Who else hates when someone beats you to a name?

[Bard2dbone]

Hey Guys -

Basically exactly what the title says. My given name is just way too lame to use as a stage name. So back in the day I'd always be the singer/bassist/lyricist for a band and we'd go by the band name collectively.

That works as long as it's a good collective name for the band. Rush? Good. Journey? Good. Gov't Mule? Still good. anything that includes one person's name, but not everyone's? Bad. So for example: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers? Fail.

You can also fail with extra credit if you come up with a perfectly good band name and then STILL include stage names for some members, like 1/3 of The Police, or 1/2 of U2. Extra credit points to the Ramones for doing that one right.

The main reason my given name sucks for this kind of situation is that my last name is a common first name. And my first name is a common last name. So for my entire fifty five years of life, well meaning idiots have corrected me when I introduced myself, like they know my name better having just met me than I do having lived with it forever.

I suppose I could use a fake band name for just me, like Uncle Banzai, or Iron and Wine. But that doesn't feel very "me".

Then it hit me, a perfectly awesome stage name that actually re-used part of my own name AND made a nice ironic statement on a black and white cover picture, because it's a mnemonic for all the colors of the spectrum. Roy G Biv.

Yeah. It's taken.

SO frustrated.

 

[Spectrum]

So for example: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers? Fail.

I don't think I understand this. You mean it would be bad if, say, you were fronting the Heartbreakers using your own real name?

About cool names already taken, yeah sure, that's frustrating. It must've been nice for people forming bands in the 60s when you could go with something simple like Rush.

Rush is my favorite band, but I have to admit that their band name is nothing special. I bet lots of bands tried to use that name before Rush became generally known.

I didn't know Roygbiv was a band name, but I do know it's a song title by the electronic group Boards of Canada.

 

[Bard2dbone]

It's not a band. It's the pseudonym of a visual artist.

The reason I think of names that are basically ___________and the_____________, is that they are drawing all the attention to one member, when the rest of the band are regular members who just don't get mentioned. So, even though I liked Tom Petty, I disliked the naming convention that disregarded the assorted Heartbreakers.

 

[callofcthulhu]

Hey Guys -

Basically exactly what the title says. My given name is just way too lame to use as a stage name. So back in the day I'd always be the singer/bassist/lyricist for a band and we'd go by the band name collectively.

That works as long as it's a good collective name for the band. Rush? Good. Journey? Good. Gov't Mule? Still good. anything that includes one person's name, but not everyone's? Bad. So for example: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers? Fail.

You can also fail with extra credit if you come up with a perfectly good band name and then STILL include stage names for some members, like 1/3 of The Police, or 1/2 of U2. Extra credit points to the Ramones for doing that one right.

The main reason my given name sucks for this kind of situation is that my last name is a common first name. And my first name is a common last name. So for my entire fifty five years of life, well meaning idiots have corrected me when I introduced myself, like they know my name better having just met me than I do having lived with it forever.

I suppose I could use a fake band name for just me, like Uncle Banzai, or Iron and Wine. But that doesn't feel very "me".

Then it hit me, a perfectly awesome stage name that actually re-used part of my own name AND made a nice ironic statement on a black and white cover picture, because it's a mnemonic for all the colors of the spectrum. Roy G Biv.

Yeah. It's taken.

SO frustrated.

You missed a category - names of a band that sound like a pseudonym, but aren't.

Pink Floyd, Steely Dan, Judas Priest, Uriah Heep, Jethro Tull, The Doobie Brothers, etc.

Alice Cooper started out this way until their front man decided to stop laughing when people asked "which one's Alice?"

I think Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers is a good name, but it would have been a GREAT name if no one in the band was named Tom Petty.

 

[Bard2dbone]

Actually, I think you are at least 273% right. Several bands I liked or at least respected had names like that: Marshal Tucker, Pablo Cruise, Lynyrd Skynyrd...

That was the equal and opposite version of what I was picturing with Uncle Banzai and Iron and Wine. Both of which are one singer/songwriter, but SOUND like they are a band. But yeah. Calling myself Dirk Diggler and the Fantastic Wigglers. WOULD be fun...for a while. But it would get old because I'd have to keep up the joke forever.

I just got way too excited all at once when I considered Roy G Biv...until I looked it up online and there is a visual artist who goes by that name.

Bummer. Serious bummer. I was already picturing album covers.

But nope. Taken.

 

[biguglyman]

So, even though I liked Tom Petty, I disliked the naming convention that disregarded the assorted Heartbreakers.

Maybe because he was the front-man, main singer and songwriter? His keyboard player and guitarist may have written a few (and kept publishing rights I believe).

