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Worst and best band names you ever performed under.


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For me, best is hard to decide on but worst is an easy choice.

 

Worst - The Names. I played in that band in Louisville in the 1980's. The singers who had total control thought it was a cool name and I will admit that people around the city remembered it. But I always thought the name was an unimaginative cop out.

 

Best - Plastic Sam and the Flexibles. You had to be there. Around 1990 I was in a band that used a big ole DOS computer for drums, bass and extra keyboard and guitar parts. It was connected to a Yamaha drum machine, a TX7 for bass, and a couple of synths. Plastic Sam was the computer, and the Flexibles was taken from the 5 1/4 floppy disks that I stores the sequences on.

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This post edited for speling.

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Worst is probably Aynulspyew, a punk parady band that played 5-6 songs. Our songs were horrible.

We did get to open for one of the most popular local bands, I heard a radio announcer for the college station read the line up, she said "Anal Spew" and then went "whoops".

So it was worth it for that alone if nothing else.

 

I'm not wild about Jeff and Lorie's High Noon Band either.

 

Kuru Prionz and The Scrapies is probably my favorite. Pleasure Gap is good. Ringtail Cats is pretty OK.

John Deere and The Tractors never played a gig, neither did The Failures.

It took a chunk of my life to get here and I am still not sure where "here" is.
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I didn't perform under it, but the band that called itself "Free Beer" was on to something. Every place they played, there was a sign "Tonight - Free Beer."

 

As to cool names, I wasn't a permanent member, but I used to do guest appearances in Europe with Air Liquide. I always liked that. I also guested with Rei$$dorf Force, another cool name.

 

Worst band name, although some thought it was cool, was "Flowers of Evil" in my college days. The reference was to Charles Baudelaire's incredibly controversial book of poetry, and kind of a goof on the whole "flower power" thing.

 

Our most unusual gig that we didn't play was being asked to do an Andy Warhol party, but the catch was that we had to play "Walk Away Renee," and only "Walk Away Renee," for the entire duration of the party. We thought that sounded like no fun. In retrospect, we should have done it...based on my meeting Pepper, one of the Factory Girls, after a gig in New York at Steve Paul's Scene. IIRC Mandrake was opening for Spooky Tooth.

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The worst name band for me was Crazy Delicious, I believe the name came from some rap song lyrics. At the same time though it was the most popular and lucrative band I'd ever performed with.

 

My favorite name bands were the two I started and lead; Freq Loop and Ohm's Law. Those names derived from my long career at the big aerospace company.

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I wanted to name a band "They're Back" so that when the ad for a club we were booked in hit the paper, the headline would be "They're Back". A variation was "They're Back By Popular Demand". I figured we'd get instant ad cred and draw an audience that way.

 

The rest of the band vetoed that.

 

Probably, the worst name of any band I was in was "Ablaze". When we got to the clubs the agent booked us in, we so many variations like "A Blaze", "The Blaze", "Blazer", and others. People just didn't get it. I guess you shouldn't use an adjective for your band name.

 

I think the best name is the duo I'm currently in, "The Sophisticats". We thought it was original, and then found out that others thought of the same pun. So I trademarked it.

 

Why do I think it's the best? Because people remember it. Sometimes we're called "The Sophisticates" or "The Aristocats" but in our area where most duos are a combination of two first or two last names like "Shepard And Greene" (good competitors and nice people), or other two-word names like "Permanent Affair" (also good competitors), a one-word name sets us as different and therefore easy to remember.

 

Plus, we get to use a lot of cat puns in our e-mail list.

 

When we started, we were playing a lot of jazz, but the longer you stand on stage, the more people tell you what they really want to hear. We collected requests and learned mostly pop/rock music. So the sophisticated jazz cat pun is a remnant of our past desires.

 

My observation on the process of naming a band

  • Everybody brings their most creative name to the band meeting
  • Everybody rejects all the names but their own, because they truly think theirs is the best
  • Everybody gets hurt feelings because they thought for a long time to bring what they thought was a perfect name, and they took the rejection personally
  • Everybody brings a goofy name to the next band meeting, something they don't really like, so that when it's rejected, they won't get their feelings hurt
  • Of course all the silly names get rejected, and people start saying whatever spontaneously pops in their head
  • Finally they get tired of all this and a dark-horse candidate pops up that nobody really likes, but nobody really hates
  • That becomes the name of the band that nobody is really happy with, but nobody is really unhappy with

 

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Bob "Notes" Norton

Owner, Norton Music http://www.nortonmusic.com

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The Sophisticats http://www.s-cats.com >^. .^< >^. .^<

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Not one of mine but I saw it on a flyer last year - The Fut Cups.

