Most Creative Band Names, and the Meaning Behind them

Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich

... from the band's nicknames, allegedly.

 

Everything But the Girl.

They took their name from a furniture store called Turners, located in Hull, in the East Riding section of Yorkshire, England. The store's slogan, describing what was for sale inside, was "Everything but the girl."

 

Mugwumps were also Republicans in the 1880's who supported Democrat candidate Grover Cleveland. They had their mug on one side of the fence and their wump on the other.

 

The Pogues

This final version of the name was a phonetic take on half the original name;
Pog Mo Thoin.

(Pronounced 'pog' as in pogo stick with a long 'o', the mo sounds more like the 'mu' in mud, and thoin, which is rendered like 'hone', as in "to perfect skills or talents".)

Ok. Semantic lesson over. The phrase means 'Kiss My A**' in the Irish language.

 

Buzzcocks

Devoto and Shelley chose the name "Buzzcocks" after reading the headline, "It's the Buzz, Cock!", in a review of the TV series Rock Follies in Time Out magazine. The "buzz" is the excitement of playing on stage; "cock" is Manchester slang meaning "mate" (as in friend/buddy). They thought it captured the excitement of the Sex Pistols and nascent punk scene. - Wikipedia

 

Well, changing their name was a neccessity, after all!

Here's one: 10cc. Which, according to producer and notorious molestation afficianado Jonathan King, is a better-than-average amount of masculine fluid related to, um, "pleasuring"...9cc being the average quantity. Apparently Mr. King was an authority on the subject.

One might imagine Gary Glitter offering a knowing wink every time he happens upon a copy of, Deceptive Bends.

 

Both of these bands were originally known as the Warlocks. Both changed their names at around the same time because a third band called the Warlocks had put out a record before either of them.

 

The Allman Brothers Band

 

Had not read that.... cool.

 

Garcia, in an 'inspired' state, literally read that passage in the dictionary.

In Blair Jackson's book on the Dead, Garcia is quoted as saying:

"One day we were over at Phil's house...He had a big dictionary. I opened it and there was 'Grateful Dead', those words juxtaposed. It was one of those moments, you know, like everything else went blank, diffuse, just sort of oozed away, and there was GRATEFUL DEAD in big, black letters edged all around in gold, man, blasting out at me, such a stunning combination. So I said, 'How about Grateful Dead?' And that was it."

 

To be fair, I would rule out entries like Blue Öyster Cult, Soft Machine or my beloved Steely Dan... These band names are not intrinsically "creative": they certainly sound cool, but basically they only indicate that the guys could read.
On the other hand, "Marilyn Manson" sounds creative (unless Brian W. borrowed it from somewhere: feel free to correct me).


In other words, what Vangro said :

 

...and Jerry later said

“Nobody in the band liked it. I didn’t like it, either, but it got around that that was one of the candidates for our new name and everyone else said, 'Yeah, that’s great.' It turned out to be tremendously lucky. It’s just repellent enough to filter curious onlookers and just quirky enough that parents don’t like it,” he added with a laugh.

 

Yes, in retrospect I concur.
'Nicking a name from a book' is maybe not intrinsically creative.
Matching Mole as a corruption of the French for Soft Machine is a better one. Shoulda thought of that in Wyatt mode but was pipped to it!

 

The Creation was a pretty creative band name.

 

I used to think the Righteous Brothers had the most boring, anodyne name until I found out how they got it: Apparently after the end of a residency performance with their previous band the Paramours, a black U.S. Marine in the audience shouted "That was righteous, brothers!", and would greet them with "Hey righteous brothers, how you doin'?" on meeting them afterwards. So when they broke off as a duo shortly afterwards, they had a name all ready to go.

 

Pink Floyd

spare bricks :: pink floyd webzine

 

Putting aside the actual / official origins of their controversial band names (the recurring nazi/fascist references, the newspaper article about "The people's new order of Kampuchea", or "from disorder to new order"...), I like the "continuity" idea of:

joydivisioNeworder

amazingly it also works at "former/new band member"-level: gillIan

 

I kind of disagree. It's called creative shopping, creative reading or creative choosing. Obviously calling yourself after a Burroughs ref (and no one mentioned 23Skidoo) today would be very boring and obvious. Back then it was a statement of intent and alignment.

Today calling yourself after a well known art film for example sounds a bit lame. So I would agree with you to that extent, but stealing something in the right spirit and making it yours is one of the hottest creative acts in the last thirty years.

For other examples of 'creative shopping' think Duchamp's Fountain. One of the most creative acts in the history of art.

 

From wikipedia:

Jethro Tull (1674 – 21 February 1741, New Style) was an English agricultural pioneer from Berkshire who helped bring about the British Agricultural Revolution. He perfected a horse-drawn seed drill in 1700 that economically sowed the seeds in neat rows. He later developed a horse-drawn hoe. Tull's methods were adopted by many great landowners and helped to provide the basis for modern agriculture.

 

Marillion

Originally called Silmarillion after the Tolkein book. Dropped the first syllable, creating a name that means... Er... Um... Absolutely nothing at all.

Memorable, though.

 

Same deal with the supposed meaning behind 10CC...

 

My hometown boys Sloan...I think I read that the name was derived from 'slow one', which was a term they'd heard used to referred to kids who weren't that bright in school...

 

Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, usually known as the far less poetic OMD.

Supposedly, no real meaning other than the band wanted to differentiate themselves from the punk scene.

 

Chris Murphy discusses how the Sloan name was derived on this Podcast. I tried to find the segment just now but could not as it's a long podcast but I think it was from a friend's name.