Some rock and roll bands have had really strange names. This probably started in the mid 1960’s and continues to this day. Consider bands such as “the Electric Prunes”, “the Strawberry Alarm Clock”, “Spooky Tooth”, “Fever Tree”, “Liquid Smoke” - all from the 1960’s.
Other weird band names - “Sniff ‘n’ the Tears” (late 1970’s), “Wall of Voodoo” (1980’s), “Romeo Void” (1980’s), “Urge Overkill” (1990’s).
One band in the 1990’s even went so far as calling themselves “The The”.
It might be fun to see what other names the Message Board “Dopers” can post. Please try to pick bands that at least have had some degree of success. Don’t post bands that your cousin formed for 1 week with some neighborhood kids and then split up.
This should be fun. Let’s not have this thread die a quick death.
Foo Fighters
Some favorites from The Book of Rock Lists:
Ultimate Spinach
Bubble Puppy
The Charging Tyrannosaurus of Despair
Truman Coyote *
Frumious Bandersnatch
Kesus Christ and the Nailknockers
Lothar and The Hand People
The Only Alternative and His Other Possibilities
The Time Being *
- I REALLY like these
Moby Grape
Dan Hicks and the Hot Licks
Bubble Puppy
Commander Cody and the Lost Planet Airmen
Canned Heat
Vanilla Fudge
Captain Beefheart
Them
Conqueror Worm
1910 Fruit Gum Company
Steam
Status Quo
The Fugs
Breaking the rules a bit, but a band that used to play in my college town …
Paul Bear and the Mortitions
I always thought “Blue Oyster Cult” was a real strange name. Or “Zodiac Mindwarp and the Love Reaction”
Toad the Wet Sprocket
The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band
13th Floor Elevators
Free Beer (actually quite practical – they were a bar band and their name tended to draw crowds, for some reason)
Flash and the Pan
It’s a Beautiful Day
The Presidents of the United States of America
The Flying Lizards
The Anemic Boyfriend
Soft Machine
They Might Be Giants
High On Fire
Jack Off Jill
Queens Of The Stone Age
…And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of The Dead
Man Or Astroman?
Stone Temple Pilots
Spiral Architect
Dillinger Escape Plan
Theory of a Deadman
Bif Naked (An individual, not the band, but…hey.)
The Butthole Surfers
When I lived in LA there was a frequent double-bill of a couple of local bands: Drive Thru Jesus and Cole Slaw and the Baked Bean Band. Never failed to raise a chuckle.
? and the Mysterions
Neutral Milk Hotel
Stanford Prision Experiment
Smart Went Crazy
Porcupine Tree
…And Oceans
Two major early-to-mid-nineties Israeli groups:
Carmella, Gross & Wagner (Note: none of the members of the group were named Carmella, Gross or Wagner).
Dr. Casper’s Rabbit Show.
picketywitch
when people were shorter and lived near the water
gibbo’s mishap
speewah rouge (my brothers band. hey, they released an EP)
Two bands did, actually–at the same time.
afghan whigs
Some wonderful Japanese ones here:
http://www.harmful.org/homedespot/japanweb/BANDNAMES.html
My favourites:
Lump of mind
Anarchy Condom
And of course, the net is full of amusing band name generators:
http://www.elsewhere.org/cgi-bin/bandname
Foo Fighters was the name given by WWII pilots to "UFO"s seen outside their planes. Naturally, most sites in a web search now turn up pages about the band, but I managed to find this.
I don’t think anyone’s mentioned The Flaming Lips.