr

When Butthole Surfers played in Birmingham, AL in the 90’s the radio ads called them the “B-hole Surfers.”
An ex-GF was in an all-female band called Gash.

In the early 1980s, there was an all-female punk quartet called the Bush Tetras. Sounds like tropical fish, doesn’t it?

As for The Wallets, it’s a reference to female genitalia.

[nearwildheaven]

@DSeid

Bands choose names ultimately to help sell product.

Just before the first band broke wide open, Hootie and the Blowfish performed here in town with Toad The Wet Sprocket. Both bands have said on the record that had they known they would hit the big time, they would have chosen other names.

H&TB’s first record, BTW, was called “Kootchypop” after a late 1980s comedy routine where a black comedienne was talking about those high-cut women’s swimsuits, and said, “If you’re gonna wear one of those things, you’re gonna have to shave yo’ kootchypop!”

Several years later, KISS and Alice In Chains played here too. They also toured together in large part because both bands originally had the same name. As Gene Simmons said on the Larry King Show, “It was the four-letter word for sex.”

[nearwildheaven]

Regarding the OP: There was a band some years back called Teasing The Korean that got some regional airplay. Anyone remember them? Yes, the name was controversial, in large part because none of them were of any kind of Asian descent.

Also, in the mid 1990s, some Walmarts refused to sell a Goo Goo Dolls CD because of the cover; it featured a baby covered with blackberry jelly, and someone thought it looked like dried blood. Meanwhile, some upper Midwestern Walmarts carried an album by a band called Odlid! (the exclamation point was part of the band’s name). If you don’t get it, spell the band’s name backwards.

[Crafter_Man]

I have albums by The Crucifucks and Dayglo Abortions. Good stuff, actually.

And then there are album names that many consider offensive. Like Millions of Dead Cops by MDC.

[WordMan]

According the legend, Rick Rubin wanted the Black Crowes to have a different name:

Signing the band in 1989, a hilarious debate over a name change (label owner Rick Rubin wanted to rechristen the group “the Kobb Kounty Krows”) eventually led to the simplified Black Crowes moniker.

Yep - he wanted them to call themselves the KKK. The Black Crowes told him to fuck off.

[installLSC]

@nearwildheaven

Regarding the OP: There was a band some years back called Teasing The Korean that got some regional airplay. Anyone remember them? Yes, the name was controversial, in large part because none of them were of any kind of Asian descent.

As did the early 90s rap act Young Black Teenagers, which was all white.
Back to the OP, I’m really surprised there’s been such a controversy about Viet Cong (the band). Heck, one of the 80s premier punk bands was Agent Orange–a far more tasteless band name. I’ve seen ads for bands for AIDS Wolf and Zyklon B in Seattle over the years, and those names IMHO went too far.

[Chefguy]

@nearwildheaven

Also, in the mid 1990s, some Walmarts refused to sell a Goo Goo Dolls CD because of the cover; it featured a baby covered with blackberry jelly, and someone thought it looked like dried blood. Meanwhile, some upper Midwestern Walmarts carried an album by a band called Odlid! (the exclamation point was part of the band’s name). If you don’t get it, spell the band’s name backwards.

Nothing new there. The Beatles’ so-called “Butcher cover”, on the 1966 release of the Yesterday and Today album, featured decapitated dolls and the boys in butcher smocks. Capitol had to recall 750,000 albums and have them reissued. The authentic original versions that sold before the recall are worth quite a bit of money.

[DSeid]

Thing is there is a difference between intentionally vulgar as a means of declaring “out there” and knowingly offensive to a minority group as a means to declare the same.

Both appeal to certain demographics and can be part of marketing for the group and both will push away others. Vulgarity’s appeal is broader but sure The Cunt Rapers probably won’t get booked for certain venues and will get looked at for others. You choose that name being aware of that. And you are not shocked if some tell you your name sucks.

Yes sure some punk bands embraced some motifs just for the shock value. “Look how bad we are!” But the name Joy Division for example was not just naively chosen or for shock value even if most had no idea what their name meant and why it was chosen.

