Wednesday, November 6, 2013

What is that band called???!!!

Ren: Don't you ever listen to the radio?
                  
Willard: No. We got one radio at home, but it's never on.

Ren: You like Men at Work?

Willard: Which men?

Ren:  Men at Work.

Willard:  Where do they work?

Ren:  They're a music group.

Willard:  What do they call themselves?

Ren: Oh, no. What about the Police?

Willard:  What about 'em?

Ren: Have you heard them?

Willard: No, but I seen 'em.

Ren: In concert?

Willard: No, behind you.

Ren:  What? Oh, shit!


This is probably one of the funniest scenes in the original Footloose movie.  It is also the point in my life when I realized that people didn’t quite understand the names of all my favorite bands. That got me wondering how many other bands out there might really confuse people with their names. I compiled a short list with a few anecdotes behind them, again it is in no order and there are plenty of more out there, but these are the ones I felt like writing about. After all It is my blog.

They had hits with Broken Wings and Kyrie, but doesn’t the fact that they have not one but two titles without a surname bother anyone else?  I mean, I don’t know why they can’t be Mr. Jones or Mr. Bojangles or something else. I have a hard enough time talking; now when I try to tell my friend’s about this song Kyrie, they think I have a stuttering problem, all because they had to call their band Mr. Mister.  (Coincidentally, does anyone else giggle a little bit when you hear a pastor or Priest say Kyrie Eleison?)

Ok, I mean seriously, whenever I hear Owner of a Lonely Heart I just shout Yes!, and no one ever gets the joke.  But I mean the real good joke really happens when someone says “hey, do you know who does this song?”  Then you can simply say Yes and work your way through a whole Abbot and Costello scene, without upsetting Charlie Babbitt. The band has been around for my whole life(actually since the late sixties), and their live work is actually pretty stellar. So, if you ask me what concert you should go to, I will just say “yes”

Ok, so that is literally what the record has written on it. Is it Mike, Bill , or Timmy and the Mysterians? No, the leader of the band goes by the name Question Mark, even though his name is really Rudy. They had a decent hit with 96 tears, and smash mouth covered, Can’t get enough of you baby, but that was about it. I still like them though.  Plus I like the idea that if a radio station properly writes out the name of the band it could possibly confuse my car stereo.

Anyone that loves this group as much as I do, or remembers the 90’s knows exactly why this band name is listed here. Ben Folds plays piano and sings, while Robert Sledge plays the bass and Darren Jesse plays the drums. “What about the other two guys?”  There are no other two guys. Ben Folds is a quirky dude, but he makes great music. According to Ben Folds, the name flows better than Ben Folds Three or The Ben Folds Trio. And realistically it does.  Maybe I wouldn’t have liked them as much had they had a different name.

Aside from the fact that Barenaked is actually two words, the main reason why I am adding them to the list is because, people are generally confused by their name; at least my mom was when she wouldn’t let me go see them, she thought it was a burlesque act, no joke! I assume that that may have happened to many young boys. Not to mention, there are no women in the group, and no one in their right mind would ever want to see the members of the group naked. Ok maybe the bass player, but that’s just because people have a thing for red heads.

Well, sorry to burst your bubble, but,  there is no Hootie.  Darius Rucker, who we all know now as a country singer, was never called Hootie, until after his band became famous. It is just a silly made up name, and actually is the nickname of one of Rucker’s friends.  So realistically there was a Hootie, but he was never in the band, as for the blowfish, you can look them up on some where are they now blog, because I have no idea, maybe they are making music with Andrew Ridgeley somewhere.

So, there isn’t a lot of mystery behind how they got their name, or who is who. So why do they make the list? They make the list only because, I was with them from the beginning, when Chris Carrabba left Further seems Forever and released a solo album. Solo, as in one guy.  So I never understood why it wasn’t just named after the one guy. Then when all of a sudden the one guy started a new band, the band had the same name as the one man act.  The whole thing has confused me, I still don’t know if I understand it. Is Chris Dashboard and the other guys are a backup band? And if that is true, it’s weird that it has been the same guys for so long.  I mean, if you listen to what they did in 2003(after they plugged in) and compare it to the original songs, it is a whole different feeling. I don’t know, I still don’t get it.  

For those of you who don’t know the word ghoti is a weird phonetic spelling for the word fish. Ok, so “gh” in rough or tough sounds like “f” the “o” in the word women has a short” i” sound and” ti” in most words ending in “tion” sounds like “sh”; so there you have it a phonetic spelling of fish.  So really the band is called Fish Hook. But it is not that simple,  the name of the band is actually pronounced  “goatee.”  If you have never heard of them, they were a nineties Christian pop punk band, in the vein of mxpx or Blink 182(Blink 182 not being  a Christian group of course).  Ghoti Hook’s cover of walking on Sunshine is pretty kick ass.  So, my question is, why go through all of the trouble to spell out the word fish and then not even pronounce it that way. It just makes me feel crazy inside.

It was Bill Shakespeare who once said something about a rose being just as sweet by any other name. Truthfully it was Juliet in one of Shakespeare’s most well-known plays, but the point that I was trying to make is that, would any of these bands be just as popular in regards to what their name is?  It’s hard to say. But I know I would rather listen to Pearl Jam than Mookie Blaylock, and has anyone ever heard of the Quarrymen?


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