On a related note; I was once in a band called "Joe Puma and the Panthers". Almost every gig some drunk would come up and ask "which one of you guys is Joe Puma?" We finally ended up taking turns...

 

[Bard2dbone]

I totally get why Tom had his name out front. It just kinda seems that that would suck if you were Benmont or Mike.

I object to that kind of name philosophically, even if I understand how they arrived at it.

 

[biguglyman]

I totally get why Tom had his name out front. It just kinda seems that that would suck if you were Benmont or Mike.

Yeah, I get it. Ask Don Felder though if the name really means that much...

 

[Bard2dbone]

Yeah. But Don was with the Eagles. That's a pretty excellent collective name.

 

[Bard2dbone]

I am reminded of a list I used to post whenever someone started a "Name my band" thread. It was an abridged version of the multi-page list of names that my old band argued over back in 1988. The actual list was around four and a half or five pages. The part I'd post was maybe a quarter of that. It had a bunch that amused me because they'd gotten used as band names, album titles, or instrumental titles in the years since then. So someone would look at the list and say something like "You didn't come up with Glass Hammer. I saw them in 2003 !" And I'd reply "The list is from 1988."

Actually, Here. This is that post.

Okay, everybody. Brace yourselves. I found the list again. This thing goes for several pages. And the really funny thing is somebody was serious on all these suggestions. I am not going to post all of them. Like I said it goes for pages and pages. But I will post the ones that catch my eye.

Ready?

Tell It To The Priest
Blind Without a Dog
Talk To Your Daughter
Surfers From Iowa
Grubby Paws
Glass Eye Marbles
Needless Controversy
Inside Joke ( I actually like this one.)
Mars Needs Women and So Does Wayne (I'm Wayne)
Nerds On the Edge
Welfare Bound
Cartoon Characters
Bad Idea
Raised By Wolves Only To Be Killed By Science (I used this for an instrumental title)
Fools And Little Children
Lassie Loves Garfield (This ought to have been a title, but I never used it.)
Potential Cultists
Bee Movies
People With Instruments
No Sense Of Shame
Shameless (Oh look. A pattern forming.)
Black Market Teddy Bears
Irrelevant Flashbacks
Gypsies From Vegas
Common as Diamonds
I Forget
Art of Vanishing (I like this one too)
Mental Radio
Golden Apples and Poisoned Pears (I used that for an instrumental title too)
Local Wildlife
Ordinary Miracle
Tiny Box of Fear ( I actually liked this one too.)
Gumby and Pokey
Brief Momens of Clarity
Bitten By Bruno (Bruno was a chihuahua)
The Plan
Rocket Science
All In Disguise
No Vacancy
Lost Cause
Sounds Like
Vicious Attack Snail Trainers
Professor Stupendous
Struck By Lightning Bugs
Brain Fade
Above Average
Just The Facts Ma'am
S. O. Teric
B. Tsar (Oh look. Another pattern forming.)
Wishful Thinking
Fuzzy Logic (The one we actually used for the next several years, This is just where it was in relation to the rest of the suggestions on the list.)
Carnival of Souls
Identity Crisis
Son of Lassie in 3-D
Formerly Something Else
Rhythmic Confusion
Rhythmic Confucius (I liked that better than the previous one.)
Wise But Wierd
Sane Asylum
Wisdom From The High Chair
Glass Hammer ( I like this one too.)
Touch Me There
Daisy's a Babe
Social Darwinists
Doctor Tongues 3-D House of Stewardesses (I think this was from a SCTV skit)


What I want you to grasp here is that this is a severely abridged list. There are four to five times this many names. And as bad as some of the ones I posted are, these are the good ones. I have kept the notebook because it has other things in it that are actually useful to me. But every once in a while I remember that, elsewhere in that notebook is THE LIST .

Enjoy.

Some of those sound like great album titles now, or at least pretty good ones. Mars Needs Women And So Does Wayne , Fools And Little Children, Black Market Teddy Bears, Ordinary Miracles, Lassie Loves Garfield, Carnival of Souls, Mental Radio, Common As Diamonds...

Only one struck me as a good project name, though: Professor Stupendous.

It's probably taken, too.

 

[biguglyman]

Yeah. But Don was with the Eagles.

Henley and Frey treated the rest of the band like hired help, which is kind of what you're saying about name bands. So you also object to The Steve Miller Band, The Alan Parsons Project etc.? I'm not trying to start something, just clarify where you're coming from to try and understand.

 

[Bard2dbone]

If it's something like Steely Dan, where Donald and Walter are the only real members, then yeah. I get treating everyone else like the help. But if you see the same people on multiple albums, they aren't the help. They are members and should be fully acknowledged as such.

