From: dfong@waikato.ac.nz
Newsgroups: alt.music.alternative,rec.music.misc
Subject: blah
Date: 11 Oct 92 16:38:32 +1300
Organization: University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand

To the person that asked how CCR go their name...you'll find it in here
somewhere.


Below is something that I posted onto our local system way back when.
It was swiped out of the UK Q Magazine, June 89 ish.
A bit dated though.
Comments in [] brackets by moi.

I have another text file somewhere, which includes further stuff and
replies when I posted the first one.
(incl. the well-known Pet Shop Boys dilemma, i.e. gerbils or music shop ;-)
I'll try to dig it up soon.

This list could be WAY bigger if artists real names were listed,
e.g. Elton John...but that would be way too big.
What's wrong with having such a unique name as Reggie Dwight anyway ?

reproduced without permission,  W.G.A.F. ?
De Fish!

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

                          What's in a Name ?

Abba - from the first letters of their christian names : Anni-Frid,Benny,
Bjorn, Agnetha.

The Animals - Named after a squatter known to the group, one Animal Hog.
"He epitomised what we wanted to represent with our music. Total freedom,
a little bit of anarchy, a lot of wildness and a lot of good times."(E.Burdon)

The Art Of Noise - The Art Of Noises was a 1913 booklet by italian futurist
painter Luigi Russolo, urging a new concept of music:"One day...every factory
will be transformed into an intoxicating orchestra of noises."

Aswad - In the Ethiopian Amharic language, Aswad is the word for black.

Aztec Camera - According to Roddy Frame, in 1983:"Aztec sounded right and 
Camera came off the B-side to a Teardrops Explodes single." (His first group
was called Neutral Blue because "the guitarist was an electrician and that's
the way he remembered how to wire a plug.")

The Band - Formerly Dylan's backing musicians, habitually called "the band".
Hence the name!

Bauhaus - German school of design, founded 1919, aiming to integrate
architecture, fine arts and technology to create "the compositely inseparable
work of art, the great building."

The Beach Boys - Formerly Carl & the Passions, then Kenny & the Cadets.
Changed name to suit image behind the first hit single "Surfin'".

The Beatles - Insect theme was inspired by name of Buddy Holly and the
 Crickets. They also liked Crickets' double meaning( an insect or a game)
so they made Beetles into Beatles, to carry pun on beat music.

Bee Gees - Stands for Brothers Gibb.

B-52's - An American bomber plane that later gave its name to a beehive
hairstyle.

Big Country - "It just implied a sense of vastness, open spaces. A sense
of new discovery. A sense of ambition." (Stuart Adamson)

Black Oak Arkansas - Amazingly they came from Black Oak, Arkansas.

Blondie - From the long-running US newspaper cartoon strip Blondie and
Dagwood, about a dizzy blonde and her husband.

Blow Monkeys - In his teens, single Dr. Robert lived in Australia, where
he heard the expression used as a somewhat diaparaging term for
Aboriginal didgeridoo players.

BoomTown Rats - Formerly Mark Skid and the Y-Fronts, they wisely opted for
the name of a gang in Woody Guthrie's autobiographical book "Bound for Glory."

David Bowie - Named himself after a hero, Jim Bowie, who fought with Davey
Crockett at the Alamo. Changed his name from David Jones to avoid confusion
with Monkee of similar title.

Cabaret Voltaire - Literary nightclub in Zurich, 1916, which became cradle
of the "Dada" art movement.

Cocteau Twins - After Jean Cocteau (1891-1963), French writer/artist.

Communards - Gesture of solidarity with radical insurgents of the Paris
Commune in 1870.

Creedence Clearwater Revival - Originally called The Golliwogs, the group
came under increasing pressure from their record label Fantasy to change
the name, which they did in December '67. The story goes that John Fogerty
has a friend called Creedence, he also saw a TV beer advert which stressed
the virtues of clear water and, finally, he felt some sort of musical revival
was in the air. Put it all together and what do you get?
 (that's right : Friend Beer Musical.)

Crowded House - Inspired by the cramped accommodation, in Hollywood, where
the band spent 1985 rehearsing their debut album. [Originally called The
Mullanes, after Neil Finn's middle name. DF!]

Curved Air - From A Rainbow In Curved Air, title of 1969 electronic album
by Terry Riley.

Darling Buds - "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?/Thou art more lovely
and more temperate./Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May./And
 summer's lease hath all too short a date." (Shakespeare, Sonnet XVII)

Deep Purple - Name of a 1962 pop hit by Nino Tempo and April Stevens.
Original version by hard rock legend Bing Crosby.

Depeche Mode - French magazine title, roughly translates as "Fast Fashion".
Group originally called Composition of Sound.

Devo - Short for "de-evolution", an element in the band's view of mankind.

