had a band that only ever had one rehearsal where we lurched through a terrible cover of Nirvana's Lithium. The week before said rehearsal, we spent around two hours trying to think of a name for our band. My friend was about to leave school to become and electrician so we thought it genius to name our band LiveWire as it would be an entertaining (read: not in the slightest entertaining) story for the press when they asked why our band was so called. Needless to say, rock stardom didn't follow (though my friend is now a very reuptable sparky).

I was also in a band at uni (who I still think had the potential to actually do a few gigs). We never did finalise a name, but I got short shrift when I suggested the name Sugar Hiccup (no-one else in my band liked the Cocteaus... or should that be Cocteaux?)

our t-shirts were ace

*cringes*

Though no one would take us seriously.

Our breakthrough gig was my mate's dad's garage. We broke up shortly after. Musical differences. Or more accurately, a difference between us and anything resembling music. Our name? T-Bag.

Primary school beat group. Played once, "live", vocals and air guitars, but practised every playtime. We shoulda bin huge....

No, not a band name (though now you come to think of it ...).

Never quite had the nerve to imagine myself in a band, but if anyone had asked me at school for the ideal heavy metal band name, I was always poised to suggest "Osmium" (the densest metal, as any kemical fule kno).

Now I just fantasise about writing about a 70s new wave band, in which the spiky, female lead singer is called Pernicious Weeds.

PS. My chemistry teacher was in a band called "Al de Hyde and the Keytones" - pretty sure he was Al

aah,'twas early 80s. I thought it was incredibly cool and smart-arsey, to match the amusing yet disdainful lyrics i never did get around to penning.. No-one agreed with me.

I still muse on it from time to time. It's got the lot: starts with B - obviously the best letter in music; it has a nod the to Fabs; contains a spiritual element as well as a bit of attitude. Only downside is the uncertainty over its pronunciation for those unfamiliar with the sermon on the mount.

In fact, I think I'm going to get some t-shirts printed. Build up the whole legend, without a discography of course, but oh what a back-catalogue it would have been...

Which sounds proggy but we weren't. I was kicked out due to not being able to play barre chords.

I wanted to call us E(a)rnest. I cudda been a contender I tells ya!

Beorulf and the Wattle Daubers was a real group, although it never got out of the bedroom. The lead singer's surname was Rulf and he was obsessed with Beowulf at the time (the early 80's). We made a tape using using my brothers acoustic guitar, some imporvised percussion (mostly cardboard boxes) and the condenser microphone of a portable cassette radio. It was called "If I put this torch under my face officer, I will look evil" which was inspired by a roadside meeting between our English teacher and a policeman on the way back from a sixth-form trip to Stratford-Upon-Avon.

Apart from some original "songs" which included the title track, the tape included covers such as 16 Tons, Something Else and, oddly enough, Ice Age by Joy Division. We sold the tape in the common room for 50p and it eventually went platinum. Not really, we shifted 16 copies if I remember correctly.

We went on to become a "proper" group called The Recliners (several years before KD Lang came along with her Reclines), named after a Parker Knoll Recliner which we spotted in a furniture shop window on the way home from the pub one night. We did a couple of gigs but we were total rubbish and we really did break up over musical differences.

Dick Splash & The Hand Relievers, a 1977 vintage punk outfit that never got out of my mate Lillers' spare room.

Do you know, that sounds *good* all over again.

Instrumentation:

My acoustic guitar (pre-being able to play it)
Steve's Mum's piano
Signal generator liberated from school which made impressive Hawkwindy type noises....instant space rock. Well, of a type...

It was the most offensive thing we could think of at the time, and was considered (by us alone) to be an inspired move, an act of anarchistic rebellion, a two fingered salute to the masses. But on sober reflection we dared to consider the effect of the name on possible future album sales, so we became The Shifting Balance.

From distant memory of A level biology I believe that this is the descriptive term for the way in which the hair like projections on single cell animals beat in order to help them move - a bit like a wheat field in the wind.

Failing that I though it was a great name for a progressive/jazz rock combo that I would form one day....never did though!

we would have been huge.

also

Ixion should/could/would have opened for Anvil.

We would definitely have been Progressive, if only we had played a note together. We did have 2 designated roadies and our potential first hit was named after a smart looking jukebox in a Stirling hostelry - Rockola Stereophonic!

An in joke, not funny then, not funny now either

First song: All the Old Prudes
Second Song: All The Way To 10cc (Memphis Tennessee)

Our signature glam anthem? "We Are The Strange".

Mate - its exists now - at last !!!!

I write, play & sing with The Cohen Brothers - over the Bank Holiday we put the finishing touches to our new album "Moving On".

Before we move into the land of sliver discs and black vinyl, we would like to share the new 10 track album with you - its exclusively being aired on myspace now. Just pop over to

>>>>> www.myspace.com/thecohenbrothers <<<<<<<

and hear it now.

You can see us with Nearly Dan at The Assembly in Leamington on July 30th - see ads in music press.

Cheers

Julian

PS - do leave a comment & let us know what you think !

