Band Name Origins

How about: Quicksilver Messenger Service?

Anyone know it's origin?

 

"Hedgehog Pie" sounds like a pastry delicacy made with varmints (those are small animals to those who aren't "country" or who haven't watched Looney Tunes in a few decades). Knowing my luck, it's some kind of code phrase for something completely unrelated

 

Foghat:
"A word made up by Dave Peverett (the lead singer of the above-mentioned band) in a game of Scrabble he played with his brother, in which Dave insisted it was a word. While it wasn't a word at the time, it later became the band's name which, to some, may now be an acceptable word for the popular crossword board game."

 

Not sure I got this right:

Big Brother and the Holding Company


Big Brother is the government; the Holding Company is them that gots some weed on them?

 

Toploader is from unscrupulous persons’ practice of putting all the “action” at the front end of a joint which they, as roller and hence lighter, will get the majority of.

The Pogues is a forced contraction from the original Pogue Mahone, Gaelic for Kiss My ****

 

I always assumed Alabama Shakes was a play on the much earlier Mississippi Sheiks

B52s from nickname for beehive hairstyle

 

Opeth get their name from a Wilber Smith novel.

The New Zealand band Shihad got their name from Dune when the band misheard jihad as Shihad. This would become ironic when the band had to change their name to Pacificer in 2001 to satisfy their record label in the wake of 9/11.

 

Dando Shaft is the name of a book, a comedy satire about the titular character, who was an advertising man.

Hedgehog Pie is an old Geordie (Newcastle upon Tyne, Northern England) folk song. I think there’s a connection between both or they shared band members, though I’m not sure.

Caedmon is one of the oldest English poets c.650 (yes, 7th Century!) from Northumbria.

That’s all I got. Originally being from the north of England they’re the familiar names to me.

 

Very cool news SJR! Thanks for sharing. Caedmon sounds cool. Love the Cd of the 1978 album. Bloodly Brilliant Record That One!!

 

Is Hedgehog Pie an actual food item?

 

Powderfinger from a Neil Young song

Depeche Mode from a French fashion mag

Human League from a board game Starforce Alpha Centauri

The Smiths because it was the most ordinary non pretentious name they could come up with

 

Back when we were allowed to go to pubs I set some music quizzes in my local. I twice did rounds on this subject and have just found the files. Many have been covered already, but:

SunnO))) - from the amps

Devo - from band members’ theory of de-evolution

Foo Fighters -USAF slang for UFOs

The Fall - Albert Camus novel

Thompson Twins - characters in Tintin stories

Dexy’s etc - Dexedrine

Joy Division - enforced Nazi prostitution

Maccabees - warriors mentioned in the bible

 

I Believe The Bible Advises One Not To Cast Your Pearls Before Swine!

 

The Go-Betweens from a novel The Go-Between

Mi-Sex named after the Ultravox song My Sex

Icehouse from a old, cold apartment where Iva Davies lived

Soft Cell from a chapter in the book Stand On Zanzibar a 1968 Sci-fi novel

 

Hatfield And The North was/is the signage heading out of LOndon on the M1 know?

 

1. 0PKo

Last One of the night:

The Decemberists ~~ Named after the December 1917 Russian Revolutionist who brought down the Czar.

 

Husker Du - from Norwegian of "do you remember"? which i think was because they were shouting as many foreign words as they could at each other and this one stuck, and they also added (either by mistake or not) the heavy metal umlauts.
This also made me think of an anecdote that Mike Watt recently shared on his podcast that he spent a long time when the Minutemen were formed - maybe a year, i can't remember - thinking that his band was pronounced the Mi-NUTEmen, instead of the MIN-utemen, and that he thought they were called this because they were a small band.
These kinds of things can get passionate - an early band that i was in literally broke up because we couldn't agree on a name.

 

Possibly, back in ye olde days I’ve never heard of anyone eating it, though. It doesn’t sound too appetising!

 

The Levellers - were a political movement during the English Civil War (1642–1651) committed to popular sovereignty, extended suffrage, equality before the law and religious tolerance.

 

The Strawbs - formed in 1964 as the Strawberry Hill Boys while the founder members were at St Mary's Teacher Training College, Strawberry Hill, London.

 

Blackfoot - During the early spring of 1970, the band, after learning of another band on the West Coast named Hammer, decided to change their name to Blackfoot to represent the American Indian heritage of its members: Jakson Spires (from Oklahoma) had a Cheyenne/French father and a Cherokee mother; Rickey Medlocke's father was Lakota Sioux and Blackfoot Indian, and his mother's side is Creek/Cherokee, Scottish and Irish; Greg "Two Wolf" Walker is part Eastern (Muskogee) Creek, a tribe recognized by the state of Florida, but not federally. Charlie Hargrett was the only white man of the original, classic line-up.

 

As did Moloko..

 

Max Webster - Many theories abound about the origin of the band's name. Some have reported that it came from a random flip in the phone book, naming the band after a snow shoe and dog food, to a friend of Kim Mitchell's named Max living on Webster Drive. But Mitchell himself has said it originated from Mike Tilka's old band, who did a song called "Webster." The band was looking for a name similar to Jethro Tull, a name that no one in the band had.

 

Marillion is derived from the Tolkien book 'The Simarillion'.

 

I read somewhere that Skip Spence had something to do with it .