Can you think of any bands where their name comes from the title of a song, or lyrics from a song. It doesn’t have to be where they actually took their name.

 

Here are a few of the top of my head:

 

Motorhead - a song by Hawkwind

Radiohead - a song by Talking Heads

Deacon Blue - a song by Steely Dan

Madness - a song by Prince Buster

Cocteau Twins - named after a song from the band Johnny & the Self Abusers

The Razorcuts - from a lyric from a Buzzcocks song.

Cocteau Twins - named after a song from the band Johnny & the Self Abusers

Who later became Simple Minds (named after a Bowie lyric)

 

 

Skeletal Family - Bowie song

The Ordinary Boys - Morrissey

Sisters Of Mercy - Leonard Cohen

 

 

Shakespear's Sister - named after a Smiths song and famously spelled wrongly.

Ned's Atomic Dustbin - kinda, named after an episode of the Goons show.

I Blame Coco (which is not a band) named herself after her own song :P

Willie Perryman original (made famous by Aretha Franklin) "Dr Feelgood"

Tommy Johnson (blues song) "Canned Heat blues"

Wings "Jet"

Bob Dylan "The ballad of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest"

The Sweet "AC\DC"

Depeche Mode "Strange Love"

Nino Tempo & April Stevens "Deep Purple"

The band Uh Huh Her is named after a PJ Harvey album but PJ also has a song called "Uh Huh Her" which actually wasn't on the album.

Edited February 13, 201015 yr by Mattias

God Smack - named themselves after an Alice In Chains song, in some desperate hope to emulate them as well no doubt.... :rolleyes:

Velocity Girl - named after a very early Primal Scream b-side...

 

 

Willie Perryman original (made famous by Aretha Franklin) "Dr Feelgood"

Tommy Johnson (blues song) "Canned Heat blues"

Wings "Jet"

Bob Dylan "The ballad of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest"

The Sweet "AC\DC"

Depeche Mode "Strange Love"

Nino Tempo & April Stevens "Deep Purple"

 

I am surprised nobody has mentioned Living In A Box yet, the band that had a hit with “Living In A Box”. I would have thought that this was the most obvious choice to mention, as unlike “Renegade Soundwave”, I doubt anyone would have named their band Living In A Box, if they had not written a song with that title first.

 

Around the time that Living In A Box were famous, there was an act in the charts who had their band name and song title mixed up, as they were a ‘faceless’ dance act who had released an instrumental. I cannot remember who it was, though it could have been 808 State with the song “State 808” being credited to the band ‘Pacific’.

 

Actually, now I come to think of it, I think it was more likely to have been The Future Sound Of London with their “Stakker Humanoid” release, as I do not think 808 State were that ‘faceless’ at the time. When the “Stakker Humanoid” record was reissued in the early 1990s, after the success of “Papua New Guinea”, the record was credited to Humanoid, but I think they were originally billed as Stakker on the initial pressing of the record and on their ‘Videola’ release.

 

I do not think anybody else here will have bothered to remember those ‘Videola’ releases, as they were never hugely popular and were normally seen as being too weird for mainstream tastes. I do not think I would have remembered them now if it was not for the releases being mentioned on the in-lay of a Johnny Hates Jazz video that I recently got out to look at.

 

Actually, now I come to think of those productions, I may have seen part of a ‘Videola’ release before. I remember that I once saw some clips of a musical project by Godley & Crème on TV, where they had recorded, straight onto video, many different sounds made by various objects [such as shots of table tennis balls being thrown on piano wires]. These shots would then represent a note that would be edited together to make up a song, though usually the effect would just be just annoying, sounding like a lot of bells being dropped at the same time, rather than like the “Wedding Bells” single. It is no wonder why Lol Crème ended up in The Art Of Noise as that ‘Videola’ project was very much like a visual version of all the early experiments in sound sampling by that ZTT signed act.

 

I do not know if you also remember The Art Of Noise videos for “Close To The Edit” and “Dragnet”, the latter which featured clips from the film being paused and then overlaid with the cast of the former video. At the time I thought this ‘bluescreen’ inter-action between cast and film was very clever, and much better than the usual film song promo where clips of the film would just be edited together with an unrelated performance from the pop star.

 

Now the artist who directed these Art Of Noise videos was a Polish guy who was called Zbigniew. I cannot remember his second name, though you will probably have seen his video for the re-issue of “Opportunities (Let’s Make Lots Of Money)”. This was the video shot against a black screen with many Pet Shop Boys overlaid on top of each other rather than the video with Neil Tennant in a hole, which was quite dreadful in comparison. Zbigniew was another person who released a ‘Videola’, though I cannot remember whom he collaborated with. Usually the ‘Videola’ releases were created between artist and musician, though I remember that Bomb The Bass just sound-tracked a skateboard video instead.

 

I like Bomb The Bass and have a few albums by that act, including the one that was released about a year ago. I never bought the Bomb The Bass ‘Videola’ as in the 1980s I had all the singles already taped onto video [mainly from The Chart Show] and anyway, I think that most of the ‘Videola’ was just reused for the “Don’t Make Me Wait” video.

 

Another act I liked in the 1980s was Madness, who not only got their name from an old Prince Buster song but also had another hit with a song called Madness, though as this was a double A-side, this is not normally remembered. They were one of the first bands I ever liked as a child though as someone will no doubt start a major Madness discussion soon, I will wait till then to fully reminisce about them.

