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What is the best band name you've ever heard? (Original Post) milestogo Sep 2025 OP
Ozric Tentacles Ferrets are Cool Sep 2025 #1
Mao St. Helen (saw it in a poster). Adolf and the Violent Mood Swings underpants Sep 2025 #2
"Adolf and the Violent Mood Swings"? NT mahatmakanejeeves Sep 2025 #3
hmmmm...no music? quaint Sep 2025 #19
Callaway golf clubs at140 Sep 2025 #4
It's a Beautiful Day WheelWalker Sep 2025 #5
Dead Sea Squirrels NoRethugFriends Sep 2025 #6
Local band called The Swinging Johnsons. Midnight Writer Sep 2025 #7
Fat Chance Bmoboy Sep 2025 #8
Three Dog Night Ritabert Sep 2025 #9
King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard dweller Sep 2025 #10
Rush Intractable Sep 2025 #11
Missing ZDU Sep 2025 #12
Fats Mallard and the Decoys yonder Sep 2025 #13
Dusty Chaps Kali Sep 2025 #14
The Beatles, 4 times, The Rolling Stones, The Doors, cksmithy Sep 2025 #15
Stinky And The Right Guards, Pontius Pilate And The Nail Drivers Floyd R. Turbo Sep 2025 #16
Big Bad Voodoo Daddy WestMichRad Sep 2025 #17
The Band Emile Sep 2025 #18
The Cramps. Harker Sep 2025 #20
That hurts. milestogo Sep 2025 #24
Jif and the Choosy Mothers Timeflyer Sep 2025 #21
The Petit Wazoo Orchestra JoseBalow Sep 2025 #22
The two that I wanted to use for this one band. OldBaldy1701E Sep 2025 #23
"Batteries Not Included" ProfessorGAC Sep 2025 #25
I vote for "Free Beer" DBoon Sep 2025 #46
Steely Dan ClimateHawk Sep 2025 #26
Hah, I didn't know that! MLAA Sep 2025 #52
It's a funny reference ClimateHawk Sep 2025 #60
Added Naked Lunch to my reading list! MLAA Sep 2025 #62
Good luck! ClimateHawk Sep 2025 #67
Toad the wet sprocket because of how they claimed to make the name JT45242 Sep 2025 #27
Comes from Monty Python IcyPeas Sep 2025 #61
The Electric Prunes surfered Sep 2025 #28
Dropkick Murphys. Don't know their music but the name is different. Srkdqltr Sep 2025 #29
I was scrolling through the replies to see if Dropkick Murphys got a mention True Dough Sep 2025 #43
Sixteen Horsepower displacedvermoter Sep 2025 #30
Root Boy Slim and the Sex Change Band strongermessage Sep 2025 #31
Buzzcocks Glorious bastard Sep 2025 #32
Dread Zeppelin C_U_L8R Sep 2025 #33
That was awesome. callous taoboy Sep 2025 #37
Shonen Knife neeksgeek Sep 2025 #34
PROPAGANDHI Wiz Imp Sep 2025 #35
13th Floor Elevators callous taoboy Sep 2025 #36
Savage Grace multigraincracker Sep 2025 #38
Was in a local band called "Oedipus and the Mothers" IggleDuer Sep 2025 #39
Creedence Clearwater Revival Mike Nelson Sep 2025 #40
the eternal garage band Skittles Sep 2025 #64
We Were Promised Jetpacks think4yourself Sep 2025 #41
I remember that name! electric_blue68 Sep 2025 #50
Smashing Pumpkins catbyte Sep 2025 #42
Thomas Lauderdale meets Satan's Pilgrims Thunderbeast Sep 2025 #44
That was different! TFP! OAITW r.2.0 Sep 2025 #54
The Dickies. Producers of the classic punk rock album "Stukas Over Disneyland". Borogove Sep 2025 #45
Ah, 'Bowlin' with Bedrock Barney' Oeditpus Rex Sep 2025 #48
Ugly Kid Joe. Aristus Sep 2025 #47
The Rutles Oeditpus Rex Sep 2025 #49
Pirate Song! OAITW r.2.0 Sep 2025 #55
Oreo Meatwagon IA8IT Sep 2025 #51
Dan Hicks and his Hot Licks Botany Sep 2025 #53
REO Speedwagon Prof. P.E. Name Sep 2025 #56
I have a pic of old old REO Speed Wagon Firetruck somewhere IA8IT Sep 2025 #63
'The Joint Chiefs of Shaft' ..a hardcore funk band LudwigPastorius Sep 2025 #57
Running With Scissors KitFox Sep 2025 #58
Posted for my DW - she saw the Beatles at the Sam Houston Coliseum 1965 walkingman Sep 2025 #59
Squirrel Nut Zippers yellowdogintexas Sep 2025 #65
Brian Jonestown Massacre n/t darkstar Sep 2025 #66
Skunk Baxters first band "Ultimate Spinach" justaprogressive Sep 2025 #68
Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen Morbius Sep 2025 #69
Disco Tex and His Sexolettes. Iggo Sep 2025 #70
This message was self-deleted by its author VGNonly Sep 2025 #71

