Bandnames of famous progressive rock bands |
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ExittheLemming
Forum Senior Member Joined: October 19 2007 Location: Penal Colony Status: Offline Points: 11415 |
Posted: August 14 2011 at 09:56 | |
STEELY DAN - Named after a dildo in the William Burroughs novel Naked Lunch. According to Burroughs, the Steely Dan was a metal dildo that an evil German bulldyke prostitute crushed using her nether regions
Throbbing Gristle, which is a slang term, from Hull, meaning erection. Captain Beefheart (Don Van Vliet) is distantly related to Wallis Simpson, the wife of Edward VIII - his maternal grandmother was Simpson's 2nd cousin. Van Vliet's stage name came from a term used by his Uncle Alan. Alan had a habit of exposing himself to Don's erstwhile girlfriend, Laurie. Alan would urinate with the bathroom door open and, if she was walking by, mumble about his penis, saying "Ahh, what a beauty! It looks just like a big, fine beef heart." Erm...you see a pattern here Someone once told me that PFM were named after an Italian bakery...surely not? |
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CPicard
Forum Senior Member Joined: October 03 2008 Location: Lŕ, sui monti. Status: Offline Points: 10841 |
Posted: August 14 2011 at 11:26 | |
PFM = Premata Forneria Marconi.
"Forneria" means "Bakery" and Marconi is a family name (but I don't find translation for "Premata": could some Italian fellows help us here?) |
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harmonium.ro
Special Collaborator Honorary Collaborator / Retired Admin Joined: August 18 2008 Location: Anna Calvi Status: Offline Points: 22989 |
Posted: August 14 2011 at 11:48 | |
Premiata means "awarded" in the literal sense afaik, and it is used to indicate that the bakery is really fancy. I remember reading that PFM took the name from an actual bakery which showed interest in sponsoring them, but this should be verified.
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CPicard
Forum Senior Member Joined: October 03 2008 Location: Lŕ, sui monti. Status: Offline Points: 10841 |
Posted: August 14 2011 at 12:03 | |
Ah, "premiata" - with an "i". I read "premata"and couldn't find it in my dictionary.
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Jake Kobrin
Prog Reviewer Joined: September 20 2008 Status: Offline Points: 1303 |
Posted: August 14 2011 at 12:46 | |
Sigur Rós means "victory rose" in Icelandic. Jóni's little sister was named Sigurrós which is a common female name in Iceland.
Agalloch is a type of firewood, also called Aloeswood. It's also the best smelling incense ever.
Edited by Jake Kobrin - August 14 2011 at 21:06 |
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Andy Webb
Special Collaborator Retired Admin Joined: June 04 2010 Location: Terria Status: Offline Points: 13298 |
Posted: August 14 2011 at 14:14 | |
It's also grammatically incorrect and is a play on words (in Icelandic).
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Andy Webb
Special Collaborator Retired Admin Joined: June 04 2010 Location: Terria Status: Offline Points: 13298 |
Posted: August 14 2011 at 14:16 | |
Dick prog?
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Evolver
Special Collaborator Crossover & JR/F/Canterbury Teams Joined: October 22 2005 Location: The Idiocracy Status: Offline Points: 5482 |
Posted: August 14 2011 at 16:48 | |
The post prompted me to create a number of imaginary stories of bands named for penises. Wisely, I deleted it.
Although....
Band member 1: "We've been trying to find a name for our band for a month. Can't we agree on anything.
Band member 2: "Let's just name it after our penises."
Entire band: "YES!"
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Trust me. I know what I'm doing.
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ExittheLemming
Forum Senior Member Joined: October 19 2007 Location: Penal Colony Status: Offline Points: 11415 |
Posted: August 15 2011 at 04:20 | |
I think Tool beat you to it |
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someone_else
Forum Senior Member VIP Member Joined: May 02 2008 Location: Going Bananas Status: Offline Points: 24295 |
Posted: August 15 2011 at 04:39 | |
I'd rather associate the term "Dick prog" with the guy known as Fish (former Marillion singer), whose proper name is Derek William Dick. Both Derek W. Dick and Chris Squire are named 'Fish' because they have a peculiar preference for spending an unusually long time in the bath tub. The album title 'Fish Out of Water' was apparently well chosen.
