The Imaginary Zine is a 60-page old school printed zine recounting our first 10 years with some of our favorite blog posts and stories from our imaginary friends. It is extemely limited with only 333 handcrafted zines made.
It also includes a cd chock full of rare, live, or exclusive songs by some of our favorite local artists, including The Long Winters, BOAT, Tullycraft, Exohxo, Tennis Pro, Math & Physics Club and many more!
If there's any one question most bands tend to dislike it's how they got their band name. A band will most likely answer with, "Well, this one night we were drunk..." or something similarly dissatisfying and anti-climatic, which is I avoid the question during interviews.
While listening to emo pioneer Cap'n Jazz's completely encompassing Analphabetapolothology, it occurred to me that two groups of budding musicians lifted their names from track titles: We are Scientists and Scary Kids Scaring Kids.
Then I realized there are many bands who have taken this route to naming, including many from the Northwest:
Some of these bands seemed to be inspired beyond just the band name and show influences to their naming bands, while other don't. What do you think -- do most of these bands show influences of the song from whence their names came?
What other bands can you think up to join this list?
1 John in Ballard said on July 8, 2008
How about sparkly indie pop websites that get their name (or something very close to it) from a song?
The only thing I can come up with right now is Menomena since whenever I hear that name I see muppets singing it. Menomena, do do, do do do.....menomena do do, do do do.
I'm pretty sure they didn't take their name from that though.
2 imaginary dana said on July 8, 2008
I'm pretty sure they did, actually. What else could Menomena possibly be??
3 imaginary dana said on July 8, 2008
Oh great now I'm hooked...
4 Porkchop Sandwiches! said on July 8, 2008
Ladytron.... a very, very far out song (and video) by Roxy Music.
5 Matt said on July 8, 2008
Judas Priest
Bob Dylan meets Hell Bent for Leather
6 Justin Koeppen said on July 8, 2008
There's some electropop girl band called Uh Huh Her which is taken from the name of the PJ Harvey album, does that count?
7 saundrah said on July 8, 2008
The only ones I can think of are the 'Cocteau Twins' from a Simple Minds song... and 'Sisters of Mercy' from a Leonard Cohen song. And now you know what I was listening to in the eighties...
8 chops said on July 8, 2008
the rolling stones. (from muddy waters, not bob dylan...)
negativland (from NEU!)
blonde redhead (from DNA)
love battery (from the buzzcocks...could be wrong about this one though. green river weren't no CCR cover band, either...)
Old 97s (johnny cash)
9 John in Ballard said on July 8, 2008
Well now you got me wondering just where exactly "Menomena" came from, so I tried to look it up and found this paragraph on Wikipedia:
"The name "Menomena" was chosen for "the way it rolls off the tongue, sexually, or something" [3] and has no specific meaning, although it is often assumed to refer to the Piero Umiliani song "Mah Nà Mah Nà", a staple of The Muppet Show. A recent audioclip from SpotDJ had Brent sarcastically stating that the band name was a portmanteau of the words "Men" and "Phenomena"."
So I don't know, maybe a 1/2 point for that?
10 imaginary liz said on July 8, 2008
There's one of my favorites from 1993: Throw that Beat in the Garbagecan (from a B-52s song) ---- you can see the influence (and aren't they cute!?!?!):
11 andrea jean said on July 8, 2008
Isn't there a band called Seether? I always think of the Veruca Salt song when I hear about them.
12 rick said on July 9, 2008
Okay, this is cheating a little, but "Math and Physics Club" pretty obviously came from The Breakfast Club, right?
13 saundrah said on July 9, 2008
@Rick That's right... but most people under say..30 years old, don't get it. :)
14 elle said on July 9, 2008
Okay to make this all cohesive with the editorial title of this post, my vote for the best band names swiped from song names would be (in random order):
Radiohead
We are Scientists
Blonde Redhead
Ladytron
Death Cab for Cutie
Math and Physics Club
Pretty Girls Make Graves
15 Ryan said on July 9, 2008
There's also the Japanese band "Seagulls Screaming Kiss her, Kiss Her". An XTC Song. Maybe lost on the under 30 crowd.
16 Anonymous said on January 12, 2010
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