Thursday, June 28, 2007

What's in a Name?

Posted by Matt Sullivan on Thu, Jun 28, 2007 at 10:14 AM

There is a fairly large pool of Nashville bands with whom I am familiar in name only. I see their names often, but, for whatever reason, I just haven't heard them yet. Sometimes it's because the name is really bad. Sure, there are tons of great bands with awful names—remember Archers of Loaf? At the same time, it's just hard to get excited about a band called Radical Face. With this in mind, I present to you my list of the worst band names associated with Nashville.

Disclaimer: I have a relatively long history of playing in questionably named bands. That fact alone either discredits my list entirely or qualifies me as a sort of bad band name expert. Hard to say.

Her Death Was So Silent
Just what metal needed, more misogyny.

Hail to the Keith
Should've gone with Bowin' to the Lowen. Too late now.

Tigers Con Queso
Tigers with cheese? Is this some sort of inside joke? If so, this is the worst kind of inside joke—one that doesn't include me.

Cantasy Famp
Ducking fumb.

The Nobility
Jetpack was an awesome name. Simple, straightforward and one word, which means that, after 50-plus years of rock and roll, of course the name's taken. The Nobility is also simple, straightforward and short, but for some reason nobody had already jumped on that one. Wonder why that is.

Look What I Did
I'm guessing you booked a show before naming your band.

F.U.C.T.
The singer's initials are A.S.S. He's phenomenal at arcade games.

JEFF
I guess it's clever if you're escaping Internet piracy along with, you know, all of the Internet.

The Cry Room
Just because I know what an actual cry room is doesn't make it sound any less lame.

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Comments (39)

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You should look at some of Charleston, SC's band names:

Swyrl
Spunjwurthi
Outformation

Consider yourself blessed.

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Posted by carligula on June 28, 2007 at 10:27 AM

Outformation! HA!

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Posted by Matt on June 28, 2007 at 10:29 AM

Imagine Asians, Matt.

Now, imagine a band with the name "Imagine Asians."

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Posted by Steve H. on June 28, 2007 at 11:05 AM

Oh man, you're right. How did I forget about them?

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Posted by Matt on June 28, 2007 at 11:13 AM

Come on, Matt. You're not going to list the badly-named bands you were in? Not fair.

I'll start. My first band was called Liquid Diet

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Posted by Brian on June 28, 2007 at 11:14 AM

Yeah Imagine Asians is bad, Atomic Blonde is gay, & anything that has the word SUPER, STAR, or MODEL in it is equally revolting.

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Posted by whoa on June 28, 2007 at 11:23 AM

Let's go ahead and list all of Brian's terrible bands names:

Drywall
National Biscuit Company
Pink Mongoose
Three Hit Combo

Am I forgetting any? I'm still upset you never used my suggestion of Spankrag.

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Posted by carligula on June 28, 2007 at 11:24 AM

Whoa, you think SUPERdrag is/was a bad name? I disagree.

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Posted by carligula on June 28, 2007 at 11:26 AM

This isn't about me, Brian.

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Posted by Matt on June 28, 2007 at 11:29 AM

I retract SUPER.. There are plenty of decent band neames with SUPER..
Superchunk, Supersuckers, and Superdrag.

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Posted by whoe on June 28, 2007 at 11:32 AM

haha, my friend's ex is ryan from her death was so silent.

gotta say i'm not a fan of happy birthday amy's name. good band, bad name.

besides, we all know totally snake is the best local name.

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Posted by Slick Dick on June 28, 2007 at 11:35 AM

OMG! All of these a dreadful band names..

SoulShift
Ninth Day Sin
Guns-A-Go-Go
Livin' With Jack
Lee Harvey Griswold
xiii rizing
Bloodshot Fury
MONOLIATH
CHRISTINE
Destroy by Design [
O'Malley's Alley
RETURN TO SELF
Atomic Blonde
Chest Rockwell ]
Deadsun
Disarray
life in the sky
Point of Origin
Commander
Adrenaline Theory
Piranah
3minutes to live
Autumn Cross

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Posted by wee-whoa on June 28, 2007 at 11:38 AM

two bad bands i was in...

herpes milkshake
beanwagon

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Posted by ethan on June 28, 2007 at 11:40 AM

I haven't heard of most of those.

And Totally Snake rules.

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Posted by Matt on June 28, 2007 at 11:41 AM

BeanWagon is good;)

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Posted by whoa on June 28, 2007 at 11:41 AM

don't even THINK about capitalizing beanwagon. it HAS to be all lowercase.

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Posted by ethan on June 28, 2007 at 11:52 AM

I always wondered about Black Magic Markers. Is that a joke? My irony meter is broken these days, but I'm hoping so.