(now if only that Hepworth fellow is looking in ..... maybe a small feature ?)

Were I to form one now...

We practised once in the music room at school and played "Caroline" by The Quo and "She Sells Sanctuary" The Cult..........We were crap and that is where it ended.

we thought INFERNAL RAKKETT was quite good - no discernible musical talent, so muddled through early Sonic Youth/Swans shouting and clanging.

To the tune of "Shave and a haircut two bits". We compromised and went with "The Prisoners" but wish I'd held out for my first choice!

I did eventually get to be in a band called the Landcrabs, so that's OK.....

......years old...
" The Edible Lawnmower " !!!!!!!!!!!

The Standards (as in 'Setting' rather than 'Bog', although it didn't turn out that way), Spurt, The Arguments, The Government, Gun Fury................

Is the name of the covers band that I'm in. We have to change it depending on the gig so as people don't think we're a "joke band". For example we recently played a Jazz & Blues Festival, so we changed our name to "Bluesy Quattro". See?

As for school days and band names for bands that never got our of the bedroom, "Total Irrelevance" was ours. I even did a logo on a piece of graph paper. It turned out to be rather symmetrical and boring, surprisingly.

There is a fantastic website at www.bandnamemaker.com for just this type of discussion.

Bless you...

I was the only roadie and PR for a very brief, very brief but long remembered gig at Uni of the wonderful MT GGs. Two of them are now chartered accountants and the other one ended up as a bookie

Still legends,in the Isle of Man, after our one concert in the back of a mark II Ford Escort van. A tape still exists. There's a very messy performance of Smoke On The Water which is still talked about to this day.

proto-punk band wiv lots af ATTITUDE and no instruments.

A metal band would you believe. I even made a sleeve for our first album 'Grabandful'. It couldn't have been more eighties: A beach, an Easter Island head and Page 3 'stunnah' Maria Whittaker with a tastefully placed rainbow over her 'assets'.

taken from a Sabbath song of that name. My instrument apparently was going to be a saxophone with a wah wah pedal!! Frightening.

And we even had fake names;

Singer - The Meat Man (thanks to Jerry Lee Lewis)
Guitarist - Cosmic Stu (real name was Stuart)
Bassist - Funkasaurus Rex (Coolest name I thought)
Drummer - Maniac (after Animal from The Muppets)

Our real appearance could never live up to those awesome names but we did hire a rehearsal room once. No metaphorical asses were ever kicked sadly...

I've been in a few real ones. Most recently I was in an acoustic duo called Emergency Ponchos, which we thought was a good name.

The Beatles
The Smiths
The Cure

So, we decided on The Definite Article .. until The The came along and then we sounded like a tribute band.

This was a band put together by some mates at school to specifically record one song, a cover of Rory Bremner's cover of Paul Hardcastle's Nineteen. The reason being was that the lowest marks achieved in our math set's maths exam was 19%.

The recording consisted of most of us going 'na-na-na-na' over a Casio keyboard's drum machine whilst one member impersonated Ritchie Benaud and Geoff Boycott.

The instigator of this jape now writes sport articles for a national newspaper.

this was a move into punk territory after the catastrophically shortlived, but deeply progtastic, Zenith of the Iconoclast. I believe that ended up on a Todd Rundgren album.

I am very, very sorry

boring name but we ruled the world, recorded five albums, all better than the last, logo constantly updated, lyrics wrote, covers designed, tour set lists compiled, interviews written.

lasted five years, split not because of musical differences, but because girls were discovered.

My mate whick was in on it too, he was lead guitarist and a great artist, so he did all the covers.

I thought it was just me, relieved it wasn't.

Well done everyone.

Wetsox was my first combo, we only existed in secret conversations in a mate's garage. I think I was the drummer, then the guitarist, I could play neither then, it didn't matter, I had my mum's platform boots to pose in -it was the mid-70s.
After a couple of years I reappeared in Foes of Batman who very quickly became Thermal Printers - post punk before such a term was coined. Our one song was The Hostage - never written, but I did draw a sleeve for it in purple felt pen.
After a brief flirtation with the Fall/Beefheart stylings of Policeman With a Loaf of Bread - whom I left after we actually did a kazoo recording of Joy Division's Transmission (too real), I co-founded Orange Smarties - an out and out happy non-existent glam pop duo, and was then the drummer for The Sharp - a mod band who were sooo cool we never did anything at all.

I did, eventually, start playing in real bands and it just wasn't the same.

These days I manage an imaginary all girl vocal act. They're ok. But I suspect one of them wants to go solo.

It was the era of Rush, Journey, Styx, Whitesnake etc and we thought this would be a great name.
I couldn't play any instruments so I wanted to be the lyricist a la Pete Sinfield and Bernie Taupin.
We even had a logo where the top and bottom of the "s" went over and under the letters next to it.
Aaah, happy times!

Me and my friend Roger Bailey *were* Satellite. He had a snare drum, I had a tiny electric guitar that I couldn't play.
Our one song (uncompleted) was called Another Day and went:

“I woke up this morning
Turned my radio on
Heard Tony Blackburn
Playing his usual song
It's another day, oh yeah, it's another day

I get up and get dressed
Find it's a rainy day
I don't want to go out
But I guess I'll have to go my way
It's another day etc…”

That's as far as we got.

