So Peter, Paul and Mary were an early indie band? 
The Electric Prunes were 1965, which seems to be at the early end of the psych era…
When you started to get old. 
The first band name I remember hearing and thinking it was weird was Smashing Pumpkins.
Nothing before that even pinged on my radar as odd. All those weird band names from the Sixties? Well, it was the Sixties. They were supposed to be out there, because they were probably stoned at the time.
I have no idea what is about Smashing Pumpkins that struck me was weird. It just did.
I give the nod to Them, which formed in April 1964. They’re the first group I know of who didn’t use a “The” or a person’s name, however tortured the form. If you want to get really nitpicky, there were a few groups of The Four Seasons variety which dropped the “The” and went by Four Seasons. I don’t remember the exact names, but I’ve found them in the past. I don’t count them because the number reflected the people in the band. I’m not familiar with Feathers and Frogs but I’ll bet they were two guys, one going by “Feathers” and the other by “Frogs.”
Them has it all, though. Abstract, oddball, and poking the adults’ eyes with their Otherness. (Like The Who, The Troggs, The Kinks, and the other “we are the monsters the papers are talking about” names.) And homage to a movie poster, better than Frankie Goes to Hollywood or 10,000 Maniacs. Who wouldn’t want to see “Them” in 1964? It may be the best band name of, um, them all
I remember watching a quiz show (Tic Tac Dough?) with my mother while eating dinner when I was 13 or 14 (mid 70’s). The question was who was the last of the “Red Hot Mamas”. Sophie Tucker was the answer and Mom asked me if I ever heard of her. I said “No, and I never even heard of the band”
When they started naming themselves after places, IMO.
One of the groups I drummed for during my high-school days had the name, “The Lighthouse Tavern”. That was a weird name.
All of us started off with the name, “The Auroras”, and after that and inbetween, I fronted my own group (a la Dave Clark) called “BC (Bill Craig) and The Cavemen”, and yeah, our Moms made us wear fake fur stuff made to look like we’d just killed a Mammoth. That lasted a year and that was it, even though we had a rockin’ version of “Alley Oop”.
“Manhattan Transfer”, I always thought was a weird name for a group, but lemme tell ya’, their sound more than made up for that stupid name.
And doesn’t that make sense?
Name your group whatever you like, and if your music is unique enough, we’ll get used to who you are, and that’s just my humble o.
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Back in the early 90s when double and triple non sequitur band names became the norm (Stone Temple Pilots, Smashing Pumpkins, Porno for Pyros, Big Audio Dynamite etc.) there was a page in the first Beavis & Butthead book in which you could make up your own band name by choosing from two or three columns of words. I made a quick little Visual Basic app that would do it for you. My favorite was always Satan’s Frogurt Boner…
Pitchfork Abortion
Wombstretcha
Pornstore Janitor
(all real bands)
Probably won’t see THOSE guys at any “Sweet 16” Party!
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I always thought it interesting how the band name changes the view of the band as an entity: ‘The Somethings’ makes the band into a collection of somethings – i.e. each member is a something, and they have assembled together for some reason, thus creating ‘The Somethings’. However, if the band is just named ‘Something’, it becomes much more of a thing in itself, gets a unique identity apart from the members that comprise it. ‘Something’ has an almost Platonic existence of its own apart from its members, while ‘The Somethings’ only exists because of individual somethings grouping together. For what it’s worth.
I don’t know how odd it is, but I hate the band name Matchbox Twenty. It’s so juvenile. It doesn’t fit.
I was quite amused when The The hit the scene.
One early example of a weird band name (of a guy and band that made really weird music) that hasn’t been mentioned yet is Sun Ra And His Arkestra, alternatively sometimes going by the names of Le Sun Ra and his Arkestra, Sun Ra and his Solar Arkestra, Sun Ra and his Myth Science Arkestra, Sun Ra and his Astro Infinity Arkestra and Sun Ra and his Intergalactic Arkestra. This was in the mid- to late fifties.
It doesn’t 
No love for Anal Cunt?
Well, not in my opinion. I love their music and don’t find it juvenile, but the name of the band is a toy car.
Do you find their music juvenile?
Actually, the 182 was added because there was another band named Blink, so it probably was chosen at random.
I’ve heard that Darius Rucker doesn’t like to be called “Hootie,” but “Hootie and the Blowfish” is a weird name to pick if he’s opposed to that.
I wonder how many times people have seen Ian Anderson and yell, “Hey, Jethro!”