 

Another band that I have liked for about the same period of time, which must be nearly 30 years now, is Depeche Mode. Rather than being named after a song, this band were named after a French fashion magazine, though as the translation is something akin to “Fast Fashion”, it is likely that they will also share their name with a foreign-language pop hit, perhaps from the 1960s, as well as a boutique [there is also a Depeche Mode bar in Estonia but is a theme bar based upon the band].

 

So are Strangelove actually named after a Depeche Mode song? In the 1990s I was a fan of both bands and if that is true, that would be something that I did not know. I always thought that Strangelove had co-opted their name from that 1960s band called The Strangeloves, who I think were an old American Psych group [please do not take my word for it as I am no expert on that kind of music, though I think they may have been on the cover of Shindig recently and therefore active in the San Francisco/Bay Area around 1966].

 

In regards to the 1990s act, I thought that “Time for the Rest of Your Life” was an amazing single and one that was never bettered by the band. I had wanted to play that record about three weeks ago when I was having a ‘session’ playing a load of singles from the 1990s, but as I had organised my CD collection quite badly I could not [any group which started with letters listed toward the end of the alphabet were only accessible with a lot of time and effort, which as it was a Sunday evening, was time that I did not have].

 

Thankfully when I had last brought out my collection from this period I had put the middle section in back-to-front, and therefore it was easy to get out my old Pulp CDs, which was good as I had been listening to Jarvis earlier that day on 6Music.

 

I ended up playing a lot of mid-1990s trip-hop singles and records that sounded quite ‘cinematic’, so this time I did not play either “Disco 2000” or “Common People” by Pulp. One of the other singles that I played was “She” by Angelpie. In fact, I played that record a few times as I had forgotten how good it was. You will probably not remember this act as they had no hits, though some dance fans may know the singer Marina Van-Rooy, who had some club hits on de/Construction records in the early 1990s [i think she may have recorded with Sasha but cannot be sure].

 

It was so long since I had played that record, not only had I forgotten about “She” but I had also forgot about their other single, “Tin Foil Valley”. The only fact I could remember about the group was that the singer was a bit like Saffron and had a few solo singles released before she had joined the group. For a while I did think that it could be Saffron or at least Sally-Ann Marsh from Xpansions, until I saw the picture of Van-Rooy on one of the CDs [in regards to Saffron, I have also got her solo 7inch single somewhere in my collection as well as some by N-joi and Republica].

 

If I have a week off from work, I may have time to fully re-assemble my 1990s CD collection, if not I will have to see if “Time for the Rest of Your Life” has been licensed for a compilation.

 

I suppose if EMI Records ever got around to releasing a compilation called “101 Songs For A Gloomy Sunday”, I would expect that Strangelove would feature alongside Morrissey’s “Everyday Is Like Sunday” and that infamous “Gloomy Sunday” song, though I would rather have the Swansway recording of “Gloomy Sunday” listed instead of Billy Mackenzie’s version, so they can make room for Apollo 440’s “Pain In Any Other Language”.

 

I see that you have also mentioned Dr. Feelgood, which I think was a reference to the nickname of an actual doctor in the 1920s who had an ‘under-the-counter’ trade in illegal drugs, before the term was adapted by people in the 60s who had ‘turned on, tuned in and dropped out’ as reference similar to that of “Brown Sugar”.

 

In regards to the band, the only record that I know that was written by them, or at least either by Wilko Johnson or Lee Brillaux, is “Roxette” which I have seen on a BBC Four compilation of ‘Whistle Test’ performances. I did not know much about this band until recently though I did read before that their “Milk & Alcohol” hit was a song written courtesy of Nick Lowe [i actually did not know that Brillaux got his surname from his hair looking like Brillo pads, because I had always pronounced the ‘X’ in his name thinking it was a reference to a ‘Brilliant Auxiliary Lead’ that he had].

 

I do not know what the term “Roxette” relates to [maybe it is an old record player brand or a defunct cinema chain], though I think that the Swedish duo would have got their name from this song. Per Gessle is known in his home land for his 1970s styled solo Power-Pop recordings and therefore I think he may also have a side-line or at least interest in Pub Rock as well.

 

I liked Roxette in the 1980s as they released a number of jolly pop tunes and looked just like The Thompson Twins [though this was from the “Close To The Bone” period rather than “Set”, a few years before Tom and Alannah re-styled themselves as a dance duo called Babble].

 

I remember thinking that it was a pity that Roxette were not Danish, as then someone could have used the headline “The Thomsen Twins” for an article about them [as in the surname of Tina Thomsen, the Danish actor from Home & Away] though I guess it would have only been useful in America where the Thompson Twins were still having Top 40 hits as a duo.

 

I have not listened to a Roxette album for years and I do not know if I still own any of their albums anymore. I think I would like to listen to some of the tracks fronted by Gessle again and perhaps some of tracks from his power-pop albums, unless all the tracks are in the Swedish language. As for Thompson Twins, I am not too bothered about listening to their output recorded as a trio but I still like their dance tunes from the 1990s and would actually like to hear their first couple of albums, when they were supposed to have sounded more like Rip Rig & Panic or Pigbag.

 

Loz

 

 

 

 

What a great piece Loz.