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How important is the band name for you?


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Band i was in last year was called The Monday Club.

Reason :- we didn't have a name picked out yet and guitarist wanted us to play his birthday. When he booked the venue they needed a band name and all he could think off was The Monday Club because we rehearsed on a Monday night. 

Dave

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Most of the time the name is immaterial to me. But anything too pretentious or indicative of a blues band (sorry!) will steer me away... 

I've been in various bands with names such as "Vomit", "Girls on Top" and "Ming and the Chews"  (singers choice, not mine), so I'm hardly one to pass judgement. 

Edited by mingsta
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On 03/05/2018 at 17:08, PaulWarning said:

I once sold a bass hard case to a guy, and we got chatting "What's the name of your band then" says I "ZZ Birmingham" came the reply,  "Oh, ZZ Top tribute?" I replied  "No" he says "We don't do any ZZ Top songs and we're not from Birmingham" :crazy:

Wonder if he's on here?

There's a old blues man near me who goes by that name but I don't think he plays bass, just sings & blows harmonica?

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15 hours ago, Newfoundfreedom said:

Just though I'd revive this thread instead of starting a new one because it's nice to see I'm not the only one struggling to name a band. I've come up with several, what I thought we good names, only to find after a bit of Google Fu they've been taken. Even "Monday Club" which was in the running for a while has been had by someone on this very forum. 

We're a five piece rock/ pop / blues covers band with a female singer and we're hoping to start gigging in a couple of months time,  but we also have the added complication that we're all English people living in Bulgaria, so the name has to be something that, at the very least can be understood and pronounced (although not necessarily directly translated) in both languages. 

Brain racking continues. 

Easy,  just blend "The Happy Mondays" with "Haircut 100"

How about "100 Mondays"?

I'm reserving "Happy Haircuts" for myself. 😏 😁

Edited by Ricky 4000
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I was about to audition for a band over ten years ago. I'd seen an ad on party sounds, I think. They talked a good game and said they'd done European tours, went on about welcoming people in and being open minded and accepting and so on... So I'm thinking that's great, they aren't expecting a session pro. So I look up the band name to try and find evidence of this European tour.... The only musically related online article I found was a blog by a musician. Long story short and unbeknownst to me, the band name was a coded way of asking a man you don't know if he is a homosexual. Being a younger and less open minded chap I politely declined the audition saying I don't think I'm the right fit for them. When they asked why I revealed I had just found out what the band name meant and I don't think I'd be comfortable being in that band and made some joke about being from a northern backwater town. I received back a lecture on my small mindedness and how places don't make people.... The whole thing was a very bizzare experience and left me feeling puzzled and slightly ashamed, though I was only ever polite to the person I interacted with.

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53 minutes ago, uk_lefty said:

I was about to audition for a band over ten years ago. I'd seen an ad on party sounds, I think. They talked a good game and said they'd done European tours, went on about welcoming people in and being open minded and accepting and so on... So I'm thinking that's great, they aren't expecting a session pro. So I look up the band name to try and find evidence of this European tour.... The only musically related online article I found was a blog by a musician. Long story short and unbeknownst to me, the band name was a coded way of asking a man you don't know if he is a homosexual. Being a younger and less open minded chap I politely declined the audition saying I don't think I'm the right fit for them. When they asked why I revealed I had just found out what the band name meant and I don't think I'd be comfortable being in that band and made some joke about being from a northern backwater town. I received back a lecture on my small mindedness and how places don't make people.... The whole thing was a very bizzare experience and left me feeling puzzled and slightly ashamed, though I was only ever polite to the person I interacted with.

Oh come on! 

You can't write all that then leave is in suspense over the name.

What were they called?

I promise I won't tell anyone. 😋

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In case it's of any slight amusement:

A long time ago I was roped into a gig which was playing mellow jazz during a black tie dinner at an Oxford college (Regent's Park, IIRC). The scratch band was whatever local musicians were free that night, mostly students, playing standards from fake books - we seemed to get away with it although there was a bit of faff as there was no set list and not everyone had the same books. So, sort of a  jam session, with a small payment to cover the taxi fare there.
Anyway, during setup we were accosted by the MC who wanted to know the band name so he could announce us at the start of dinner and at the end before the speeches. He insisted on a name and so was told we were "The Jazz Woodbines", which he duly announced.

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1 hour ago, Jus Lukin said:

There are plenty of bands which have the same names in the world. If either goes international, or more importantly has significant success internationally, then there could be a problem, but if each is playing a local music scene then there shouldn't be an issue. If you add or remove a 'The' then technically it's a different name too.

Alternatively, what's Monday Club in Bulgarian?

Written in English (as opposed to the native cyrilic) would be Ponedelnik Klub. It doesn't exactly trip off the tongue. Although just Ponedelnik could work. 👍 

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1 hour ago, Jus Lukin said:

There are plenty of bands which have the same names in the world. If either goes international, or more importantly has significant success internationally, then there could be a problem, but if each is playing a local music scene then there shouldn't be an issue. If you add or remove a 'The' then technically it's a different name too.

The main motivator, in my opinion, to having a unique band name, is searchability. When you type in your band's name into Google, you want to be certain that the top result (and ideally the whole of the first page's results) will be your band. The same should also happen if you omit a leading "A" or "The".

S.P.

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1 minute ago, Stylon Pilson said:

The main motivator, in my opinion, to having a unique band name, is searchability. When you type in your band's name into Google, you want to be certain that the top result (and ideally the whole of the first page's results) will be your band. The same should also happen if you omit a leading "A" or "The".

S.P.

Yeah I agree. Although that's much more important if you're a working band and it's your living. 

We're more in it for the fun of it and will be playing more like barbeques and birthday parties, and any money involved will be going to charity. In fact there will hopefully be a charity connection to any gig we play. 

I can't argue with the sentiment though. Ideally I'd like to come up with something original, but it's much more difficult than you would first think, at least without giving yourself a nonsensical name that's going to wear thin pretty quickly. 

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