Band names

What's in a band name? Once you and a group of your friends get together and decide to start playing music, how do you go about coming up with a name? You can't just have any old crappy name. What if you make it big, then you are stuck. Then what? Actually, many bands out there on the airwaves have some bizarre names, intentionally or otherwise. The first one that always comes to my mind when thinking of weird band names is the Goo Goo Dolls. Such a soulful group of guys; such an out-of-character name. I remember hearing in an interview with lead singer John Rzeznik that he was flipping through a magazine and it landed on a page that advertised a doll that said "goo goo" so for shits and giggles he named his band that, thinking they could change it later. Well, in usher the multi-platinum album "Dizzy Up The Girl" and the name stuck. You don't want to be like that.

Now, many seemingly crazy band names actually come from books or movies. Savage Garden got their name from the author Anne Rice, who referred to the dark place vampires roam as a "savage garden". They Might Be Giants took their name from a 1971 George C. Scott film about a paranoid psychotic Sherlock Holmes and a female Dr. Watson. Even the infamous Doors took their name from an Aldous Huxley book titled "The Doors of Perception".

Some band names just come from someone's nicknames. Hootie and the Blowfish refers to two of lead singer's Darius Rucker's friends in college. One had big glasses that made him look like an owl (hootie) and the other had chubby cheeks (blowfish). I know, not nearly as exciting as what we all giggled and thought every time we heard their name on the radio! Some are just real obvious about it. 3LW literally stands for 3 little women. Creative guys!

Now some band names are just flat out weird and I can't find out where they came from. Alien Ant Farm conjours up images of multicolored ants coming at me in a flying saucer. Death Cab for Cutie sounds like someone's last ride in this world. What a stark contrast to their mellow laid back sound. Modest Mouse and Blind Melon sound like characters in a Hans Christian Anderson fairy tale. Panic! at the Disco has always confused me. That random exclamation point in the middle of the name forces me to put a little too much effort in saying their name. Go ahead, try it.... Yeah, too much for a band name. Oh, and what is an Oingo Boingo? Try saying that and not laughing! And which came first, the crazy Flock of Seagulls lopsided beehive hair, or the actual band? And I am not even going to touch you Me First and the Gimme Gimme's!

What do you think? Any more weird band names? Do you disagree with any? Post it!

*referenced www.weirdbandnames.jottit.com and www.imdb.com*