 

And at one point I had a project name but nothing came of it - Ferril Schwien and The Useless Eaters.

Now there is a punk band called Useless Eaters. Ferril could change that part, if he ever went whole hog.

It took a chunk of my life to get here and I am still not sure where "here" is.
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Did not perform under any band names that would qualify as worst. I really liked my friends' band Demon Drool in the Sewer - it was a Dave Grusin-Lee Ritenour cover band that they put together for our high school prom fundraiser. I only remember them playing "St. Elsewhere Theme".

 

Favorite bands names I played under were UCCO (Unidentified Cloud Covered Object) and Android Nectarine

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I've come up with a few that I thought were great but got vetoed.

 

We were starting a horn band ala Chicago, ToP, etc. The bass player and guy who started the band was named John Reno. So I suggested Reno Transit Authority.

 

A blues band was started by a guy who went by the name Dooley James and I think he was calling it the Dooley James Band. I suggested The Dooley James Gang but he never went for it. :idk:

"I'm so crazy, I don't know this is impossible! Hoo hoo!" - Daffy Duck

 

"The good news is that once you start piano you never have to worry about getting laid again. More time to practice!" - MOI

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  • 2 weeks later...
Worst: Red Stain (Way back in HS.....brings back memories of intense trauma)

Best: The Swingin' Richards

 

Hilarious. I was just about to type in "Worst name: Swinging Richerd (sic)"

 

I guess I just did. No offence intended....

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Best : Blowtorch Fannie (named after our bass player who was highly skilled at lighting his farts).

 

Worst : Masterpiece. Actually I liked the name and it suited our prog stylings well, but people used to love intentionally misreading it as Masturbate.... Which if you think about it, also suits prog well. Lol.

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Worst: Red Stain (Way back in HS.....brings back memories of intense trauma)

Best: The Swingin' Richards

 

Hilarious. I was just about to type in "Worst name: Swinging Richerd (sic)"

 

I guess I just did. No offence intended....

 

I'd have to be a major wanker to be offended by THAT, wouldn't I? ;-)

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Concord Pursuit. 1st band ever. Never got out of the garage, spent the 1st 6 months practicing (and butchering) the same 3 songs- Carry On Wayward Son, Tom Sawyer and Foreplay/Longtime- but weren't good enough to get through Johnny B Goode without it falling apart. It was an act of a merciful Higher Power that we never got a gig, because I'm sure the crowd would have rushed the stage and torn us limb from limb.

 

I've also been in a buttload of what I call "smoked sausage" bands with names like Southern Pride, Southern Tradition etc. At least the music was better.

 

I've also found out firsthand that any band with "outlaw" in the name REALLY sucks. Other than the Outlaws, themselves, that is.

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The Mighty Pornotronics were a Glasgow theremin/bagpipe/didjeridu/Ableton Push quartet whom the audience killed in the middle of their opening number.

 

You can probably understand why. :mad::taz::/

 "I want to be an intellectual, but I don't have the brainpower.
  The absent-mindedness, I've got that licked."
        ~ John Cleese

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  • 4 months later...

Best = Cerberus

Back in junior high school, I drew up an awesome image of a 3-headed dog growing out of a guitar body.

 

Worst = Dr. Fecal and the Stools

(Not my band)  The lead guitarist was a pretty famous parasitologist veterinarian.

 

I'm glad the set list he came up with was really weak on keyboards; I bowed out, or I would have had to bring my stool to.....

 

nevermind..........

 

Old No7

Yamaha MODX6 * Hammond SK Pro 73 * Roland Fantom-08 * Crumar Mojo Pedals * Mackie Thump 12As * Tascam DP-24SD * JBL 305 MkIIs

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10 hours ago, Old No7 said:

<...snip...>

 

Worst = Dr. Fecal and the Stools

<...>

What a Sh*tty name.

 

(sorry, it was too easy, but I couldn't resist)

Bob "Notes" Norton

Owner, Norton Music http://www.nortonmusic.com

Style and Fake disks for Band-in-a-Box

The Sophisticats http://www.s-cats.com >^. .^< >^. .^<

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On 9/22/2021 at 5:00 AM, Flemtone said:

Had a friend who started a band and wanted to call it 'Blue Wind'.

 

I mentioned that people might say the band blew wind.

 

They changed the name.

 

Smart choice.

One of Jimi Hendix' bands was named Jimi James and the Blue Flames.

When junior high boys sit around and light their farts, those are the blue flames. Don't ask me how I know this...

It took a chunk of my life to get here and I am still not sure where "here" is.
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  • 5 months later...

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