… Sumner, who went on to form New Order, another Hitler reference, acknowledges that it was the punk zeitgeist that enabled the band to consider such a “dodgy” name, because “it was acceptable to be unacceptable.” But outrage for outrage’s sake wasn’t the goal. “For me, it seemed to meet all the criteria we were looking for: our sound, our image, even the way the words looked physically on paper,” he writes, before adding that the controversial name might land them in hot water. “It didn’t mean we were Nazis or had any kind of sympathy with them, because we didn’t. … Now, in my more mature years, I probably wouldn’t pick it, because I know it would offend and hurt people, but back then, I was very young and well, selfish. Calling ourselves Joy Division was a bit mischievous.”

That may be his take, but naughtiness had nothing to do with Curtis’ decision to troll the story of the infamous block 24 at Auschwitz, writes his widow Deborah in “So This is Permanence.” The tormented singer-songwriter had always been a history buff. Deborah describes meeting him in 1972, shortly after he won school prizes in history and divinity. He showed her his black binder, divided into categories for “lyrics” and “novel,” and saw how serious he was about prose, poetry and his creative aspirations. They began dating and married shortly after. Deborah recalls how deliberately he chose every element in their home, particularly his writing room, where he’d retire every night, scrawling in a plume of smoke, burdened by the weight of history.
“Ian’s art was crucial to him,” she writes in the forward. “ He did not consider songwriting a mere commercial endeavor. So it was unsurprising he turned to darker, more serious subjects to inspire him. Not specifically the Holocaust, but war itself.”
Ian’s father had served in World War II, which may have led to his initial fascination, Deborah maintains. But it was his deep empathy for the suffering of others that allowed him to identify with Holocaust victims. It’s fair to say he was also morose, a quality underscored by his deep drone of a voice. But it was Curtis’ sense of compassion that enabled him to come up with the relentless lyrics of “No Love Lost,” …

In comparison Viet Cong’s rationale? None apparently. Just ignorance.

One thing that they never intended to become a statement is the band’s name. They took it from Wallace’s offhand description of Flegel bouncing around while playing, and “kind of shooting his bass like a gun. I said: ‘All you need is a rice paddy hat and it would be so Viet Cong.’ We stopped on that sentence and thought it was a good idea…”

“…and now we get hate mail at every single fucking show,” concludes Flegel. “It’s turned into a thing. I never thought we’d have to explain ourselves to so many people.”

They say the idea that the name could be seen as a negative racial stereotype never crossed their minds. “The thing is, there are zero political connotations,” says Wallace. “We just honestly thought it sounded good and that it gives some imagery that matches our music in terms of it being explosive and dark and kind of going all over the place.”

“Maybe it’s a terrible band name,” adds Flegel, “but, if anything, I’ve done the research and I know way more about the history of that now than I did when we chose it. There’s a lot of darkness and a lot of terrible things which aren’t glorified in all the Vietnam movies.”

Gang of Four are also in contrast. They set out to be a political band, a group of pretentious leftist intellectuals (more Marxist than Maoist to be sure) who thought that the political reference both sounded good and was an edgy reference to their very leftist politics. And I do not believe that too many Chinese in the West have seen the name as offensive or hurtful to them.

[Chronos]

Both sides are in the right. The band can choose to call themselves whatever they want, and the public can choose whether or not to go to their shows. Either side can use the other’s decisions as one factor in making their own, and either side can change their decision.

[buddha_david]

Pearl Jam sounds innocent enough until you realize it’s a reference to semen. The band denies this, however.

[Horatio_Hellpop]

@buddha_david

Pearl Jam sounds innocent enough until you realize it’s a reference to semen. The band denies this, however.

They credibly claim it’s a basketball reference.

[Horatio_Hellpop]

To quote the guy from Spinal Tap, “People forget that it also means ‘a female dog.’”

[TBG]

If KISS had remained FUCK they probably wouldn’t have gotten to team up with Scooby Doo.

[Lamia]

@buddha_david

Pearl Jam sounds innocent enough until you realize it’s a reference to semen. The band denies this, however.

@Horatio_Hellpop

They credibly claim it’s a basketball reference.

Members of Pearl Jam told a few different stories over the years about the origin of the band’s name, but in a 2006 Rolling Stone interview revealed that there was really no meaning or interesting story behind the name. They just needed a name and picked two words:

@Rolling Stone

[Eddie Vedder] concedes that another oft-told tale is less accurate: that the name Pearl Jam came from Vedder’s great-grandmother Pearl, who, he used to claim, was married to an American Indian and was in the habit of making preserves spiked with various hallucinogenics. His great-grandma really was named Pearl. The rest is, indeed, “total bulllshit.”