This may stem from an old hang up of mine. My first professional gig I was just a hired hand. They picked me for my strong back, as much as for my bass skills. The keyboard player had what was then called a "full touring rig" which classically meant (at that time) a Rhodes 88 with suitcase, a B3 with Leslie, and a Yamaha Electric Grand. All told over a thousand pounds of keyboard gear. I was there for more than a month before they realized I could sing harmonies, too. Even then I was just 'one of the hands'. The only difference was that then I had to have a matching suit and stand over among the singers.

On the up side, it was my only group that had their own tour bus. On the down side, the whole "You don't count." level of employment. Very much like being a McDonalds counter person hanging out with the Kroc family, if that makes sense.

 

[tpaul]

Why can't a band have the same name as a visual artist? Unless you're planning on playing lots of gallery and museum gigs, I don't see the problem.

Pretty sure if I saw the local pub advertising Picasso on Friday night, I'd assume it was the name of a band.

 

[Relsom]

Hey Guys -

Basically exactly what the title says. My given name is just way too lame to use as a stage name. So back in the day I'd always be the singer/bassist/lyricist for a band and we'd go by the band name collectively.

That works as long as it's a good collective name for the band. Rush? Good. Journey? Good. Gov't Mule? Still good. anything that includes one person's name, but not everyone's? Bad. So for example: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers? Fail.

You can also fail with extra credit if you come up with a perfectly good band name and then STILL include stage names for some members, like 1/3 of The Police, or 1/2 of U2. Extra credit points to the Ramones for doing that one right.

The main reason my given name sucks for this kind of situation is that my last name is a common first name. And my first name is a common last name. So for my entire fifty five years of life, well meaning idiots have corrected me when I introduced myself, like they know my name better having just met me than I do having lived with it forever.

I suppose I could use a fake band name for just me, like Uncle Banzai, or Iron and Wine. But that doesn't feel very "me".

Then it hit me, a perfectly awesome stage name that actually re-used part of my own name AND made a nice ironic statement on a black and white cover picture, because it's a mnemonic for all the colors of the spectrum. Roy G Biv.

Yeah. It's taken.

SO frustrated.

Yeah, I'll bet there's plenty Roy G. Bivs out there since I know of one here locally.

 

[Bard2dbone]

If I can get away with it, then I am totally Roy G Biv for this project and possibly any others I do. If I can't, Professor Stupendous will have to do.

Unless I come up with something better.

 

[bolophonic]

I can’t believe that there aren’t a dozen bands called Roy G Biv.

 

[el murdoque]

I was in a <band leader> and the <band name> band.
It started out as a very good play on words that not only was aimed at a highly specific target audience, but on top of that, only a small fraction of that audience was able to understand it.
Soon after we started out, it became apparent that we had a BL. It just happened. Seven people in a room working on an original song or arranging a song to match our style tend to lead to endless discussions, so you need someone to call the shots.
Half a year later, people from the band started calling the BL by the fabricated stage name.
Everyone of us still thinks it is / was a good name.

Nowadays it's hard to find one or two word band names that have a ring and are not taken.
But on the other hand, there are more possibilities as well.

 

[PaulCISSA]

The main reason my given name sucks for this kind of situation is that my last name is a common first name. And my first name is a common last name. So for my entire fifty five years of life, well meaning idiots have corrected me when I introduced myself, like they know my name better having just met me than I do having lived with it forever.

"Never trust a man with two first names". So say's my wife of 32 years.

I've lived your story and can empathize. I have the same affliction and I blame my late parents. It was probably cute in the moment but they had no clue......

As far as a name for the band or persona, I got nuthin'. I stay far away from that discussion since it's never worked out well for me. Just posted to share my empathy.

 

[Nevada Pete]

It's not a band. It's the pseudonym of a visual artist.

The reason I think of names that are basically ___________and the_____________, is that they are drawing all the attention to one member, when the rest of the band are regular members who just don't get mentioned. So, even though I liked Tom Petty, I disliked the naming convention that disregarded the assorted Heartbreakers.

May I kindly point out that in that case, the rest of the band members are side men / women. That's why they aren't mentioned. it's about marketing. People like "stars". "Stars" draw the crowds. Some might say "stars" have the exceptional talent.

There's always exceptions to the rule, like "Rush" for example, which was a whole band. By the way, do you know where that name came from? Of course you do.

I'm sure if you relax and let your mind work for you, a great name will pop into your head that will be better than any that have gone before. Think of a pool of water, like a shallow lake. When the surface is agitated and choppy, you can't see down to the bottom. But when the surface is smooth, you can (provided the water is clear, of course. OOHHHMMMMMMMM.

 

[dalkowski]

my last name is a common first name. And my first name is a common last name.

Insert a comma between your first name and your last name.
I'm absolutely serious.