Dexys Midnight Runners - Although Kevin Rowland tends to be a bit vague
about this, it is understood to be a reference to illegally acquired
dexedrine pills, for which the slang term is dexys. The drug has the effect
of giving users artificial energy, thus enabling them to keep going when tired.

Dire Straits - Suggested by a friend. Wry reflection of band's insolvent
plight in 1977, as they rehearsed for early gigs and demos.

The Doors - Jim Morrison took it from an essay on drugs, The Doors of
Perception by Aldous Huxley. The title itself is a phrase from 18th century
poet William Blake:"If the doors of perception were cleansed, man could see
things as they truly are; infinite."

Duran Duran - Name of a mad scientist character played by Milo O'Shea in
the 1968 Roger Vadim sci-fi fantasy film Barbarella, [opposite Jane Fonda.]

Bob Dylan - Born Robert Zimmerman, but adopted name of welsh port Dylan
Thomas. Another version suggests it was after a cowboy called Matt Dillon
in TV show Gunsmoke. [ Hey, funnily enough his birthday falls on the same
date of at least three people on CoSy, the 24th of...  DF!]

Echo and the Bunnymen - "it means, like, nothin'."  (Ian McCulloch)
"We had this mate who kept suggesting all these names, like The Daz Men or
Glisserol and the Fan Extractors. Echo and the Bunnymen was one of them. I
thought it was just as stupid as the rest." (Will Sergeant)
[wasn't Echo the name of the drum machine?   DF!]

Everything But the Girl - Name of a shop in Hull, where Ben and Tracey
were students.

Fairport Convention - The group used to assemble at Simon Nicol's Muswell
Hill home, which was called Fairport. They were, by extension, 
The Fairport Convention.

Fine Young Canninbals - Named after a sleazy soap-opera movie, All the Fine
Young Canninbals (1960, MGM), starring Robert Wagner and Natalie Wood. For 
the record, Halliwell's Film Guide describes it as a "boring rather than
daring farrago which is not even unintentionally funny."

Fleetwood Mac - Formely Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac. From the surnames of
drummers Mick Fleetwood and bass player John McVie.

Frankie Goes to Hollywood - Derives from writing on a poster for a Frank
Sinatra film, on the wall of the group's rehearsal room in Liverpool.

Gang of Four - Name applied to four political figures in China, 1976, who 
emerged in power struggle after death of Mao Tse Tung. Group included
Mao's widow Chiang Ching.

Generation X - Taken from the 1964 book of the same name by Chris Hamblett
and Jane Davidson, which records teenage attitudes to sex, politics, drugs,
religion,etc. The book includes a poem from which it takes its name, written
in a psychiatric hospital by a 20-year-old female suffering from depression.
One brief verse is as follows:"I am me/I must suffer/Because I am me."

Grateful Dead - Previously called The Warlocks. New name picked at random
by Jerry Garcia from a prayer in the Egyptian Book of the Dead.

Hatfield and the North - Destination on roadsigns, familiar to motorists
leaving London.

Heaven 17 - Fictional group mentioned in the Anthony Burgess novel A
Clockwork Orange: "These young devotchkas has their own like way of 
govoreeting. 'The Heaven Seventeen? Luke Stern? Goggly Gogol?"

Human League - From the science fiction Star Force, in which the Human League
was one of two rival futuristic empires in the year 2180.

Iggy(Pop) and the Stooges - "Iggy" derived from his one-time membership
called The Iguanas. The Stooges came from US comedy troupe of that name.
[I.P.'s real name, James Osterman       DF!]

Iron Maiden - Torture implement used in Middle Ages, consisting of
human-shaped shell in two halves, with inward facing spikes. Unlucky souls
were placed inside, then the halves of the maiden were brought slowly together.

Michael Jackson - From the subtle combination of his family name, Jackson,
plus the christian name given to him by his parents at the time of his
birth, Michael.  [ this is a tiring task, okay !?   DF!]

The Jam - Thought up by Paul Weller's sister at the breakfast table:"Well,
we've had The Bread, and we've had The Marmalade, so let's have The Jam."
[is this for real?   DF!]

The Jesus and Mary Chain - The group has stated that it was taken from an
offer on a breakfast cereal packet, to send away for a gold Jesus
 and Mary Chain.

Jethro Tull - An 18th century English agriculturalist, inventor of useful
farming contraption. Ian Anderson saw a book by him in manager's house.

Tom Jones - Born Thomas Woodward. Manager Gordon Mills rechristened him after
swash-buckling hero of Henry Fielding novel, which had just become a saucy
hit film. Also had suitable welsh element.

Joy Division - Prostitute's wing of Nazi prison camp. Name found in lurid
paperback novel.

Judas Priest - From the Bob Dylan song The Ballad of Frankie Lee And Judas
Priest, on his John Wesley Harding album.

The Kinks - Formerly The Ravens. "Kinky" was favoured word in 1960s swinging
London, meaning "attractively pervy" (as in "kinky boots").  For early
photos the band posed with riding whips.

Kraftwerk - German for "power station".

Led Zeppelin - Arose out of Jimmy Page's early plan to start a band with
Keith Moon and John Entwistle (who were fed up with The Who). Cynically,
Entwistle said "We'll call it Lead Zeppelin, because it'll go down like a 
lead balloon."  The 'a' was later dropped from Lead so it wouldn't be
pronounced Leed.

Level 42 - From the fact that 42 is given as "the ultimate answer to the
ultimate question of life, the universe and everything" in Douglas Adams's
book HitchHiker's Guide To the Galaxy.

Lindisfarne - Also known as Holy Island, off coast of Northumberland, north
of group's HQ Newcastle. Famous abbey founded there in 635 AD.

Little Feat - When Lowell George was a member of the Mothers of Invention,
their drummer Jimmy Carl Black (the indian of the group) used to refer to
him as Little Feet, an ironic reference to the size of his pedal extremities.

Lovin' Spoonful - Taken from Mississippi John Hurt's blues number, Coffee
Song:" I love my baby by the lovin' spoonful."

Lynard Skynard - From Leonard Skinner, name of unpopular gym teacher in the
Florida school that most of the group attended.

Marillion - Originally Silmarillion, from the title of Tolkein's book,
but later abbreviated.

Madness - Title of old ska hit by the band's hero Prince Buster.

Mothers of Invention - Were simply called The Mothers until record company
voiced concern it might be taken as short for "the oedipal compound" word.
New Name adapted from old proverb about Necessity Being...

Motorhead - B-side of a 1974 Hawkwind single Kings of Speed. Lemmy was band
member at the time, subsequently sacked.

Mott The Hoople - name of novel by Willard Manus.

New Order - Signified "fresh start" for Joy Division after death of their
old singer Ian Curtis. Term was also used by Hitler, but band deny
Nazi connotations.

New Riders of The Purple Sage - Named in 1970 after 1912 novel by western
fiction writer Zane Gray, Riders of the Purple Sage.
 The "new" was added in 1971.

Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark - Originally a song written by Andrew
 McClusky featuring "three radios and war noises recorded off the telly."

Gilbert O'Sullivan - Thought by rock scholars to be ingenious derivative of
popular english composers Gilbert and Sullivan. Evidence in inconclusive.

Pere Ubu - Character in Alfred Jarry's avant-garde 1896 play Ubu Roi.

Pink Floyd - After two Georgia bluesmen, Pink Anderson and Floyd Council.

Poco - Were to have been Pogo, after Walt Kelly's satirical cartoon strip, but
Kelly refused permission, so group chose Poco as being similar, and having
a musical connotation in sheet music where it means "a little".

The Pogues - Abbreviation of "pogue mahone", irish for Kiss My Arse. So,
are they now The Kisses, or The Arses ?

Prefab Sprout - Leader Paddy MacAloon's imagination was stimulated by
seeing albums by Tyrannosaurus Rex and Grand Central Station tucked under
the arms of school friends. "I feel under the mystery of the names and their
intangible and wilful obscurity. So I put two words together that didn't
mean anything because people would say "what does it mean?"  I had other
names like Chrysalis Cognosi and The Ethereal Fair Roses".

Pretenders - From the ballad song The Great Pretender, a 1956 hit for
The Platters.

Procol Harum - Name of a cat belonging to friend of Gary Brooker. Latin
Phrase meaning "beyond these things".

The Ramones - When The Beatles were still known as The Silver Beetles, Paul
McCartney briefly used the pseudonym Paul Ramon. When The Ramones formed in
1974 they chose their stage names in memory of the days when McCartney was
still a rocker.

R.E.M. - Stands for Rapid Eye Movement, measured in sleeping subjects as
symptom of dream activity.

The Residents - The most favored rumour is that when the group was sending
out demo tapes to record companies, they once forgot to include their names
in the package. The record company returned the package, addressing it to
The Residents, at the address given on the package. Suitably amused, the group
decided that their name had found them.
[isn't this similar to Erasure ?  - DF!]

Rolling Stones - From the Muddy Waters blues song, Rolling Stone.

Roxy Music - "It was intended to convey a slightly old-style glamour, with
a pun on rock."  (Bryan Ferry)

The Searchers - After a 1956 John Wayne western movie.

Sex Pistols - Chosen by Malcolm McLaren, who assembled band in his boutique
Sex, and a distortion of botanical term sex pistils, referring to male sexual
parts of flowers.

Showaddywaddy - From the doo-wop backing vocal line. (Same as Sha Na Na).

