Here’s to 2010.   Where the hell are my flying cars?!?!

Some stuff about band names .  Bicker, threaten, enjoy!

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Mediocre bands with undeservedly awesome names—

Zodiac Mindwarp and the Love Reaction (greatest band name ever, band itself rightfully forgotten)

Superjoint Ritual (love everyone in the band, yet somehow the whole is lesser than the sum of its parts)

Social Distortion (I’ve warmed to their sound over the years . . . somewhat)

Agoraphobic Nosebleed

Agnostic Front (Yeah yeah, they invented New York Hardcore, blah blah blah, they’re mediocre.)

The Stone Roses

Black Rebel Motorcycle Club (really liked their first disc, the rest not so much).

Dirty Rotten Imbeciles

Pussy Galore

Revolting Cocks (I dig RevCo and I love pretty much all of Al Jourgensen’s projects, but nothing could live up to the awesomeness of this name)

And You’ll Know Us By the Trail of Dead (cumbersome, but a great name nonetheless)

Cycle Sluts from Hell

Crystal Method

Dirty Rotten Imbeciles

Awesome (or at last very good) bands with terrible names–

Beastie Boys

Bad Brains

Squirrel Nut Zippers

Snot (not an awesome band, perhaps, but WAY better than the name would suggest)

eyehategod

The Fugees (not helped a bit by adding Translator Crew)

Death Breath (see: Snot)

Pantera (Ah, the perils of naming your band when you’re really young.. See also: Beastie Boys)

Alice in Chains

Big Business

System of a Down (not so much terrible as it is needlessly perplexing)

Bands with terrible names who are so good they somehow improve the quality of the name itself:

The Beatles

Metallica

The Melvins

Anthrax

U2 (I actually don’t like U2 at all, but I recognize that they are the hugest band in the universe for a reason)

Portishead

Neurosis

Is this band name brilliant or awful? Both? I can’t decide–

Butthole Surfers

Dead Kennedys

Therapy?

Goatwhore

Godspeed You! Black Emperor

Smashing Pumpkins

Anal Cunt

Mr. Bungle

Cowboy Junkies

Buzzov*en

Sleepytime Gorilla Museum

Bands whose name does not really reflect their sound—

Death Angel

Spirit Caravan

Black Rebel Motorcycle Club

Soundgarden

Boredoms

Soulfly

Faith No More

Screaming Trees

Job For a Cowboy

Agents of Oblivion

Alice in Chains

Superjoint Ritual

Bands whose name perfectly captures their sound—

Motorhead

Morphine

Napalm Death

Stray Cats

Black Sabbath (Ozzy and Bill era only)

Mazzy Star

Credence Clearwater Revival

Band names destined to be mispronounced for all of eternity (non black metal edition)—

YOB

OM

SunnO)))

!!!

Samhain

Hed(pe) [when future music archivists uncover some dusty old hed(pe)compact discs, and no other material which makes even passing reference to them, what will they say? What will they say?]

Jesu

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More to come . . .