We Were Promised Better Band Names

IN THE BEGINNING it was easy.  If you had a band, you picked an object, put a "The" in front of it, recorded a three-chord song, and died penniless and broken.  The Platters, The Shirelles, The Temptations, The Beatles, The Doors, The Rolling Stones, The Animals.  Even Bill Haley and the Comets, still one of the best band names of all time.

That got boring.  We had to branch out.  But with greater choice comes greater opportunity for error.  And lo, upon these lands was sown much error.

I'm not even going to get into the obscure bands who will never get a chance to have their terrible name widely known.  If you want to find your own obscure horrible band name, feel free to peruse the master list of SXSW bands and discover your own Rangleklods or Guantanamo Baywatch there.

No, these are just my Least Favorite Band Names.

First of all, we have the leftovers: Leftover Salmon and Leftover Crack.  One reminds us of rotting fish and one sounds like something an 8th grader trying to sound edgy would think of.

!!! is annoying just for the sake of being annoying.

The Morning Benders had a perfectly good name and then blew it by changing it to POP ETC, a truly horrible name.  (They changed the name because "bender" is apparently a derogatory British term for gay.)

Jam bands have a long and storied history of choosing terrible names, like The String Cheese Incident and Umphrey's McGee, and fuck it, for that matter, Phish.

Hoobastank and Kajagoogoo and Slightly Stoopid and basically anything with two O's in a row.

Panic! at the Disco is a Terrible! Band Name.

I started thinking about this because I was recently introduced to Australian band Dick Diver.  It makes no difference that this is a character in a Fitzgerald novel.

(There are some band names that are obviously intended just to be outrageous and taboo, like Anal Cunt, but that doesn't bother me nearly as much as Perfect Pussy, which is just horrible.)

There is one that stands above all others, though.  This "Israeli psytrance/ electronica/psychedelic/indie duo" (thanks Wiki) have a name befitting such a terrifying-sounding description.  Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the Worst Band Name of All Time: