March 19, 2004

It's the Canonical List of Weird Band Names... (via Xeni and the Boingers). Also a fine source for puns, non-sequiturs and euphemisms for IT (and I don't mean Information Technology... wait a minute, maybe I do.) Glad to see Barenaked Ladies, Dead Milkmen & Circle Jerks made the list, but where are the Crash Test Dummies, Dandy Warbucks and Toad the Wet Sprocket?

my faves from the list: Above Average Weight Band (raises hand tentatively) Alcoholocaust Attila The Stockbroker (band formed by MeFi's MidasMulligan) Bad Mutha Goose (talk about street cred!) Bassholes Bearded Clams (homage to the IT thread) Biff Hitler and the Violent Mood Swings Bolt Upright and the Erections The Dismemberment Plan Drive By Crucifixion (on the soundtrack of "The Passion") The Elvis Diet (put down that peanut butter and banana sandwich, Mr. Costello!) Flying Dustbunnies Foreskin 500 The Fred Mertz Experience Full Throttle Aristotle (extra points for rhyming) Gee That's A Large Beetle I Wonder If It's Poisonous (for the record, Ringo IS) The Glands of External Secretion The Go Kill Yourselves Inhale Mary Jack Off Jill Kathleen Turner Overdrive (formerly known as the Above Average Weight Band) Lee Press-On and the Nails (I see trademark issues here) Minnie Pearl's Jam (more trademark issues) Norman Bates and the Shower Heads Post Nasal Drip Poultry in Motion (see, they don't all have to be dirty to be funny...) Rugburns Science Diet Sodom & Gomorrah Liberation Front Tastes Like Chicken Vic Vaccume and the Attachments Well Strung Wendy and Her Menstrual Cycles When People Were Shorter and Lived By the Water The Yams from Outer Space The Yeasty Girls (formerly known as Violent Femmes) what's yours?

posted by wendell 20 years ago
  • Attila The Stockbroker was a stand up comedian here in Britain, I think. He seemed to perpetually be playing the comdey tent at Glastonbury all through the 90's at least. Or is this another Attila the stockbroker? The Elvis Diet is good. Very good. Its got a fair amount of bad taste names on there (anal cunt were always a favourite) but miss out on the wonderful Rapeman. Excellent post, wendell.
  • I think that "Rapeman" is the name of a manga. Missing faves of mine: Redneck Girlfriend The Meatmen Art Phag
  • And don't forget the Zillion Zappa Quotes (top o' the page).
  • ...also not mentioned, my college buddy's band: Otis Elevator and the Shafts
  • When People Were Shorter and Lived By the Water has a couple of great cds, "Porgy" being the best.
  • The Carnivorous Buttock Flies -jello biafra?
  • I think my favorite on the list is 'Not My Camel.' See also: Rock and Roll Confidential's Hall of Douchebags.
  • shadowy men on a shadowy planet - the band that did the "kid's in the hall" theme music. uhm... the violent femmes really renamed themselves the yeastie girls...?
  • I think that "Rapeman" is the name of a manga. Yeah, you're right. I'd forgotten that.
  • One of my all-time fave band names isn't on the list...The Sweatpant Boners
  • The Pork Hunts.
  • Ah, you all live where you can get a radio station that doesn't play country/western or latino stuff. I'm so jealouse.
  • Attila the Stockbroker is a punk poet, rather than a stand-up, but he's pretty funny with it. I saw him a couple of weeks ago - a little ludicrous, but a lot inspiring, which is a decent enough equation. Good man. His "tribute to recently deceased former T.Rex bongo player Mickey Finn by the 'Dear Leader', Comrade Kim Jong-Il of North Korea" was utterly fantastic. He's also the poet in residence for Brighton & Hove Albion FC. He's got a band too, The Barnstormers ("baroque 'n' roll") who are coincidentally releasing their third (I think) album in four days time... Strangely, no place on the list for ...And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead, who are surely well known enough to have merited attention. Also missing: Bob's Got Mad Hair (amateur band), The Cathode Ray Syndrome* (fantastic band, in the Godspeed/Mogwai area), and a fabulous duo I saw a few weeks ago who revel in the name Selfish Cunt. They were an hour late going onstage, unsurprisingly. Temporary Darkening of the Stool is my favourite one from the list - pray god let them play miserablist, acoustic shoegazing. On stools.
  • Not a band, but what a name: The Detachable Pianist.
  • Tex Thomas and the Danglin' Wranglers
  • A while ago I was on a kinda date with a girl, going shopping in Manchester. I saw a Rapeman CD, picked it up and said "Ooh! Rapeman!" ...We didn't go on another date. No "The Silver Mount Zion Memorial Orchestra And Tra-La-La Band"?
  • Not sure what the Yeastie Girlz comment was about (a joke I didn't get?) but they are certainly not the new name for the Violent Femmes. The Yeastie (not Yeasty, as the name's a take off on Beastie Boys) Girlz (not Girls) were a very short-lived feminist rap group in the late 1980s. While "Rapeman" doesn't do it for me (I can see why it would have put off your date, Blaise, sorry) I really like some of these, particularly the long, sentence-like ones. Cool, in a nerdy way. I won't get into the comment about Ringo...
  • Albini (the auteur behind Rapeman) was certainly good with the offensive names. I once showed up at a bring-your-own-wax party with copies of Big Black's RACER-X and SONGS ABOUT FUCKING. The host heard the screaming noise pur forth, took one look at the cover of SONGS ABOUT FUCKING, and summarily banninated me from turntable access. Hhe wouldn't have reacted as strongly to an equally strident album called, say, FLUFFY BUNNIES.
  • I'm actually listening to Songs about Fucking right now, goetter. I do love that album.
  • Monkey synchronicity.
  • Livii: I think it was more the name than anything. She has probably never heard of Steve Albini, seeing as he hasn't yet produced the Get Up Kids or Dashboard Confessional. Gotta get Songs About Fucking sometime don't search for Big Black on Kazaa
  • Want the record? Buy it. That is all.
  • I remember how my dad's eyes bugged out when I suggested buying an album by BarenakedLadies (I really liked One Week). I think he might have had an heart attack if I suggested any bands from this thread.
  • I think something nonsensical like "Toad the Wet Sprocket" is much more absurd than Attila the Stockbroker - because I could see Attila being a stockbroker if he lived in the '80s.
  • Gordon Gecko is Attila!