Edited by someone_else - August 15 2011 at 04:41 |
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DiamondDog
Forum Senior Member Joined: August 15 2011 Location: Cambridge Status: Offline Points: 320 |
Posted: August 15 2011 at 05:06 | |
Very interesting stuff - can we have more please?
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harmonium.ro
Special Collaborator Honorary Collaborator / Retired Admin Joined: August 18 2008 Location: Anna Calvi Status: Offline Points: 22989 |
Posted: August 15 2011 at 05:33 | |
Some Romanian band names:
Talitha Qumi is in aramaic and means "rise and walk". Obviously, it's a line from the Bible and it goes well with the band's interest in the spiritual realm. Kumm means "sand" in Tartar language. The Black Sea beaches were the youth's place of total freedom after the fall of Communism (and, under cover, even before the fall). Talitha Qumi, the band that predated Kumm, was formed on the beaches of the Black Sea, and Kumm followed their path. The same beaches are sung by byron in the piece No Man's Land. Dan "Byron", the leader of byron, was a vocalist in Kumm so there you got a real tradition. Yesterdays: the band wanted to show their love for YES. Bucium: it's the name of a traditional Romanian instrument which you can see and hear here or here. I think Negură Bunget use buciums in their music. Negură Bunget: the first word means "dark mist" and the second means "thick forest". Quite awesome for an atmospheric/folk black metal band if you ask me. DorDeDuh: it's three words stuck together, and means "yearning for Grace". These guys are hard on the spiritual. Celelalte Cuvinte means "the other words" and refers to poetic meaning and what you can't express with words (hence other words). Progresiv TM: the first word means "progressive" and it was supposed to be a clear indicator of the band's style. TM is the abbreviation of Timiş county, where the band came from. That is also where most rock/prog bands came from during Communism, including Phoenix, Pro Musica and others. Timişoara, the capital of this county, is close to the border of Serbia, which had a more relaxed Communist regime, and so the people of Timişoara could hear rock music on Yougoslvian radio. Coming back to Progresiv TM, they were inspired to create a name of this shape by the locally famous Hungarian band Lokomotiv GT. Edited by harmonium.ro - August 15 2011 at 05:34 |
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friso
Prog Reviewer Joined: October 24 2007 Location: Netherlands Status: Offline Points: 2506 |
Posted: August 15 2011 at 06:25 | |
Progressive Folk
Jethro Tull The early version of Jehtro Tull, from way before the first album, was plagued by booking problems. To regain interest of podiums and festivals the band changed it's name several times (Navy Blue, Ian Henderson's Bag 'o Blues, Candy Coloured Rain). Finally, a booking agent mentioned 'Jethro Tull' as yet another option for the band's name. The band decided to keep the name because the first 'Jethro tull'-gig in the London Marque Club was said to be a success and the band was asked to return. Later on, club manager John Gee helped them to get gigs on bigger stages and got their career rolling. In stead of a psychedelic band name, Jethro Tull is actually a name of an early 18th century figure who is seen as one of the first scientists that applied the scientific method to enhance the agricultural knowledge. The 'Seed drill' is said to be one of his major inventions. Gryphon The griffin, griffon, or gryphon is a legendary folklore creature with the body of a lion and the head and wings of an eagle. As the lion was traditionally considered the king of the beasts and the eagle was the king of the birds, the griffin was thought to be an especially powerful and majestic creature. The 'creature' is said to have come from ancient Greek mythology, but since medieval times it also found in folklore stories and depictions all over Europe. Fairport Convention Bassist Ashley Hutchings met guitarist Simon Nicol in North London in 1966 when they both played in the Ethnic Shuffle Orchestra. They rehearsed on the floor above Nicol's father's medical practice in a house called "Fairport" on Fortis Green in Muswell Hill, North London. |
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GypsyJoker
Forum Senior Member Joined: July 09 2011 Status: Offline Points: 103 |
Posted: August 15 2011 at 06:58 | |
Interestingly, there's a recently-diagnosed condition known as "prog dick," in which the sufferer can only attain arousal if his background music is in alternating measures of 9/8 and 11/8.
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Jake Kobrin
Prog Reviewer Joined: September 20 2008 Status: Offline Points: 1303 |
Posted: August 15 2011 at 10:02 | |
^ Don't forget Tool.
