The Story Behind the Band name

[Guest]

On another thread, someone started making comments about what the origins of some band names are. I thought it would be interesting to see the 'story' behind the band names of you top 10 albums (or 10 favourite bands if you haven't got a chart)

The Smiths - a reaction to the pretension names of some synth bands at the time (Orchestral Manoevres in the Dark anyone)
The Stone Roses - dreamt up out of nowhere by John Squire
The La's - Scouse slang for 'lads'
The Velvet Underground -a book about the secret sexual subculture of the early '60s by Michael Leigh
Jane's Addiction - named after Perry Farrell's flatmate Jane Bainter and her drug addiction
Buzzcocks - named after a headline in time out magazine - 'it's the buzz, cocks!'
Joy Division - the prostitution wing of the Nazi concentration camps
Massive Attack - dreamt up out of nowhere?
The Specials - Because they are special? or maybe it is a reference to them being on special offer? who knows?
The Field Mice - Suitably Twee but no idea where it came from!

[GARY]

Who thinks they know the TRUE story of how Led Zeppelin got their name
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I owe $100,000 and wasted 4 years of my life.

And all I got was this silly hat



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[Polythene Pam]

Okay I'm going to try and do this off the top of my head


My Bloody Valentine. Named after some 80's horror?
The Velvet Underground. See soulsister
Joy Division. Nazi's pastime
Sonic Youth. An amalgamation of thurstons two favorite bands?
In The Aeroplane Over The Sea. A cruel joke at Lenard Skynard? (insert spelling)
Abbey Road. Example of extreme laziness
Piper At The Gates Of Dawn. More novel psychedelic literature references?
The Clash. Because the oppose the establishment right?
The Rolling Stones. Seriously what 60's group didn't use the term! Jimi Hendrix, Bob Dylan, Muddy Waters etc
Blonde On Blonde. As jonnajewsome said. WHERE IS MY LESBIAN PORN!?

[SquishypuffDave]

I heard it was a twist on 'lead balloon'. Then they changed the spelling to 'led' because they thought Americans would pronounce it 'leed'.

(@ GARY)

[GARY]

[Polythene Pam]

Just noticed I did some albums instead of bands

Bob Dylan. If my name was Albert Zimmerman I'd change it too

[GARY]

Elton John's real name is

Reginald Dwight.


He changed it in 1967 by combining the names

ELTON Dean (saxophonist)

and

Long JOHN Baldry.
_________________
.
I owe $100,000 and wasted 4 years of my life.

And all I got was this silly hat



.

[AlexZangari]

I don't quite have a good list to go off of for this, so I'll just do my ten favourite bands off the top of my head...

Tegan and Sara - pretty obvious... in their early years, though, they were known as Sara and Tegan, but switched it thinking it flowed more nicely in its current state
Arcade Fire - name derived from a story frontman Win Butler heard in his youth
Radiohead - originally name On a Friday, their record company (fuck, what was it again? :l) had them renamed after the Talking Heads song as part of their 5-album deal
Ludo - possibly named after the Labyrinth character, though frontman Andrew Volpe claims the character was named after his band
Weezer - originally a nickname (or variation of one) given to Rivers Cuomo in his school years
Sigur Rós - named after Jónsi's sister Sigurrós, who was born the day the band was formed

Well, fuck me; my next few favourites I honestly have no clue on...
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kill yr idols

[Captain_Dude]

[Hayden]

Some interesting ones here that I didn't know about

Ac/Dc got their name from a sewing machine, not a cd-rom, as some sources say.

David Bowie got his name after a knife. (i think....I heard that somewhere, I'll look it up in a sec)

Black Sabbath got their name from a horror movie title.

The Clash got their name off a front-cover story on a newspaper

.....I can probably think of some more

Oh, and the think with Bob Dylan:

Robert Zimmerman, got shortened to Bob Zimmerman.

He liked a poet named Dylan. He was an inspiration, etc..

So, he changed his last name to Dylan.

And that's how we all know him by 'Bob Dylan'