# Best band names



## Caveat (30 May 2010)

They can have comical or artistic merit.

_Black Sabbath_ is amazing IMO - powerful, sinister, iconic.

_Roxy Music_ I really like too - louche, ambiguous, arty.

Not unlike the bands themselves I hear someone cry - self fulfilling prophecy etc. Not quite though. I mean I love _Radiohead_ - awful name though. _Killing Joke_, ditto.

John Peel in his heyday (mid 80s?) threw up a fair few funny ones.

_The Seven Kevins_ and especially _Joan of This post will be deleted if not edited to remove bad language_ stand out 

On the metal side, I went through a reasonably intense 'death metal' period at one stage where subtlety and variety was in short supply: _Possessed_, _Obituary, Dark Angel, Death Angel, Morbid Angel_...

I love the fact that some crowd just thought "ah to hell with it" and called themselves: _Death.

_Kind of makes me smile.


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## RMCF (30 May 2010)

Ac/dc.


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## mathepac (30 May 2010)

This thread could turn into _The Commitments Part Deux 

_For me the most perfect name for a band is fairly obviously _The Band _although if you add up all the instruments they could play as individuals they should have named themselves_ The Orchestras. _Collectively they were probably the most talented band of rock/pop/country/fusion/cross-over musicians ever assembled_. _Not for nothing did Mr. Zimmerman  look to_ The Band _to support his transition from beatnik-poet / solo folk and protest singer  to  rock-and-roller.  They also managed that most artistically rewarding of all musical initiatives,  they restricted American membership to 1._  _Pretty good for a country whose most recognisable popular musicians   were respectively rumoured to be responsible for pandemics of depression and drinking Canada dry.

Second in the perfect-name stakes has to be The Beatles. Before there was rock 'n roll or pop music there was "beat music" played by "beat groups"  of "beatniks" in "beat clubs" and the beat goes on. They started out doing exactly what it says on the tin and then so much more.

For sheer craziness names like _Dave, Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick and Titch_ or _Captain Beefheart_ (note neither is a "The") or even _The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band_  trip easily and poetically off the tongue_.

_Another "non-The" band with Irish connections were the excruciatingly badly-named_  Eire Apparent, _yet another Chas Chandler creation that toured with The Animals and The Jimi Hendrix Experience_, _their untimely demise allegedly triggered by Henry McCullough's visa deficit.


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## Deiseblue (30 May 2010)

Have to agree , for me The Band recorded the best music of any era .

I saw Rick Danko in Whelans and unfortunately he cut a rather tragic figure at that stage.

I also saw Garth Hudson in Ballymore (!) with the late Sneaky Pete Kleinow of Hot Burritos fame.

I always thought Creedence Clearwater Revival was a great band name redolent of the deep south , it was only later that I discovered that the Fogertys were Californian boys.


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## DonKing (30 May 2010)

Red Lorry Yellow Lorry
"the the" or was it the "the the"??
half man half biscuit


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## mathepac (30 May 2010)

Deiseblue said:


> ...  it was only later that I discovered that  the Fogertys were Californian boys.


More Beach Boys than Good ol'  Boys in origin but a good solid Redneck Rock n' Roll sound all the same. A lot of CCR music  has survived the test of time, a great indicator of quality. I find it hard to describe their unique sound.

Their very clever name conjures up some kind of fundamental Baptist thing, but the songs are somewhere north of Tony Joe White's "swamprock" and East of Jerry Jeff Walker's "cowjazz".


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## elefantfresh (31 May 2010)

Heres a couple - nothing to do with the music, right? Just cool names?

Paddy Goes to Hollyhead
Sigue Sigue Sputnik
Sultans of Ping FC
The Teardrop Explodes
Mouse on Mars
Napalm Death 
Neds Atomic Dustbin (how can that not be a cool name!)


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## VOR (31 May 2010)

There was a band I remember playing in pubs around Munster called _Hector Pickaxe and the Floating Crowbars._ I think they came from Kerry_._ Always thought that was a great name.


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## ivuernis (31 May 2010)

Jackie-O Motherf**ker


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## PyritePete (31 May 2010)

Hootie & The blowfish


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## BillK (31 May 2010)

Bak in the sixties here in England we had the "Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band.


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## mathepac (31 May 2010)

There's an echo in here, in here, in here


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## Westgolf (31 May 2010)

A great galway based band from some years ago -- The Elastic Band.

Westgolf


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## michaelm (1 Jun 2010)

Terry Dactyl and the Dinosaurs.


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## foxylady (1 Jun 2010)

Ding dong denny o'reilly and the hairy bausees


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## VOR (1 Jun 2010)

foxylady said:


> Ding dong denny o'reilly and the hairy bausees



Great name for a spoof band. Paul Woodfull was behind it. He also was part of the Joshua Trio. Another great name for a band.


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## VOR (1 Jun 2010)

Thrashcan Sinatras 
Led Zeppelin
Happy Mondays
Joy Division
...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead


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## Deiseblue (1 Jun 2010)

Fit Kilkenny and the remoulds

Kinky Friedman and his Texas Jewboys

Johnny Thunders and the Heartbreakers


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## frash (1 Jun 2010)

"The Cunning Stunts" - used to play in Charlestown, Co. Mayo


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## Liamos (1 Jun 2010)

U2


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## Caveat (1 Jun 2010)

VOR said:


> ...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead


 

I love that one too.  Another band name I love which I kind of associate with the above:

_Godspeed you black emporer_


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