As Townsman bobbybittman mentioned in our ways in which the Beatles suck thread, The Beatles could have followed the lead of Paul McCartney’s pseudonym during early tours, Paul Ramone, and called themselves The Ramones. I would think this is a rare piece of knowledge that we could run with that we won’t have on most bands, but I’ve been surprised by the depth of our collective wisdom before. However, we often know the original name of famous bands, and in some cases we might argue that that abandoned name might have been better than the name the band actually ended up using. For instance, I would argue that I’d have had a lot more interest as a young rock nerd checking out a band named The Warlocks than The Grateful Dead. I don’t know if you’ve ever thought about this, but combing through original, abandoned band names and other missed opportunities for band names, such as the observation regarding The Coulda-Been-the-Ramones, have you ever felt that a band missed the boat with the name it eventually chose?
Nope. Other than The Beatles/Ramones instance, I don’t think it ever happened again.
Hey, It took awhile but I remembered a couple:
‘The Velvet Underground’, at the urging of Kim Fowley, who promised a big record contract & even bigger Hollywood bucks, gigged for two weeks under the name ‘The Sunshine Conspiracy’. Turns out he was just kidding. That guy!
Man, oh man, was Lou, “FUCKING PISSED OFF!” (to be read aloud w/a strong Long Island accent).
The Cure originally had a slight country tinge to their sound, & named themselves ‘Droopy MacMope & His Sad Sack Ramblers’. The steel guitarist quit, & the rest is history.
Finally, ‘Hapsash & The Colored Coat’ were originally called ‘Dr. Orangamonkey’s Candy-Coated Eight Dimensional Honey Wagon with the Lemon Cellophane Tinged Wings’. Then they decided that was just silly.
Oh yeah, If had been up to Keith Moon, The Who would have been known as ‘The British Beach Boys’.
It’s easy to imagine that Page might have just stuck with the name “The Yardbirds” when he threw together Bonzo, J.P. and Bob, making the “Led Zep” line-up of the Yardbirds being what everyone assumed when you talked about them. Only nerds like us would explain that at one time the band had Jeff Beck and Eric Clapton within their ranks, sorta the same way we talk about Peter Green’s Fleetwood Mac.
db, Didn’t they use that ‘New Yardbirds’ tag for a little while, until the ever- amusing Keith Moon gave them the idea for their final nom de Rock?
I remember being super dissapointed the first time I heard the Greatful Dead because they were so not heavy. being named the Warlocks would have only made that dissapointment greater.
The only bands that were ever as heavy as I expected them to be were: Motorhead and Metalica(who i first listened to when Ride the Lightning was a brand new record)
The heaviest band ever is The Melvins, whose name is not that heavy, however, now, through long term use, the name feels heavier.
Here are bands that have not been as heavy as their name or cover art imply:
Molly Hatchet
Blue Oyster Cult
Uriah Heap
Foghat
Thin Lizzy
Kiss
Rush
Deep Purple
Iron Maiden
Jethro Tull
Styx
Sex Pistols
Misfits
and Nazereth
Interesting observations, SK. But I gotta admit to scratching my head over the notion that Jethro Tull sounds heavy. Or looks heavy — except for maybe that “Too Old to Rock and Roll, Too Young to Die” LP (or whatever it’s called). Jethro Tull was the inventor of the seed drill, fer crissake. That’s not very rockular!
Why Nazareth, the boyhood home of Jesus?
It’s the word “Tull” Hrundi. It just has a certain weight to it. It hangs heavily. The cover art of theirs i saw first was Aqualung (which also sounds heavy to me) It has a freaky bumb on the cover, and a bunch of english looking drunken loons in the gatefold, another implication of heaviosity in my 4 year old mind. The title track is certainly heavy as balls, as is Locomotive Breath, from the same record.
However, subsequent singles and albums just have the same weight as those first impressions.
Ya know what? I just remembered Cross Eyed Mary.
Maybe they were heavy enough.
Nazareth has some album covers with wizards and lightning and trees and roots and shit. Seemed real heavy.
i just noticed a typo above. I was trying to say that songs like Skating Away, Bungle in the Jungle, and Thick as a Brick, were NOT as heavy as I thought they should be. I wrote:
However, subsequent singles and albums just have the same weight as those first impressions.
But I’m thinking now that Tull might weigh enough after all.
sorry for thinking out loud.
shawnkilroy, The Sex Pistols was never what I thought of as a “heavy” name, more a bid for the outrageous, but “Never Mind The Bullocks…” sounds pretty heavy to me. There are like, eight hundred guitars on that record. I remember being pissed off when I first heard it, because I didn’t think it sounded “punk” enough, & thought it sounded more like a metal record. Too big. Grew to love it, though. It took me a week of listening to “London Calling” to appreciate what a great album it is, because it wasn’t the raging CLASH sound I was used to.
BUT WE’RE GOING OFF ON TANGENTS AGAIN! CAN ANYBODY ADDRESS THE ORIGINAL QUESTION THIS THREAD ASKED, OR IS IT JUST DEAD IN THE WATER?
I’m drawing a blank, myself.
I had a band that almost changed their name to Skid Row (we got a singer who’s last name was Row) and at the last minute (week before we put out our demo and started playing shows)went with another name.
About a year later the Skid Row hard rock band came out
Too bad his last name wasn’t Marks.