Let's get the band back together.....

I played the drums in my first band when I was in 7^th grade.  We called ourselves The Teabaggers (which referred to a “social type” who wore penny loafers and bleeding Madras shirts.)  That band was short lived and never had a paying gig.  However we soon reinvented ourselves into The Changin’ Tyde and got serious about our musical ambitions. (Note: Adding the Olde English “Y” to any name increased the cool factor.)  Our first paying gig was at a “teen dance” in the basement of a church. The big payday at the end of the night was $15 (split between the three of us) and thus began the rapid ascent of our “professional” music careers.  We astutely ascertained that to land the high paying gigs (i.e. more than $15) we needed a lead singer as well as “uniforms”, which in our case included white Levi’s with penny loafers, a puffy sleeved white satin shirt and a vest. 

Note: Special thanks to our “roadie” parents for driving us (and all of our gear) to the gig an hour away – then waiting until it was over for the load out.

With each new band line up came a new, exciting (and thought provoking) moniker. By the time we were in high school the British Invasion was in full force and bands, with increasingly cool names were proliferating.  Our band became The Sleepless Nyte (again with the “Y”) and with our Farfisa wielding keyboard player, we could impress our school gym audience with a 20-minute version of Light My Fire.

W soon hooked up with some quality talent from another high school and with this new band came the new name The Audience. (Clever, eh?) It was purported by one former band member that for a day or two we called ourselves The InSex, which I now find incredibly creative.  

As (garage) bands multiplied, band names became more creative and went from the ridiculous to the sublime.  (The band called Sublime would be ridiculous, not sublime.)  Considering band names from A to Z, as with all musical things of the 60’s, we must start with the Beatles,  (cool name, cool guys and cool songs, inspired by Buddy Holly's band, The Crickets) and end with The Zombies (way ahead of their “Walking Dead” time.) After that we can start breaking down band names into categories:  Animals, (like The Animals or Critters), food groups (like Cream or Meat Loaf), psychedelic names (like Strawberry Alarm Clock or Electric Prunes) and end with a category called “Seriously?”  (e.g. Spooky Tooth, Mott the Hoople, Lothar and the Hand People and Ultimate Spinach, just to name a few.)

More recently, we might consider adding a category of band name “fails.”  (I often avoid listening to bands based on their name, which is unfair.) I nominate the following (which are either too “Emo”, stupid or both):

System of a Down
Toad the Wet Sprocket
Goo Goo Dolls
Planes Mistaken For Stars

The old curmudgeon in me might say; “We didn’t have no stinkin’ Internet band names generators back in our day.  We made up these lame band names on our own!” Now you can now use band name generators to come up with your own random and nonsensical band name.  Let’s try a metal band name.  (Always good to start with "Iron," (e.g. Iron Butterfly, Iron Maiden.)

One click yielded the following results:

Vanilla Iron (which makes it a very wimpy metal band alluding to Vanilla Ice or Fudge.)

Optimistic Iron (I really think that we can make it as a metal band.)
 Wiggle of Iron  (an introduction to metal music for preschoolers.)

  

This bluegrass band name generator is a great recipe for a creating a fast pickin’, bluegrass band.  Just add a banjo, fiddle, mandolin and some high, lonesome harmonies.

Try it for yourself:

• Column A                       Column B          Column C
• Foggy                               Mountain             Ramblers
• Smoky                              Valley                  Boys
• Lost                                  Trail                     Riders
• Rocky                               Bottom                Rangers
• Lonesome                         Creek                  Rovers

Yee haw!

Often time’s band names seem to spring from “brainstorming” (possibly including drugs and alcohol.)

How about a category for “complete sentence band names”? 

Here’s my favorite:  Say Hi to Your Mom.  (homage to yo’ mama jokes) 

Or band names with run together words like Highasakite or Boysetfire. (isyourspacebarbroken?)

Or single food names like Korn and Bread  (not so good by themselves but as a double bill, pretty tasty!)

If we want to be very “modern” we could suggest a category called “auto-correct band names.”This started out as an auto-correct text and then after repeating became what was initially thought to be a good band name, Dandelion Sex Fluids. However, it seemed the more you heard it, the more you hated it.  (Like hearing James Blunt’s overplayed song, “Beautiful.”)

I’ll leave you with some band names that I wish that I had thought up (and copyrighted):

The Burning Sensations (Fraught with connotations, both good and bad.)

The Little Green Men (Band from the 50’s who capitalized on UFO mania.)

Tenacious D (Damn you Jack Black!)

Hostile Comb-over (This name screams Donald Trump!)

Furious George (Boy George in a yellow hat with his angry pet monkey)

Abracadaver (Harry Potter meets the Grateful Dead)

Gringo Starr (Salsa music, Beatle style)

Me First and the Gimme Gimmes  (It’s just fun to say.)

As Shirley, Shirley, Bo Birley, Banana Fanna Fo Firley once said, 

“It’s the Name Game!”