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Posted by b on June 28, 2007 at 11:56 AM

My first band was The Magneetos. 'Nuff said about that. Among the other names we considered: "Band...James Band" and "The Banned." I also played a few shows with a friend's band called Last Visible Dog.

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Posted by Jack on June 28, 2007 at 11:58 AM

I'm sorry, but "Band...James Band" would have been pretty kick-asstic

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Posted by Slick Dick on June 28, 2007 at 12:03 PM

Hmmm...now I do a search and see there's a record label in Providence RI called Last Visible Dog. And when I played with the band Last Visible Dog, we lived in Providence. But that was 25 years ago... hmmmm... wonder where that label got its name....

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Posted by Jack on June 28, 2007 at 12:04 PM

Other good bands with "super" in their name: Supergrass, Super Furry Animals...both great in spite of their bad names. Another band great despite horrible name: Gorky's Zygotic Mynci.

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Posted by Andrew J. Smithson on June 28, 2007 at 12:19 PM

well. i guess since i'm takin' it, it's cool if i dish some out...

My Relationship with Gravity

The Process of Moving

The Most Amazing Century of Science
(seriously, are you guys just grabbing random library books and stealing their titles?)

Clist (seriously. that just sounds gross).

Ligion (i only recently found out this was pronounced "lee-jun" and not "lig-eeun")

The Lonely Planets (i seriously just couldn't come up with anything better at the time).

Meet Me in Montauk (we all know the rule about using movies less than 10 years old - personally i say it's 25).

Deadsun
Skullkin
Black Soul Choir
Not Before Noon (*cough*)
Biffs DeVille
(all these should go without saying).

and this is slightly off topic, but there's a band from like PA playing at rctkwn called The Devil Wears Prada... wtf?

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Posted by casio on June 28, 2007 at 12:25 PM

and if it makes you feel any better, TCQ isn't in on this joke either.

it was given to us upon demand by a fan unsatisfied with our previous name.

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Posted by casio on June 28, 2007 at 12:26 PM

My Morning Jacket...great band, terrible name.

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Posted by Lee on June 28, 2007 at 12:27 PM

The Oneders was a great name! Whatever happened to those guys?

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Posted by Wolfman on June 28, 2007 at 12:30 PM

I could list bad metal names for days.

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Posted by Matt on June 28, 2007 at 12:38 PM

Damn you Casio!

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Posted by Matt on June 28, 2007 at 12:39 PM

This is fun! I was in Spaztic Colons and The Disgruntled Postal Workers Association. Yeah!

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Posted by Cash on June 28, 2007 at 12:57 PM

Hey, that Radical Face album is one of my favorites this year.

And the two guys that came on my show Tuesday night LOVED Tigers Con Queso; they thought it was the best band name ever. But they're also driving across the country in an ambulance.

I'm mostly getting sick of all the band names with "horse," "bear" or "wolf" in them.

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Posted by Janet on June 28, 2007 at 1:23 PM

I want to start a band called Diarrhea Puppy, who's game?

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Posted by poo-poo kitty on June 28, 2007 at 1:38 PM

Don't forget BANG BANG BANG *vomit*

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Posted by Sarah on June 28, 2007 at 1:40 PM

Bang, Bang, Bang does bite the big salami.

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Posted by poo-poo kitty on June 28, 2007 at 1:46 PM

ligion is worse

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Posted by daryl on June 28, 2007 at 1:47 PM

"I know I'm chiming in a bit late. Most Amazing Century of Science...MAC-OS...pretty clever.

Comment by Bingham (06.29.2007, 07:29 PM)"


i second this motion.
clever indeed.

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Posted by Mammoth on July 1, 2007 at 9:49 PM

also, not sure if any of you remember, but there was once a boro band called:
Yennis Pinwheel

yep.

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Posted by Mammoth on July 1, 2007 at 9:50 PM

Oh yeah, and while I love How I Became The Bomb...their name is an atrocity. Der Bomb Bomb Bomb was much better. Murkier. German-ier. Or something.

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Posted by Andrew J. Smithson on July 2, 2007 at 10:17 AM

in japan there is an entire industry devoted to creating meaningless names for products,i.e "datsun"
the ideal name is supposedly one or two syllables, and the word begins and ends with vowels.
on a personla note, i think "tigers con queso" is brilliant, the absurdity of juxtaposing an animal which could eat you with food is hillarious, not mention it is in two languages!

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Posted by wiggle puppy on July 3, 2007 at 9:03 AM

We played with a band from Evansville once called "The Pre-Delorian Doc Browns" -horific

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Posted by Eric on July 10, 2007 at 7:58 AM

Not bad... Not bad.

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Posted by 334.5 on November 11, 2008 at 5:19 PM
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