Origins of Band Names
 

Interesting stories behind band names.

Mr. Bungle were so called because when touring in the UK with Faith No More, Mike Patton became obsessed with watching reruns of the UK children's TV show Rainbow, which featured the character Bungle. They had to add the Mr. after being threatened with legal action by the producers of the show.

The Aints
Ed Kuepper's band from the 90's, a play on the name of his old band The Saints. So called because Kuepper wasn't happy that Chris Bailey had continued using the name The Saints after Kuepper had left and the original band broke up. Also The Aints started out as a Saints cover band.

Black Sabbath took their name from an eponymous horror movie that had Lidia Alfonsi and Boris Karlos in it.

Everything But The Girl.

When the duo were dragging their demos from record company to record company, an exasperated Ben watt fnally lost his temper when one record company owner seemed less than impressed. "What DO you like about the band?", he screamed. To which the man replied, "Everything but the girl, she's pig ugly and HAS to go".

They adopted the name in defiance.

Pet Shop Boys - Guess?

Similar origin to that of the less successful Bum Boys I believe.

slowdive - they claim it came about in a dream, NOT the siouxsie song.
my bloody valentine - taken from a horrible b-movie
hole - from medea "there is a hole that pierces right through me"

thats all i can think of

oh, sonic youth = sonic smith + big youth

they kept hamsters up their arseholes

richard gere

Mr. Bungle is a character in old children's safety and health videos.
They would show them on Pee Wee Herman's HBO special, before Pee Wee's Playhouse . It is called LUNCHROOM MANNERS and the kid was called MR. BUNGLE

There was also a porno called Sharon's Sex Party which had a character called Mr. Bungle, and whence they got the quotes and soundbites for their songs off thweir first album, where she says "Oh Mr, Bungle, you smell so bad but you fuck so good."

Fred "Sonic" Smith, plus Big Youth, regaan Youth, New Youth, and countless other (blank) Youth named hardcore bands

kthanks mr. know it all

The Smiths - name chosen in direct contrast to the bombastic and stupid and florid "New Romantic" music band's names, like Orchestral manouvers In the Dark, Modern English, Spandau Ballet, etc. Smith being the single most common english name.


(BTW, I consider the current Emo scene more descended from these old 80's brit fops than from anything punk)

I love sonic youth :)

Lunchroom manners
http://youtube.com/watch?v=2s7X5-Drctk

the puppet is Mr. Bungle I see.

That's a bit dull.
I always thought that they had named themselves after Myra Hindley's sister's family.
It's an easy assumption to make. There are a lot of references to the Moors Murders in their first album.

it was not dull in context
so many stupid fucking shit bands with stupid fucking shit names coming out of england in the late 70's early 80's
Gene loves jezebel anyone?

Girls Against Boys

...it sounded cool.

The Pixies, like a lot of bands, named themselves by flipping thorugh a book and stopping at random, with their finger on the page. It read "Pixies"

Scissor Shock.

I got this from an article I was reading in study hall about bad haircuts in cosmogrrl... the teen version of cosmopolitan. Anyway, scissor shock means "to get a bad haircut". I looked up "scissor shock" in google and there wasn't a single web page found, which shocked me. So, I decided it'd be a perfect band name, and now when you look it up on google 99% of the matches are the band...

The Butthol Surfers played aruond 6-10 gigs under all sorts of names, with the idea that each time they played they would ahve a different one, but the night they played under the name Butthole Surfers was the first they got paid, so they kept it.

scissor shock is a great name. you don;t know what to expect from a name like that!

i thought they were still thinking of a name, and they had a song called butthole surfers, the announcer at the venue didnt know what the fuck to call them so he was just like, "heres the butthole surfers" and it stuck, u cud just as easy be right, i just thought thats what i read in our band could be your life.

Ok, not a band name but Warhol's ''Exploding Plastic Inevitable'' show, which featured The Velvet Underground, was named by Paul Morrisey by picking some random adjectives off an article about Bob Dylan.

And Nico is an anagram of ''Icon''. I can't remember if she was baptised with that name by either Warhol himself or Billy Name.

did not know that

as far as the butthole's go, they tend to give different stories depending on whom you talk to and on what intoxication they may have been on.

I know Paul Leary said that his granmother thought their name had something to do with inner tubing down the river!

what was the source for VU's name?
is it just a reference to the gay subculture then?
a movie?

actually, joey santiago picked random names because he liked the sounds of them, since he didn't fully speak english then. the second choice for their name was the follies.

---
whitehouse: named after british morality campaigner mary whitehouse and also the name of a popular porno magazine.

extreme noise terror: from a flyer advertising a discharge gig, the words were cut out from magazines.

sunn o))): after their amplifier of choice.


it's the name of an s&m book that tony conrad found in the street and lent to lou reed. they kept the name because it had "underground" in it, and wanted to be associated with the film current of that same name.

thanks!

The Follies! ha ha!

everyone knows that mudhoney is a russ meyer film right? Right.

i thought they were named after a charity shop in hull? or was that a joke?

xiu xiu/my bloody valentine/paris 1942/brainiac/probably more..
named after movies...

sun city girls
named after sun city, arizona.

secret chiefs 3
there were 3 of them. and they were chiefs.. and secret.

captain beefheart
named after don van vliet's uncle folding his testicles in a weird way and saying they looked like a big beef heart. alternately, don van vliet was told me by frank zappa that he had a beef in his heart against society.

...and the magic band
because they're "a magical band"! that's the actual explanation!!

Not a shop name, but a sign on the wall of a shop.

No idea how I know that, can't fucking stand them.

Mission of Burma- saw it on a plaque outside the Burmese Embassy in Boston, found it sounded murky.

Napalm Death- The members watched a lot of Vietnam movies

Young Marble Giants-from an art history textbook, describing Greek statues.

Black Flag- "sounded heavy"

Back Flag is what pirates use!

black flag also stands for anarchy and raymond pettibon thought it would be a good name to use.

isn't it roach killing spray?

as well.

lots of connotations for a very hit or miss band!

the pirate reference is the oldest one though.

Joy Division took their name from Yiehiel De-Nur's book ''The House Of Dolls'' which is about a group of Jewish women being used for pleasure by the nazi soldiers.