The Crazy World of Arthur Brown
Vanilla Fudge
nevermind
1910 Fruitgum Company – a silly, strange name that was entirely emblematic of the “bubblegum pop” genre of the late '60s. They made it “big,” too, from the standpoint of three top-10 songs in that era.
Seem like the “made it big” qualification has been stretched pretty far, so I’ll throw in a nod to the groups from the various “Nuggets” compilations. The 4-CD set Original Artyfacts from the First Psychedelic Era, 1965–1968 is a treasure trove of strangely-named bands. Here is the track list
D’oh, that’s the one I was going to say! Even as I clicked into the thread though, I knew that the Dopers wouldn’t miss that one for two whole days.
In that case, I’ll go with Circle Jerks.
String Cheese Incident
The Atomic Bitchwax
Smoking Gives You Big Tits
The exclamation point in question has a mind of its own.
The band moe. is spelled with a lower case “m” and a period at the end. I’m sure it has been spelled incorrectly numerous times, especially with the period omitted.
I worked for an artsy media company that had rules like that for their name: All upper case with punctuation, and the number in the name has to be written out.
The director was adamant, and would police everything we wrote, as well as venues where our shows were being performed.
The minute he retired, the new boss said “That’s silly, how many of you are tired of that, and want to just spell the name normally?” it was unanimous.
See also: fun.
Buffalo Springfield, named after a manufacturer of heavy equipment.
Cream
The Animals
The Byrds
The Turtles
Two of my favorite newish (I know, they’ve been around for some time, but I’m old) bands:
King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard
The Psychedelic Porn Crumpets
I look forward to their rock opera adaptation of “Hamster Huey and the Gooey Kablooie.”
The Crucifucks
The Dayglo Abortions
The Sleepy Jackson. Supposedly named after a drummer with narcolepsy. But I can’t confirm that.
Wolcotts Rabbits foot Minstrels
Slightly famous back in the day (in the UK) were Half Man Half Biscuit and Crispy Ambulance.
Apparently Half Man Half Biscuit had a song including the lyrics “You’re going on after Crispy Ambulance”, sung to the tune of an infamous football chant of the time.
I’ll raise you your NADs and point to other bands in the UK grebo scene of the late 80s/early 90s - all with deliberately ridiculous band names:
Pop Will Eat Itself
Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine
Gaye Bykers On Acid
etc
OB