When I asked Toby Driver why the band was named Kayo Dot, he and Mia just laughed and said "It's a long story." So I guess we'll never know? Ulver means Wolves in Norwegian. I think they're prog but people don't usually agree with me... Sunn O))) took their name as a literalization of the logo of Sunn amplifiers. Comus is the god of festivity, revels and nocturnal dalliances in Greek mythology. Shub-Niggurath is a deity from HP Lovecraft's Cthulu mythos.
Edited by Jake Kobrin - August 15 2011 at 10:06 |
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refugee
Forum Senior Member VIP Member Joined: November 20 2006 Location: Greece Status: Offline Points: 7026 |
Posted: August 15 2011 at 11:39 | |
Taken from Wikipedia: Porcupine Tree started out as a duo of Wilson and his schoolfriend Malcolm Stocks (with Wilson providing the majority of the instrumentation and Stocks contributing mostly ideas, additional vocals and experimental guitar sounds). Wilson began experimenting by recording music in his home until he had the hunch it could become someway marketable. The material was subsequently compiled into three demo tapes (Tarquin's Seaweed Farm, Love, Death & Mussolini and The Nostalgia Factory). For the first tape, he even wrote an inlay introduction to an obscure (imaginary) band called "The Porcupine Tree", suggesting the band met in the early '70s at a rock festival, and they had been in and out of prison many times. The booklet also contained information about band's obscure members like Sir Tarquin Underspoon and Timothy Tadpole-Jones, and crew members like Linton Samuel Dawson (if put into initials forming LSD). Wilson: "It was a bit of fun. But of course like anything that starts as a joke, people started to take it all seriously!" Apart from that, it’s obviously derived from porcupine and pine tree. Pure Reason Revolution is probably taken from Kant’s Kritik der reinen Vernunft (Critique of Pure Reason), but I don’t know about the revolution part. |
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He say nothing is quite what it seems;
I say nothing is nothing (Peter Hammill) |
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refugee
Forum Senior Member VIP Member Joined: November 20 2006 Location: Greece Status: Offline Points: 7026 |
Posted: August 15 2011 at 15:02 | |
Btw, great thread!
A couple of questions: Not a band name, but was Selling England by the Pound a slogan for the Labour party in the 1970s? And now a band name: Is 10 cc the average amount of sperm in a man’s ejaculation? |
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He say nothing is quite what it seems;
I say nothing is nothing (Peter Hammill) |
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GypsyJoker
Forum Senior Member Joined: July 09 2011 Status: Offline Points: 103 |
Posted: August 15 2011 at 15:08 | |
IRC, it was supposed to be more than the average amount. There have been numerous explanations of the band's name over the years, with some of the group saying that's the meaning, and others denying it.
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thehallway
Prog Reviewer Joined: April 13 2010 Location: Dorset, England Status: Offline Points: 1433 |
Posted: August 15 2011 at 15:52 | |
Yes - Originally Mabel Greer's Toy Shop (spelling?), the band decided it was too long and un-catchy, and shortened it to Yes, which being only three letters long, would enable the band to get a large font on concert posters and be more noticeable. Because Peter Banks had originally thought of the name Yes, he thought he'd better take up the band's offer to be lead guitarist.
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zappaholic
Forum Senior Member Joined: March 24 2006 Location: flyover country Status: Offline Points: 2822 |
Posted: August 15 2011 at 19:02 | |
Jonathan King takes credit for naming both Genesis and 10cc. According to him, when he started as a producer, a band called the Garden Wall came to his attention, and he took them on as a client, renaming them Genesis because they were his first "serious" client and the start of his production career. After their first album tanked, they kicked him to the curb but kept the name. From an interview with King, re 10cc: "I started my own label in the early '70s called UK Records, and I picked up this master called "Donna" by this group that was put together by a guy that I knew from Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders a long while back [guitarist Eric Stewart]. I had to give them a name there and then because I'd signed the record, and I went to sleep that night and had this dream that a band of mine on my label made number one on the album and singles charts simultaneously in America, and the band was called 10cc. So I gave them that name the next morning. Everybody then decided that this was apparently meant to be the amount of an average male ejaculation. Which was absolutely far from the truth; it had not been a wet dream, I can promise." (from the book Rock Names) |
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