the list of 9 for june 12, 2007:
NINE MISLEADING BAND NAMES
An innocent eye (and ear) might see the name Joy Division and imagine upbeat, sunny pop. Mylate grandmother surely would have. However, this isn't what you'd call a "misleading" name for arock group that produced tense, dark music for three years before frontman Ian Curtis killedhimself, once you learn that Curtis took the name from a Holocaust-themed novel called TheHouse of Dolls, where "Joy Division" was a euphemism for Jewish women in concentration campswho were used as sex slaves for Nazi officers. It befitted Curtis's fascination with fascism andpenchant for making people uncomfortable. It was not a misleading band name in the least. Thefollowing nine, however, are:

  1. 10,000 Maniacs. With a name inspired by the 60's gore film2,000 Maniacs, this group should have been producing punk rock or death metal, not NatalieMerchant's politically correct 80's/90's folk rock.

  2. My Bloody Valentine. Another band with a name inspired bya cheesy horror flick, My Bloody Valentine produced dense, atmospheric guitar music in the 90's,spearheading the brief "shoegazer" movement in British rock. There was nothing terribly bloody orscary about their hazy sound. (Compare this to White Zombie, a band that sounded like the movie itgot its name from.)

  3. Barenaked Ladies. Imagine two horny teenage boys, cluelessabout music, seeing the words Tonight, downtown: Barenaked Ladies!, taking the hourlong busride down to the club, only to find a bunch of slobby Canadian guys up on the stage, playingslobby Canadian rock & roll. No ladies, barenaked or otherwise, to be found. (Brazilian Girlsmislead similarly, though at least they have a sexy, exotic female singer, albeit not a Brazilianone.)

  4. Jethro Tull. Sounds like it would be a bluegrass band fromKentucky? Or more to the point, a man named Jethro Tull who played bluegrass from Kentucky?At least not a bunch of bearded British prog rockers in Renaissance Pleasure Faire regalia, theirsinger playing a flute while standing on one leg. (The real Jethro Tull was the inventor of a seeddrill used in farming.)

  5. Toad the Wet Sprocket. This saccharine 90's band, bestremembered for their sappy hit "All I Want," got their name from a Monty Python album. Seeing thename, you might expect a group like They Might Be Giants, only sillier. Instead you get blandpower pop.

  6. Death Cab for Cutie. I myself had originally guessed thatthis was some Japanese noise outfit. Others assumed, by that old magic word "Death," thatthose guitars would be churning out death metal. Quite wrong on both counts.

  7. Mannheim Steamroller. You'd think this would be likeRammstein or something: A plodding, gloomy metal band from Germany. Not at all. MannheimSteamroller is a pretty square dude from Nebraska named Chip Davis. His new age music -synth-heavy, elfin Christmas instrumentals - is not what I think of when I think of either"Mannheim" or "Steamroller."

  8. The Grateful Dead. On the surface, it sounds like a bandthat would produce spooky, gothy music, not endless, drug-addled country-blues jams.

  9. Nirvana. The Buddhist origins of this name connotatepeace, bliss and calmness. Nothing in the band Nirvana's sound suggested any of this.

Copyright © Mark Tapio Kines 2011