Band names...what were they thinking?

[JKL2000]

By GuitarGeek's guidelines, you'd think the Norwegian band Fruitcake would have a great name. But no.

[JKL2000]

My son just came up with a good name for a satanic metal band: Susej

[Progatron]

Epoch Of Unlight
Raft of Dead Monkeys
The Powers of Darkness Shall Rain Blood Upon This City for 500 Years
Natalie Portman's Shaved Head
!!!
These Arms Are Snakes
Smoking Gives You Big Tits
Cold Bearded Killers
Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs
Test Icicles
I Love You But I've Chosen Darkness
Grab Grab The Haddock
Oingo Boingo
Colostomy Baguette?
Dumpy's Rusty Nuts
Crispy Ambulance
The Goo Goo Dolls
Let's Get Out Of This Terrible Sandwich Shop
iwrestledabearonce
The Tony Danza Tapdance Extravaganza

[Czyszy]

I personally don't quite get these long misspelled band names, like: Zoundworks (why not Sound Works), Soniq Theater (why not Sonic Theater), Blank Manuskript (why not Blank Manuscript)

But anyway, the #1 prize goes to Soul Enema. It's just bad.

[Rarebird]

I personally don't quite get these long misspelled band names, like: Zoundworks (why not Sound Works), Soniq Theater (why not Sonic Theater), Blank Manuskript (why not Blank Manuscript)

But anyway, the #1 prize goes to Soul Enema. It's just bad.

Perhaps for internet searches, without getting to many unwanted results. Didn't Beatles start this b.t.w.?

[Sputnik]

I Love You But I've Chosen Darkness
Colostomy Baguette
Let's Get Out Of This Terrible Sandwich Shop

I personally don't quite get these long misspelled band names, like: Zoundworks (why not Sound Works), Soniq Theater (why not Sonic Theater), Blank Manuskript (why not Blank Manuscript)

They do it because there have to be 8,000 bands named Sound Works or Sonic Theater, so they try to get around that by tweaking the spelling.

Didn't Beatles start this b.t.w.?

It's a little different with The Beatles, who were trying to merge the idea of "beat," as in "beat music" or "Mersey Beat," with the insect, probably inspired by The Crickets.

Bill

[Rarebird]

They do it because there have to be 8,000 bands named Sound Works or Sonic Theater, so they try to get around that by tweaking the spelling.



It's a little different with The Beatles, who were trying to merge the idea of "beat," as in "beat music" or "Mersey Beat," with the insect, probably inspired by The Crickets.

Bill

You are right on that one, but I think some other groups ran with the idea in spelling the name from their group a bit different.

[NogbadTheBad]

I personally don't quite get these long misspelled band names, like: Zoundworks (why not Sound Works), Soniq Theater (why not Sonic Theater), Blank Manuskript (why not Blank Manuscript)

But anyway, the #1 prize goes to Soul Enema. It's just bad.

I think it's essential in the internet search age, I was trying to find a band called Perfect and have zero chance without additional info.

[Sputnik]

You are right on that one, but I think some other groups ran with the idea in spelling the name from their group a bit different.

Perhaps a few (The Monkees come to mind, who were clearly riffing on The Beatles), but I don't think the practice became common until most fairly obvious band names had been used up. I can't think of many bands in the 60s that did this, or even the early 70s. It seemed to really proliferate in the later 70s and 80s.

Bill

[Rarebird]

Perhaps a few (The Monkees come to mind, who were clearly riffing on The Beatles), but I don't think the practice became common until most fairly obvious band names had been used up. I can't think of many bands in the 60s that did this, or even the early 70s. It seemed to really proliferate in the later 70s and 80s.

Bill

Well, spelling a name differenly would help with searching on internet. Try to find The Who, or Yes without additional on internet.

[Sputnik]

Well, spelling a name differenly would help with searching on internet. Try to find The Who, or Yes without additional on internet.

We're talking about two different things. I was responding to the idea that The Beatles started, or at least increased, the trend of tweaking the spelling of a band name. I don't think that's really the case, but it may have been true of a few bands. I think the trend really started when the most common words or phrases had been used for rock band names. I think that started in the later 1970s, and proliferated in the 1980s, well before the internet.

I think bands tweaking the spelling of their names today may be an attempt to stand out on the internet, just as naming yourself "Let's Get Out Of This Terrible Sandwich Shop," may be. But that's not how it started, and I think many continue to use tweaked spellings as a way to employ common words and phrases in names, but still have a unique identifier. It's very common with local cover bands.

