Locality Band Names

[DirtDog]

Locality or literary?

Looking it now, probably literary. I live a short-ish drive from Brighton, Ontario. I always associated the band name with that place. Probably wrongly!

James Bay is a place! I've been there!

 

[Altitude]

Manchester Orchestra is from Atlanta.

Totally killer band though.

 

[J-Mags]

Sleater-Kinney.

Took their name from a freeway off-ramp in Lacey, Washington.

And there was that other band that took their name from the Sedro-Woolley freeway offramp in Burlingon, WA.

 

[turf3]

I grant you, it's more a descriptive name but you can't deny they know where the beat is.


And they're certainly not clapping on 1 and 3!

 

[BassChap]

Jimmy Somerville
Jools Holland
Dusty Springfield
Whitney Houston
John Denver
Jeff Berlin
Grover Washington
Keith Moon

 

[MichelD]

There was a band here in B.C. called Blackfish Sound, which is the name of a body of water.

"Blackfish" is a colloquial term for Orca.

 

[-Asdfgh-]

Looking it now, probably literary. I live a short-ish drive from Brighton, Ontario. I always associated the band name with that place. Probably wrongly!

It's a good name on many levels, assuming they play the right sort of music. Obviously, it would be inappropriate for a lounge jazz band.

 

[heynorm]

Mannheim Steamroller… from Omaha.

 

[heynorm]

Bakersfield. My country band since 1993.

 

[-Asdfgh-]

Jimmy Somerville
Jools Holland
Dusty Springfield
Whitney Houston
John Denver
Jeff Berlin
Grover Washington
Keith Moon

If we're going in that direction, then Eric Morecambe (who did sing in the stage show), it being a stage name based on Morecambe Bay.

But then you could also have Peter Framton (the UK has several Framptons), or Lisa Stansfield or Mick Hucknall. Finding people in the UK with surnames that match towns or villages isn't exactly difficult, so that doesn't really meet the premise of there being relatively few bands that have place names in the UK unless someone has deliberately decided to call themselves Englebert Slaithwaite or something, although there is probably a Soggy Bottom.

 

[-Asdfgh-]

Mannheim Steamroller… from Omaha.

Sehr gut, ja?

 

[Blackbird]

Y'all missed The Quarrymen, named after Quarry Bank High School in Liverpool.

You know, the band that eventually became The Beatles?

 

[Hues]

Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars

 

[Ostie]

Da Yoopers! I love that band. Haven't heard them in decades. Don't need to hear em again. but I love that band.

Well, let me just plant these ear worms back in your head:
The Second Week of Deer Camp
Thirty Point Buck

And another UP band was Conga Se Menne, a sort of Finnish reggae band.

 

[Danielle Meyer]

Well, let me just plant these ear worms back in your head:
The Second Week of Deer Camp
Thirty Point Buck

And another UP band was Conga Se Menne, a sort of Finnish reggae band.

Finnish reggae from the UP? I'm looking forward to this. BRB.....
Okay just listened to Sauna Song, That was fun, thanks!

 

[-Asdfgh-]

If we're going in that direction, then Eric Morecambe (who did sing in the stage show), it being a stage name based on Morecambe Bay.

But then you could also have Peter Framton (the UK has several Framptons), or Lisa Stansfield or Mick Hucknall. Finding people in the UK with surnames that match towns or villages isn't exactly difficult, so that doesn't really meet the premise of there being relatively few bands that have place names in the UK unless someone has deliberately decided to call themselves Englebert Slaithwaite or something, although there is probably a Soggy Bottom.

Actually, there is David Essex.

 

[ardgedee]

Actually, there is David Essex.

That's nothing. Russia has a major city named after John Lennon!

 

[-Asdfgh-]

There was a band called Glasgow in Glasgow, Scotland, in the 80s. They always said they chose the name because Cowdenbeath wouldn't fit on the jackets.

There was another band in Glasgow around the same time called Vancouver. Not that that made any sense. Their bass player was also a sound guy.

More famous Scottish band: Nazareth

More Scottish, teen idols from the 70s The Bay City Rollers -- that's a reference to Edinburgh.

Portishead is a town in Somerset in England

Chilliwack is a town in BC, Canada.


How about Steve Howe's prog supergroup Asia?

Japan?

Bay City Rollers is named after a random location on a map of the USA, in this case a location in Michigan. No one in Edinburgh refers to it as 'Bay City' to my knowledge, not least, because there's no bay.

 

[SoonerBill]

Boston
Oasis
Atlanta Rhythm Section

 

[Ostie]

Bay City Rollers is named after a random location on a map of the USA, in this case a location in Michigan. No one in Edinburgh refers to it as 'Bay City' to my knowledge, not least, because there's no bay.

I saw an interview with the Bay City Rollers, probably on on the Mike Douglas Show. They said at the time that they randomly picked Bay City, Michigan off of a map. Bay City is located on Saginaw Bay of Lake Huron, which brings us to the band Lord Huron, formed by some guys that went to the same high school as me, only much more recently.