underpants

(194,870 posts)
2. Mao St. Helen (saw it in a poster). Adolf and the Violent Mood Swings
Fri Sep 5, 2025, 10:48 AM
Sep 2025

Camper van Beethoven- good band. Dave Lowery pre-Cracker

?si=OzMP8E2ZF5knBDGz

Midnight Writer

(25,145 posts)
7. Local band called The Swinging Johnsons.
Fri Sep 5, 2025, 11:03 AM
Sep 2025

Nobody in the band is named Johnson.

Yeah, I know. I'm juvenile.

cksmithy

(425 posts)
15. The Beatles, 4 times, The Rolling Stones, The Doors,
Fri Sep 5, 2025, 12:44 PM
Sep 2025

Jimi Hendrix, Tina Turner & Ike doing Proud Mary, Country Joe McDonald, Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Emmylou Harris, and so many more. I know I have the ticket stub in a box some where in the attic, that I will never see again.

OldBaldy1701E

(10,170 posts)
23. The two that I wanted to use for this one band.
Fri Sep 5, 2025, 05:12 PM
Sep 2025

They were suggested by a friend. The one that I wanted the most was 'Buddha and the Crippled Christian Band'. I pushed hard for it.

The next one was 'Tokken'. (Long 'O' sound)

ProfessorGAC

(75,844 posts)
25. "Batteries Not Included"
Fri Sep 5, 2025, 05:58 PM
Sep 2025

They played the same circuit we did. In the 80s & 90s. Don't know they lasted through the millennium like we did.
I was jealous of their name. I stopped seeing their name in the 2 Chicago Music mags.
A band that were personal friends of my wife and me were "Shuddup & Drive". Always liked that too, but we were biased by friendship.
I always thought the ultimate band name was "Free Beer" but I figured bar owners would hate it, because it might cause a riot.

DBoon

(24,723 posts)
46. I vote for "Free Beer"
Fri Sep 5, 2025, 08:04 PM
Sep 2025

I think the ads always said "Band named Free Beer" and emphasized cocktails were the usual price

ClimateHawk

(360 posts)
60. It's a funny reference
Sat Sep 6, 2025, 01:57 AM
Sep 2025

It’s from the William Burroughs novel “Naked Lunch”.

“With the core band recruited, Donald and Walter need a name for their group. Since both of them were avid readers of 1950's "Beat" literature, they decided to name the band "Steely Dan" after a dildo in William Burroughs' "Naked Lunch."”

https://web.archive.org/web/20111227080833/http://steelydan.com/faq.html

JT45242

(3,829 posts)
27. Toad the wet sprocket because of how they claimed to make the name
Fri Sep 5, 2025, 06:03 PM
Sep 2025

4 band members wrote down words and they pulled them randomly in order to name the band.

The assumption was always that the drummer wrote "the" because it was the only word they could spell correctly.

IcyPeas

(24,850 posts)
61. Comes from Monty Python
Sat Sep 6, 2025, 05:35 AM
Sep 2025

Toad the Wet Sprocket takes its name from a Monty Python comedy sketch called "Rock Notes",[2][3] in which a journalist delivers a nonsensical music news report:

Rex Stardust, lead electric triangle with Toad the Wet Sprocket, has had to have an elbow removed following their recent successful worldwide tour of Finland. Flamboyant ambidextrous Rex apparently fell off the back of a motorcycle. "Fell off the back of a motorcyclist, most likely," quipped ace drummer Jumbo McClooney on hearing of the accident. Plans are already afoot for a major tour of Iceland.[4]


There was also an extended skit about the fictional Toad the Wet Sprocket on one of Idle's later shows, Rutland Weekend Television (Season 1, Episode 4, "Rutland Weekend Whistle Test&quot . RWT musician and regular cast member Neil Innes, ex-Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band and "The Seventh Python", played keyboards with the fictional band.[5]

As their first gig approached, the band still had not chosen a name. The members facetiously adopted "Toad the Wet Sprocket" because they thought it would be "hilarious". Vocalist Glen Phillips later called it "a joke that went on too long" and, according to their website, "it was probably meant to be temporary at the time."[2][6] The name had been used once before, by a short-lived British blues band of the late 1970s that had appeared on the 1980 Metal for Muthas compilation, although the earlier band had long since split up when Philips and company formed their band.

