Where DID they get that name from?

[DLL]

Originally posted by higherlevel4u
Foo Fighters

David Grohl was fascinated by the Roswell incident and sci-fi in general. He decided to name his new project after a slang expression used in World War II by US pilots to describe the alien-looking fireballs they sometimes saw over Germany (specifically, betueen Hagenau in Alsace-Lorraine and Neustadt an der Weinstrasse in the Rhine Valley). Foo is a mutation of the French word for fire, "fue".

hey I said this one already....lol

 

[veryblueeyes]

Spocks Beard

The band, started by the most talented Nick D'Virgilio, Alan Morse and he were sitting around one night tripping and Alan said that he felt like a weird univerise, something like Spock has a beard. Nick said back to him, would that not be a cool name for our band? It stuck...

 

[cjh]

joy division - named after Nazi sex slave camps.

after ian curtis committed suicide, the remainder of the band formed

new order - supposedly named after the "so-
called New Order of European Fascism"

 

[veryblueeyes]

Dinosaur Jr.

J Mascis and then-buddy Lou Barlow were both in an Amherst, Massachusetts band called Deep Wound, and after its dissolution, the duo formed Dinosaur. After releasing one EP under that name, another band named Dinosaur threatened (led by Grateful Dead lyricist Robert Hunter; they probably deserved the name more anyway) legal action, so the "Jr." was hastily tacked on.

 

[cjh]

radiohead took their name off of a talking heads song entitled radio head

 

[veryblueeyes]

radiohead took their name off of a talking heads song entitled radio head

No way CJH, I didn't know that. Slap me silly... Learn something from you pervs everyday (just kidding on the perv part)

 

[cjh]

No way CJH, I didn't know that. Slap me silly... Learn something from you pervs everyday (just kidding on the perv part)

i'm a great perv

uriah heep - dickens character of the same name

 

[veryblueeyes]

Bela Fleck

He was named after composer Béla Bartok and was born in New York City. Around age 15, Fleck became fascinated with the banjo after hearing Flatt & Scruggs' "Ballad of Jed Clampett" and Weissberg & Mandell's "Dueling Banjos," and his grandfather soon gave him one.

 

[higherlevel4u]

Not sure about the veracity of this one, but ....

Pink Floyd

The story goes that Syd Barrett's two favorite blues artists, Pink Anderson and Floyd Council, appeared to him in what he referred to as a "vision," giving Syd the idea for the name .....

*Syd was so high most of the time then, I'm surprised he remembered anything at all .....*

 

[veryblueeyes]

The Traveling Wilburys

It was an in-joke between Jeff Lynne and George Harrison during the making of George's solo album, 'Cloud Nine', to call the gremlins, or errors, in the recording equipment, 'Wilburys'.
When the group was formed this name came up again. George suggested 'The Trembling Wilburys', but lost out to Traveling. I've heard Bob can be very persuasive...

 

[veryblueeyes]

OK... This is not an origin of a name, but of a legend. The legend of his life — which by now, even folks who don't know anything about the blues can cite to you chapter and verse — goes something like this: Robert Johnson was a young black man living on a plantation in rural Mississippi. Branded with a burning desire to become great blues musician, he was instructed to take his guitar to a crossroad near Dockery's plantation at midnight. There he was met by a large black man (the Devil) who took the guitar from Johnson, tuned it, and handed it back to him. Within less than a year's time, in exchange for his everlasting soul, Robert Johnson became the king of the Delta blues singers, able to play, sing, and create the greatest blues anyone had ever heard.


Hmmm... I wonder how many posts we could get to a thread about myths/legends surrounding music.

You guys chickened out too soon. LOL