Most boring name in music
Posted by robram on 12 March 2008 - 4:14pm.
Many musical artistes change their name before they become famous, so avoiding the ignominy of having to cope with the 'relatively' dull or embarrassing names their parents gave them.
I'm sure I don't need to list any of the well-worn Reg Dwights of this world to make my point.
However, listening to the radio this morning, I realised that some musicians haven't bothered to change their name to something more exciting.
With apologies to anyone who shares the name, I give you Graham Nash.
Fine for selling you financial products, but part of one of the biggest supergroups of the 20th century? I think not!
Any other takers?
Bookmark/Search this post with:
- More from robram.
- Login or register to post comments
I Submit
Paul Weller espically when associated with recent output.
Yeah, but.....
supposing he had changed his name, say to Malachi Garnet. Crosby, Stills, Garnet and Young: just doesn't go!!
Malachi Garnet!?!?
Where did that come from? I'll remember that for my first novel ;o)
Ahh, but Crosby, Stills, Young and Garnet sounds OK... although I've always thought they sound like a firm of solicitors anyway (name-wise, rather than musically, obv)
The Least Boring
Has there ever been a more excitingly-named musical line-up than
the Dead Kennedys of Fresh Fruit... vintage:
East Bay Ray - guitar
Klaus Flouride - bass (was he German we wonder?)
Jello Biafra - vocals
but clearly that exhausted their naming powers, as behind the drums is the slightly less exciting but still enigmatic....Ted.
And if we're on those monikered more for accountancy than rock n roll XTC boasted both Andy Partridge and the fabulously snooze-inducing Colin Moulding...
boring?
George Harrison, John Lennon, Paul McCartney (used his middle name!), Richard Starkey .. oh! Maybe call the group the Quarrymen?
You would also expect...
that a group where the members were called Mick, Keith, Brian, Bill and Charlie was hardly likely to set the world alight...?
Whereas.....
Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick and Tich clearly knew what they were destined for.
And it wasn't Xanadu.
Oh, actually it was.
Nor would you put your money on
a bunch of goofballs called Eric, Derek, Les, Alan and “Woody” to trigger screaming, sobbing, howling, hair-tearing, knicker-wetting, tartan-sporting mania in a generation of teenage girls.
p.s. great topic robram, but I still sob into my pillow every night about Graham Nash leaving The Hollies to run off with smelly hippes.
p.p.s And let’s not forget birthday boy a couple of posts below. It is his 60th after all.
Good call
Mr Taylor's hardly exciting as a name, is it?
It's just something about the name Graham, that's all. At least Les had a more exciting surname!
I often wonder if Mr Bowie would have made it big, if he'd started out as David Jones instead.
It's no wonder he came up with names like Ziggy, isn't it?
Norman Greenbaum
Recently of this parish. He sounds like a Mile End bookie.
Boring *and* hard to spell
Gordon Giltrap.
Funky glamour
Imagine if you wanted to establish a fashion brand.
One that oozed style, sophistication, quality and class, yet also fizzed with a hint of funky, offbeat glamour. Only one name for it:
Paul Smith
Is it his real name?
I'm serious.
Yes
I think the logo is his handwriting too, but I may be wrong.
I’ve got a Paul Smith navy blue and white polka dot shirt very similar to the scarf Elvis is sporting in The Word. My daughter teams it with a belt around the waist and white tights and wears it as a dress. And very nice it is too.
He’d make an interesting Word of Mouth subject. No idea what his musical tastes are but I suspect Mod leanings - I think modern jazz might come into play. As a teenager he was obsessed with cycling, but an injury put paid to his ambition to become a pro, so he got into the fashion racket. Interesting man.
Rick Witter
...co-incidentally, leader of Shed 7, the most boring band-name (band?) in the world, ever.
zzzzzz
etc etc
Agreed,
although he did replace Gary Glitter for toilet rhyming slang whilst I was at college.
Gary, Tony, Martin, John, Steve
Tea-making rota at the Kidderminster branch of Kwik-Fit?
Nope.
The high priests of New Romantic foppery.
Alex Turner (boring name, boring face)
Quite apt considering his aura is 14 shades of beige.
James Brown...
...is hardly a fitting name for the Godfather of Soul.
He sounds more like a character who might appear in a 19th century Luddite folk song about a hardworking northerner, ousted from employment by a steam-powered threshing machine.
Really Dull
When Squeeze first broke up a combo called Difford & Tilbrook rose from the ashes, which Suggs famously said sounded like an estate agents.
Suggs
Suggs is a much more interesting name than Graham McPherson.
I've been trying to get a
I've been trying to get a mate of mine to listen to Martin Simpson for a while because his last album was close to genius, but he says he won't because he sounds like he should be a newsreader. It was a difficult point to argue with.
Ian, Gary, John & Alan
Even their full names are boring, and they could only have been born in the early sixties. How many of us 40-somethings had school friends with those names, and how few there are among our sons' school pals.
Brown, Mounfield, Squire & Wren. Not so much a firm of solicitors as co-defendents.....
Richard Thompson is a liver dr in London........
......but it didn't stop me listening to his namesake.
Cue "hepcat" pun
Thangyew.
Jim White
Pure genius, it does exactly what it says on the tin!
The Band
The Pop Group
The The
Them
Paul Simon
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Commonest male name in UK methinks
Tom Smith of Editors. Do names get more bland than this? Having said that I`m not aware of anyone called John Smith in music.
Reg
The Chameleons had one, that's good enough for me and I didn't think about 'On the Buses'... well, I did
Does his name grow on you?
Hows about Bob Mould...
dullard by name, dullard by nature (first one only)
Chris Martin. It just oozes barely dried emulsion.
Arthur Lee. Could be your urine sodden step grandad. Is it more rock n roll that he is only one/two letters away from Arthur Lowe? (ta Half Man Half Biscuit as per usual)
Mick Taylor. painting and decorating a speciality.
Mick Jones. Pleasantly prosaic as befits a poonk.
Roy Wood. The bugger`s really called fupping Ulysses for God`s sake. Not as bad as Quentin Cook going through Norman, Pizzaman, Fatboy in a bid to be more `street`/less excitingly monikered though.
Wendy James.Inoffensive and yet highly offensive at the same time. Tried to be glam, ended up looking council.
Gene Clark
Pretty sure I had a dinner lady at my junior school with the same name....with different spelling of course
Bikini Girls With Machine Guns
If you're gonna be the primo pyschobilly seditionists in Ohio, and you answer to your moms as Erick Lee Purkhiser and Kristy Wallace, then you're going to need new stage names - tonight Matthew we're going to be Lux Interior and Poison Ivy from the Cramps!
Chortle! The tubthumper's called Harry Drumdini!
Best Regards,
Freaky Trigger