The Who is another great simple name.
The Beatles.
ABBA for being an acromyn and a palidrone.
Well if we can include unsigned bands, I have to add Punch Drunk Alert (not to be confused with Punch Drunk) taken from the headline of a sidebar article in Omni Magazine. Also Blast Paris, and The Raunchettes.
Two cool band names, neither of which got famous, were Benzene Jag, from Hamilton, ON. They made at least one record (“Fuck Off 1984”), but try to find it now. The other had their name plastered all over telephone poles in Toronto in the mid-'80s, and is my candidate for best band name ever, Aural Sects.
More favorites:
They Might Be Giants
Derek and the Dominoes
The Strawberry Alarm Clock
The 13th Floor Elevators
Atomic Rooster
Was (Not Was)
If we’re talking about names of individual musicians, Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band wins hands down. In the album Trout Mask Replica, the band consisted of:
ZOOT HORN ROLLO: glass finger guitar, flute
ANTENNAE JIMMY SEMENS: steel-appendage guitar
CAPTAIN BEEFHEART: bass clarinet, tenor sax, soprano sax, vocal
THE MASCARA SNAKE: bass clarinet & vocal
ROCKETTE MORTON: bass & narration
DRUMBO: drums
Re: Better Than Ezra
My friend Ty once said on his radio show after listening to his first Better Than Ezra song…“If they are Better Than Ezra, then Ezra must REALLY suck.”
My Favorite Band Names:
Freddy and the Four Gone Conclusions
John Cougar Concentration Camp
REO Speeddealer.
The last two were changed due to lawyers and a lack of sense of humor from the artists.
Carry on.
Let’s not forget Kinky Friedman and the Texas Jewboys.
Not even with Jif and the Choosy Mothers?
Some names I like:
Moxy Früvous
They Might Be Giants
Deep Blue Something
Strawberry Zots
Some fake band names I like:
Taranchula
Gravel Fork
Mr. Hameye
And if you know where all those come from, you win a sweetie.
Great triple bill from the early days of British prog-rock, with three bands who realized that if you kept your name short, you could get it in really big letters on the poster:
Yes
Egg
If
Best. Name. Ever.
The Good:
? and the Mysterians
Humble Pie
The Grateful Dead
The Mothers of Invention
Velvet Underground
Lynyrd Skynyrd
The Bad:
Flock of Seagulls
Prince and the Revolution
The Amboy Dukes
10 CC
Whitesnake
The Ugly:
Hole
KISS
Creed
And the WTF?:
Archers of Loaf
Extra bad:
The Butthole Surfers
Gay Bikers On Acid (these guys were forced by both gays and bikers to change the spelling of their name to Gaye Bykers On Acid.)
Three of my favorite band names are/were local Minneapolis bands:
“The F**in’ Sht Biscuits”, “Flammable Jammies”, and “Free Beer”
Imagine having to promote the latter of the two bands…
If you know the reference, you’ll know it’s a great name.
In the UK, 10cc refers to the supposed average amount of male ejaculate. (It doesn’t matter what the actual amount is: people in the UK get the reference. So don’t argue.)
A few that I like that have not yet been mentioned:
Bare Naked Ladies
Duran Duran (gotta love a Barbarella reference)
The Flaming Lips
Radiohead
Reel Big Fish
Save Ferris
Led Zepplin
any my personal favorite band name ever which I am glad to see I get to be the first to mention:
Iron Butterfly
I just popped in to say I can’t stand the name “Butthole Surfers” along with the misspelled, numerically challenged lot. I probably hate a good number of others, because band naming is generally a messy business. Local band names I remember around town: Crystal Vibrations, Three-Way Stop, Three Speed, Broken English (My favorite local band name–alas gone). My brother is currently with a group in Georgia called “The Soundevils” which I think is a pretty cool name.
I tend to gravitate to band names that leave me thinking “cool” or something like that:
Creedence Clearwater Revival
Talking Heads
Dead Kennedys
Jefferson Airplane
Queen
Eurhythmics
The Who
Counting Crows
Plastic Ono Band
Led Zepplin
Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem
Blue Oyster Cult
The Sex Pistols
Wham! (I don’t think the exclamation point is optional)
Grateful Dead
There are so few good things to name a band – I wonder if we could develop a “Band Name” script (one from column A, one from Column B).
The Lovin’ Spoonful took their name from an old blues song that referenced the same thing.
I think one of my favorite names is The String Cheese Incident. I mean, doesn’t it just make you wonder? What exactly was the string cheese incident? Did it involve marinara sauce?
As for unsigned bands, Butterfat Mastermind is my fave name. It’s just…mellifluous. It sounds like it should mean something, but it just…doesn’t.
On the other side of the coin, Revolting Cocks is just too embarrassing to ask for in a record store.
Larry Mudd addresses this and The Lovin’ Spoonful in post 28 of thisthread. He links to this Snopes article too.
Actually though, heh, it was precisely due to associating a band name with Average Amount Of Ejaculate that made me put it in the “Bad” category.
I always thought it was a shame that the music of My Chemical Romance and Fall Out Boy is such trashy sludge, because I love the names. Actually, I feel that way about a lot of emo.
I think Death Cab for Cutie is a fantastic name for a band, personally. Don’t like the music though–I used to love the Postal Service and when I started listening to the guy’s other bands I realized that every song from all three (or however many he has now) was basically the same. YMMV.
The Who is a great name because they could’ve gone through an entire career without spending more than 20 seconds coming up with a name for any one album. And you know the first time you heard of them you played a little Abbott and Costello routine in your head. Admit it.
I like their super-Mod name The High Numbers a lot, but it was too Mod for them and they never released an album under the name.
I always liked Less than Jake too. And Yes and Asia are winners in my book, same to Electric Light Orchestra.
I think Average Amount of Ejaculate would be a great name, BTW. YMMV.