Told of Vedder’s admission, Ament and McCready seem relieved. They cough up the true – if less romantic – tale behind the band’s name. Brainstorming in a Seattle restaurant to come up with something, anything, to replace their original name, Mookie Blaylock (inspired by the NBA star), Ament came up with “pearl.” The band didn’t settle on the second half of its name until a 1991 trip to New York to sign a deal with Epic Records. Gossard, Vedder and Ament drove out to see Neil Young play Nassau Coliseum. “He played, like, nine songs over three hours. Every song was like a fifteen- or twenty-minute jam,” says Ament. “So that’s how ‘jam’ got added on to the name. Or at least that’s how I remember it.”

No cite, but I have read elsewhere that Vedder said the word “pearl” had a lot of positive associations for him (aside from being his grandmother’s name it’s the title of a Janis Joplin album and was the nickname of basketball player Earl Monroe), that it hadn’t occurred to him that it could be taken as a reference to semen, and that if he’d realized the band would soon make it big he might have given more thought to choosing a name.

I’m inclined to believe that “Pearl Jam” truly was not intended to be a smutty joke, because while plenty of bands do have names that are smutty jokes, Pearl Jam isn’t a band that’s ever been known for its ribald sense of humor.

[Nema98]

How about NY Niggers or Sharon Tate’s Baby. But those are on par with Dead Kennedys.

Some bands are underground and have think they have little chance of breaking big, so they stick with outrageous names. But once they become commercially successful, the names change.

Not offensive but Simple Minds used to be known as Johnny and the Self Abusers.

[even_sven]

I agree there is a difference between saying a bunch of bad words just to be offensive and choosing a name that is offensive to a single group. I think this group was brave to admit that they didn’t really think it through.

I think you have a right to name your band whatever you want, but most people don’t want to inadvertently name their band something that genuinely makes people feel bad (as opposed to just shocking the squares).

[drad_dog]

@Lamia

Members of Pearl Jam told a few different stories over the years about the origin of the band’s name, but in a 2006 Rolling Stone interview revealed that there was really no meaning or interesting story behind the name. They just needed a name and picked two words:

No cite, but I have read elsewhere that Vedder said the word “pearl” had a lot of positive associations for him (aside from being his grandmother’s name it’s the title of a Janis Joplin album and was the nickname of basketball player Earl Monroe), that it hadn’t occurred to him that it could be taken as a reference to semen, and that if he’d realized the band would soon make it big he might have given more thought to choosing a name.

I’m inclined to believe that “Pearl Jam” truly was not intended to be a smutty joke, because while plenty of bands do have names that are smutty jokes, Pearl Jam isn’t a band that’s ever been known for its ribald sense of humor.

I don’t believe it for a second. The explanations are vague and stretched way thin. I agree that they are a humorless group, but it’s not a funny joke.

[ChickenLegs]

Too far:

http://iowa.barstoolsports.com/files/2014/01/BeBWqNvIgAARa4q.jpg

NSFW

[HowSoonIsThen]

I quite like Viet Cong. The name fits their sound. But that’s probably because they sound like an 80s post-punk/industrial band and Viet Cong is exactly the type of name one of those bands would’ve given themselves.

As there goal does not appear to be to shock people, I think it’s best they change their name.

@Siam_Sam

I recall a punk band in the 1070s called The Very Idea of Fucking Hitler, but I don’t recall any outrage from Jews. Then there were (are?) The Dead Kennedys. Hard to believe a name like Viet Cong would be more controversial than those, but then Vietnamese communities tend to be tight-knit.

I think the difference is the Dead Kennedys makes reference to a couple of dead politicians. Viet Cong refers to a regime that killed million.

And the Dead Kennedys broke up years ago. There’s just a Jello-free tribute band floating around these days.

@Gatopescado

I find names that can’t be Googled, like “The The” or “News” to be offensive, 'cause I can’t find their shit to download for free!

I’m sure some smartass punk band has named themselves “Child Porn” or “How to construct a shoe bomb” to make typing their name into google risky.

@nearwildheaven

One of my ex-boyfriend’s favorite band names was The Wallets.

I didn’t “get” that until surprisingly recently. :smack:

I still don’t get it… I mean, I can think of a lot of possibilities, but none which strike me as obvious.