009: Band Name Wank

Everyone knows band names are huge deals. Everyone who ever dismissed !!! because of their ridiculous name, or who got into Rage Against The Machine purely on the basis of how cool they thought that sounded when they were 14 can tell you that band names play perhaps a larger role than they should in how bands fare. Ever wonder why Afghan Whigs and Archers of Loaf never made it big? Neither do I. Notice something about all the big rock bands these days? They have simple, inoffensive names. Radiohead. U2. Coldplay. They don't exactly have you on the edge of your seat.

If you're wondering what the genesis (lol) for this post was, I'll come clean. I read the first Scott Pilgrim book in my friend Will's basement a few months ago, in the span of about half an hour. It's not much by way of artistic great-shakes, but, like marshmallow bananas or cotton candy, it was a lot of fun to read and went down easy. Anyway, apparently, in the Scott Pilgrim universe, there's a band called "The Clash at Demonhead". I found this out while obsessively reading this blog, for no good reason.

It started me thinking about band names that incorporate other band names into them. In this case, "The Clash at Demonhead" is named after a 20-year-old videogame but for a brief, glorious period, the thought of a band named after The Clash playing a show at a club somewhere (probably in Britain) named Demonhead had me completely enraptured. I'm a big fan of meta-ridiculousness.

With that in mind, I present a list of potential band names featuring other band names. They really only work when the band/artist being name-checked is so big that they're a cultural institution of sorts in their own right. So, here:


1. The Clash at Demonhead (The triple reference—Clash/Scott Pilgrim/videogame—makes all the indie nerds jizz their pants.)

2. Fuck the Sex Pistols (Probably just a Modern Life Is War cover band.)

3. This Is Not a Fugazi Cover Band (In concert they play Fugazi songs in the middle of their own material.)

4. Like The Monks, But With Better Haircuts (This is almost more of a Murder by Death reference than a Monks reference.)

5. The Ghost of the Rolling Stones (Sort of a Joy Division/ Thursday/Interpol midway point. All of their album covers are in black & white. They will be huge in a few decades.)

6. A Mob of Heavily-Intoxicated Bob Dylan Impersonators (A bunch of bearded guys who probably hate Conor Oberst and dress like someone cloned the Blues Brothers' wardrobe.)

7. The Jimi Hendrix Escape Plan (This is a terrible joke about choking to death on one's own red-wine-infused vomit. These guys are all Republicans.)

8. A Tribe Called Zeppelin (Live instrumentation Led Zep/ATCQ mash-up band. Surprisingly large fanbase.)

9. In a New Order (Think Telefon Tel Aviv meets Beirut, but with more of a Phil Collins influence.)

10. "Pink Enemy. Public Floyd." (Not a mash-up band. Lead singer/cellist probably commits suicide during first Japanese tour. Retrospective live DVD gets rave reviews.)

11. The Beatles (These guys get sued out of existence before they can really get going. All the publicity the lawsuits afford them generates a much more substantial fanbase than they deserve. Two of the members drop out of the music biz to become tradesmen, one pulls a Richey Edwards, and the drummer becomes a feared and respected producer à la Phil Spector.)


Okay that's all. If I do any more my brain will explode. Feel free to post other non-sucky ones in the comments section. Warning: Comments containing sucky suggestions may be deleted.


EDIT: The Ghost of the Ramones (Career Suicided version of The Ghost of the Rolling Stones. Music critics completely divided as to whether to fall over and die in praise of them, or to railroad them out of music, tarred and feathered, for egregious crimes against humanity. World ends the day after their self-titled debut EP release, for unrelated reasons.)