Eric Idle, the sketch's original performer, reflected on the band's name in a 1999 performance:

I once wrote a sketch about rock musicians, and I was trying to think of a name that would be so silly nobody would ever use it, or dream it could ever be used. So I wrote the words "Toad the Wet Sprocket." And a few years later, I was driving along the freeway in LA, and a song came on the radio, and the DJ said, "that was by Toad the Wet Sprocket," and I nearly drove off the freeway.[7]

Toad the Wet Sprocket - Wikipedia https://share.google/ZuzHt4uKgCtMl7phO

True Dough

(25,825 posts)
43. I was scrolling through the replies to see if Dropkick Murphys got a mention
Fri Sep 5, 2025, 07:23 PM
Sep 2025

Sure enough...

 

Glorious bastard

(174 posts)
32. Buzzcocks
Fri Sep 5, 2025, 06:31 PM
Sep 2025

Last edited Fri Sep 5, 2025, 07:28 PM - Edit history (1)

If one doesn’t know this is slang for a battery operated dildo, the name keeps you guessing. And if one does, the self-deprecation in the band name is very punk.

Thunderbeast

(3,772 posts)
44. Thomas Lauderdale meets Satan's Pilgrims
Fri Sep 5, 2025, 07:23 PM
Sep 2025

Must hear their version of Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue".

?si=7QoTiDhrl2jpsnP5

Aristus

(71,642 posts)
47. Ugly Kid Joe.
Fri Sep 5, 2025, 08:48 PM
Sep 2025

They were a struggling band that was struggling most with what to call themselves. They landed a gig opening for a group called Pretty Boy Floyd, and decided on the spot to call themselves Ugly Kid Joe.

They had a hit with “I Hate Everything About You”, and a pretty good cover of Harry Chapin’s “Cat’s In The Cradle”.

IA8IT

(6,346 posts)
51. Oreo Meatwagon
Fri Sep 5, 2025, 09:21 PM
Sep 2025
https://www.oreomeatwagon.com/music

A few of the songs that we perform:

Hungry Like the Wolf -Duran,Duran

867-5309 - Tommy Tutone

All The Small Things - Blink 182

Chickenfried - Zac Brown Band,

Life Is A Highway - Tom Cochrane

Play That Funky Music - Wild Cherry

Wagon Wheel - Old Crow Medicine Show

Summer of 69 - Bryan Adams What I Got - Sublime

What I Like About You - The Romantics

Sugar, Were Going Down - Fall Out Boy

Hard To Handle - Black Crowes

Jessie’s Girl - Rick Springfield

Don’t Stop Believing - Journey

Banditos - The Refreshments

Nothing But A Good Time - Poison

Sugar - Maroon 5

Fishing In The Dark - Nitty Gritty Dirt Band

The Middle - Jimmy Eat World

Dirt On My Boots - Jon Pardi

Boys of Summer - The Ataris

If You Could Only See - Tonic

Wanted Dead or Alive - Bon Jovi

Times Like These - Foo Fighters

Grundy County Auction - John Michael Montgomery

Crazy Train - Ozzy Osbourne



https://www.oreomeatwagon.com/about

IA8IT

(6,346 posts)
63. I have a pic of old old REO Speed Wagon Firetruck somewhere
Sat Sep 6, 2025, 03:02 PM
Sep 2025

had a mosquito splat on emblem

LudwigPastorius

(14,156 posts)
57. 'The Joint Chiefs of Shaft' ..a hardcore funk band
Fri Sep 5, 2025, 10:42 PM
Sep 2025

Also, 'Hairy Chronic, Jr.' ...a trippy jam band

...both of whom only exist in my imagination.

walkingman

(10,333 posts)
59. Posted for my DW - she saw the Beatles at the Sam Houston Coliseum 1965
Fri Sep 5, 2025, 11:51 PM
Sep 2025

her Mom got her tickets for her 15th birthday (also her little brother 12). The concert was Aug. 19, 1965 and her birthday is Aug 29th. Her little brother was so little he couldn't see them but a guy next to her put him on his shoulders for the entire concert.

Response to milestogo (Original post)

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