Sigue Sigue Sputnik - Supposedly name of a Moscow street gang, spotted by
Tony James in the International Herald Tribune.

Sisters of Mercy - A "laughing" Leonard Cohen song.

Small Faces - "Faces" were any leading characters on the 1960s mod scene.
Marriot, Lane and Co were, if you will, physically "small" examples thereof.

The Smiths - Morrissey just came up with it, and Johnny Marr approved: "All
other bands at the time had 15-syllable names...We just wanted four
individuals who could be collectively known as something normal." Morrissey
has denied it was tribute to fellow Mancunian Mark E. Smith of The Fall.

Soft Machine - Novel by William Burroughs.

Spandau Ballet - Spandau is an area in Berlin; in the last century they had
a ballet there. Friend of the band saw it written on a toilet wall. Gary
Kemp: "Basically we used the name because it had a lot more mystery
than Neasden Ballet."

Status Quo - Chosen by manager Pat Barlow: "It was a name I kept reading
about in the papers and hearing on the telly. It sticks in the mind."
Francis Rossi: "We're always asked about the name: Did you do it for a
reason? In a word, no."

Steeleye Span - Formed by Ashley Hutchings, previously of Fairport Convention,
they were looking for something folksy and settled for the name of a character
in the traditional Lincolnshire ballad, Horkston Grange.

Steely Dan - Name of a dildo in William Burrough's novel Naked Lunch.

Steppenwolf - Novel by German writer Hermann Hesse.

Still Little Fingers - Derived from a line in a Vibrators song which was, in
turn, referring to an early '60s US sci-fi series, The Invaders, in which
the invading aliens were distinguishable from earthlings only because
they all had unbendable pinkies.

Strawbs - Short for Strawberry Hill Boys, after the district of London where
they rehearsed.

Supertramp - From the book Autobiography of a Supertramp, by W.H. Davies
(1908), tale of a british toff who roamed the USA as a vagrant.
[hence the name of their greatest hits collection as well      DF!]

Booker T and The MGs - Short for Booker T. Jones and the Memphis Group, once
the house rhythm section at Stax Records in Memphis.

Talking Heads - TV jargon for onscreen speakers.

The Teardrop Explodes - From a caption in the Marvel comic Daredevil, (number
77, June 1971): "filling the park with an unearthy whine - painting the 
leaf-bare branches with golden fire - the teardrop explodes..."

Tears for Fears - A phrase lifted from Arthur Janov's The Primal Scream, which
advocates the release of pent-up emotions, such as crying, as a method of
relieving fears and neuroses.

10cc - Conceitedly a little above the average amount of male ejaculation
during orgasm.

The Mortal Coil - Shakespeare. From Hamlet's famous "To be or not to be"
speech.  "For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,/When we have
 shuffled of this mortal coil,/Must give us pause."

Thompson Twins - Comic strip detectives in the cartoon Tin Tin.

T. Rex - Abbreviation for Tyrannosaurus Rex, a large dinosaur. Bolan chose
name, says manager Simon Napier-Bell, "because that was the biggest animal
there'd ever been in the world, and he was going to be that big."

Triffids - Frankly unsociable plant monsters who attack humanity in John
Wyndham's 1951 novel The Day of The Triffids.

UB40 - Number on the british unemployment benefit card. [indicative of their
job status when starting out - DF!]

U2 - Formerly The Hype. Adam Clayton liked XTC's name, and a friend suggested
U2 as being along the same lines. The U2 was a US spy plane, is also the
number of a battery, and could be taken as a pun on "you too."

Van Der Graaf Generator - The (misspelled) name was given by founder member
Chris Judge Smith in 1967, commemorating the invention of R.J. Van de Graaff
(1901-1967), a static electricity generator used for accelerating charged
atomic particles (protons) to high energies.

Velvet Underground - from the salacious pulp book of the same name, about
the joys of sado-masochism.

Wet Wet Wet - From the line "his face is wet, wet with tears" taken from the
Scritti Politti song "Getting Having And Holding". The third Wet was added to
distinguish them from such double-headed names as Duran Duran and Talk Talk.

Wham! - Taken from their early composition Wham Rap, which contains the
lines "Wham! Bam! I am a man!"

The Who - Chosen because it would print up big on posters, and cause enough
confusion to make it memorable. Townsend's first suggestion, The Hair And
The Who, was turned down for sounding like a pub.

Yello - Meaning a "yelled hello".   Obviously.

ZZ Top - According to drummer Frank Beard it's a parody of B.B. King.
"We just wanted a name that sounded like maybe some crusty old blues player."
Others allege it's taken from names of two brands of rolling papers.
[another reason that has been quoted is that they could be the last
band in any alphabetic list/record rack/etc.  And it's true too...
have a look at Dave Datta's Eclectic Music List - DF!]
Newsgroups: alt.music.alternative