And FWIW, I just typed "the who" into Google, and The Who's website was the first hit I got. I typed in "yes" and the Yesworld website was the first hit. So those bands are actually pretty damn easy to find on the internet.

Bill

[Rarebird]

We're talking about two different things. I was responding to the idea that The Beatles started, or at least increased, the trend of tweaking the spelling of a band name. I don't think that's really the case, but it may have been true of a few bands. I think the trend really started when the most common words or phrases had been used for rock band names. I think that started in the later 1970s, and proliferated in the 1980s, well before the internet.

I think bands tweaking the spelling of their names today may be an attempt to stand out on the internet, just as naming yourself "Let's Get Out Of This Terrible Sandwich Shop," may be. But that's not how it started, and I think many continue to use tweaked spellings as a way to employ common words and phrases in names, but still have a unique identifier. It's very common with local cover bands.

And FWIW, I just typed "the who" into Google, and The Who's website was the first hit I got. I typed in "yes" and the Yesworld website was the first hit. So those bands are actually pretty damn easy to find on the internet.

Bill

How about The Byrds?

[Mister Triscuits]

Perhaps a few (The Monkees come to mind, who were clearly riffing on The Beatles), but I don't think the practice became common until most fairly obvious band names had been used up. I can't think of many bands in the 60s that did this

The Byrds, The Cyrkle, The Wilde Flowers, Frijid Pink

[Sputnik]

How about The Byrds?

What about them? As I said, it may have been true of a "few" bands. It wouldn't surprise me if there were bands called "The Birds" kicking around in the late 1950s/early 60s, so they did exactly as I suggested, they tweaked the spelling a bit to stand out. They may have also been influenced by The Beatles. So what. That's hardly an avalanche of bands doing this. Back then, they largely didn't need to, because if you called yourself "Sonic Theater," there probably weren't any other bands yet who'd come up with that particular combination.

Bill

[Sputnik]

The Byrds, The Cyrkle, The Wilde Flowers, Frijid Pink

Yeah, great. That's a few. The first three are incredibly common words or combinations, particularly for back then (Wild flowers), so I'd guess they were just trying to avoid duplication, even at this early stage. The last one is perhaps the most indicative that this was a "trend" of some sort, possibly inspired by The Beatles, but who really knows. Maybe they just thought it was groovy.

Bill

[Rarebird]

What about them? As I said, it may have been true of a "few" bands. It wouldn't surprise me if there were bands called "The Birds" kicking around in the late 1950s/early 60s, so they did exactly as I suggested, they tweaked the spelling a bit to stand out. They may have also been influenced by The Beatles. So what. That's hardly an avalanche of bands doing this. Back then, they largely didn't need to, because if you called yourself "Sonic Theater," there probably weren't any other bands yet who'd come up with that particular combination.

Bill

I didn't say there were many bands, but some bands decided to follow the Beatles in spelling their name different and yes, with the Beatles it was also some wordplay. I could also mention the Rattles.

And as was said before writing a name in a different way might be helpfull if you want to be found on internet. Not because there are many bands with simular names, but but because it might lead to finding things you are not looking for.

[Sputnik]

I could also mention the Rattles.

Why? That's not misspelled. They also pre-dated The Beatles, but later played with them in Hamburg. Kind of orthogonal to the question at hand.

[Halmyre]

Well, spelling a name differenly would help with searching on internet. Try to find The Who, or Yes without additional on internet.

Or even The The.

[Sputnik]

Or even The The.

Whose website is also the first thing to come up when you type "the the" into Google. Why do people think these bands are hard to find on the internet? They're not, and you don't need to type anything additional to locate them.

[moecurlythanu]

^ It's called "Hiding in plain sight."

[Sputnik]

^ It's called "Hiding in plain sight."

[Lopez]

I didn't say there were many bands, but some bands decided to follow the Beatles in spelling their name

I stopped your quotation at that point as it reminded me of the band the Beau Brummels. Whether purposefully or not, alphabetically their name follows the Beatles directly, so that in record stores back in the mid 60s, someone flipping through the Beatles records would find the Beau Brummels after the last Beatles record in the stack.

[rcarlberg]

The Beatles in fact stole the idea for their name from another Liverpool band quite popular at the time, who in fact did music quite similar to the Beatles. History has pretty well established that The Beatles were just a pale copy of the original, The Rutles.

[Burley Wright]

I think the original poster was talking about bizarre or disgusting band names,
3 of my (least) favorites are Butthole Surfers, Dumpster Juice, and Dogs Die in Hot Cars.

[TheH]

Lynyrd Skynyrd