Sleater-Kinney. Damn good band IMHO.
And damn you for just barely beating me to posting this.
Ladysmith Black Mambazo (Not saying they are bad.)
Biggest place:
Manfred Mann’s Earth Band
John Denver. Seriously. His real name was Henry John Deutschendorf, and he took the stage name because of his love of the state.
Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes
Brownsville Station
Cypress Hill
This reminded me of the Oak Ridge Boys.
America
Hiroshima
China Crisis
Manhattan Transfer
Buffalo Springfield.
Rammstein, a German metal band and the name is of a town hosting a US air force base.
Actually the band say they are named after an airshow disaster which happened there, but it’s still a location.
Well, there’s The Tennessee Three of Johnny Cash fame and Nashville Brass for some close to my area. And for some people’s tastes they aren’t anything like crappy.
I can’t say I’ve ever heard Nashville String Machine so I’m not sure how they stack up in terms of crap. But at least they have a wiki page.
Motor City Five?
Bands that are entirely named after places tend to suck.
Bands where a place name is part of the band name are often good.
Many classical ensembles have names that are part place-names, such as the Berlin Philharmonic or the London Symphony Orchestra, for example. They don’t suck at all.
Do bands named after someone named after an imaginary place whose name is also a real place’s nickname count? I happen to like Mago de Oz (Wizard of Oz).
Triana’s name is more straightforward (a part of Seville). Half of Flamenco artists appear to be (nick)named after a place, although the only one coming to mind right now is Camarón de la Isla; I’m not much of a flamenco fan but dissing him to one is considered a Health Hazard.
You can also have people named after their own backgrounds, e.g. Tennessee Ernie Ford and Mississippi John Hurt.
An awesome cover of *Jim Dandy *was their biggest (only?) hit. Though I’m not familiar with the rest of their catalog, that song definitely didn’t suck.
And the rock band Manchester Orchestra definitely does not suck. Even though they are not classical, confusingly enough.
However, the name of the town is spelt Ramstein.
New Orleans Joymakers.
Yes, I agree. I should have been more clear about that in my premise.
The OP might argue that names like those don’t count, since they’re not just the name of a place, the way all the OP’s examples are.