I'm surprised we were so world-weary at such a tender age.

A few years later, and scarcely more fully formed, came Banana Trajectory. But that's another story.

Newton's Apples (argued a lot over the apostrophe), formerly the Falling Conkers, sprung from the (if anything, less existent) Beefy Bastards. As Newton's Apples, two of us plus drum machine managed to record a demo. Nothing else happened, and no one ever heard us play.

Some years later, the lead singer of the previous non-existencies had the idea of forming several genre-based bands at the same time, containing the same band members. Two I recall were the Horizontal Cowboys (country-rock, who played a brief gig), and Nunfucker (metal - no gigs).

about '81/'82

my band were called 'The End'

wanted it to be like the jam/who, only got as far as the logo though.

Totally nicked from Radio 4 spoof News show Radioactive.

More recently I DJ'd under the pseudonym Sir Stephen Sex-Scandal with a couple of mates.

We called ourselves Collars & Cuffs.

Me and my mate Colin had no intention of forming a band. I seem to remember we used it to `fox` people (especially girls) when they asked who we were into. We were that cool being into this band no one had heard of yet. `The next big thing...John Peel waxes lyrical about them`, we said. `When they break through we`ll be on to the next happening band. `What were they called again, they said?``Telescopic Manual View`. They`ve yet to `break through`. We recently resurrected the name and reformed them if only to amuse each other in the pub.

My friend Michael and I whiled away many an hour forming imaginary bands in different genres. Amongst many, we had a metal band called Cloven Hoof, a country rock combo named Smokey and the Bandit, our manufactured boy band Tough Shit, and a doomy industrial synth duo Dry Riser Inlet. None ever got as far as recording, rehearsing, or indeed existing.

I came up with that one while eating grapes with my mate in his living room. One of them had a hair on it. I think we were playing Coolboarders 2 on Playstation (the FIRST one!) Anyway, his Dad later pointed out that people may think that we were referring to testicles. Probably right. Idea abandoned.

Played so fast we never really existed

My "Guitar Hero" band name - definitely imaginary and the phrase actually stolen from my nephew's graduation speech. It is such a perfect band name that I expect an alert Word reader to steal it immediately.

Look, I was 16 and, inspired by my A-Level Sociology class, decided to start a, ahem, 'working-class' punk band which would be cursed with the moniker Proletarian Outcry. (CND logo nestled inside the O, natch). Sadly, we were so prolier than thou that, as impoverished dole-ites and token pseudent student, we couldn't afford any instruments. But that couldn't contain our captive hurricane passions. Nah, we wouldn't let the system win....

Thus we congregated around the infamous Punk Seat (TM) in our tiny hamlet's high street and mimed Rock Band-stylee to my cousin's inordinately huge portable tape player. He sat astride the bench replicating the drums, three others were afforded air bass and guitar opportunities while I hollered along to the lyrics. Amid frenzied pogoing obviously. and much to the amusement and bemusement of passing motorists/pre-pub carousers. (We were inspired by very strong cider, I feel it is necessary to interject at this juncture).

Eventually the local bobby persuaded us that it wasn't in the best interests of our clean records/unbruised ears to continue. So that was the tragic demise of Proletarian Outcry. We briefly moved on to harassing the trainee at nearby Scunthorpe's one alternative record shop into trying to order copies of our (non-existent) ep on Crass records called That's Life Mate on a weekly basis but the wily owner rumbled the caper and threatened to bar us.

PS One of the group later joined me in another band which actually released an album and toured the USA. Sadly I'd been booted out due to musical indifferences just a year previously.

pps I've got an idea for alt-rock/country band called Zen Arcade. I'll mime lead guitar this time - anyone up for it......

Called 'Skin'eads on Fuck Juice'. We were a concept band, of sorts, each with our own unique name and distinct style, not unlike the mighty Wu-Tang. I was the 'vocalist' going by the moniker Everard Asfuk. On lead guitars, Al Keeldebitch [the mexican sensation]. On bass, Sir-Tinnely Bigunard and my personal favorite, on drums....Uzi? We recorded one song which screamed along for about 6 minutes and had but two words, Fuck and Juice. Happy, happy days....

Myself, my brother and two of my friends formed a band that, with no irony whatsoever, played mainly acoustic country blues covers in a Basement Tapes/Exile On Main Street vein and rehearsed in our cellar. We weren't that good, but we felt we were nearly there; and, in that spirit, called ourselves 'Twenty Feet Short', which will be familiar to any fans of The Great Escape. That'll be the 1963 film, not the Blur album.

..short-lived as considered too controversial.

Offshore Steel Boat. Specialised in post-punk industrial soundscapes (i.e. whacking me mum's radiator with a salad fork a la Test Department - whilst my mate Porky Crawford delivered a hectoring rhetoric questioning the solo, nocturnal, hand-based habits of local head master (Mr Cooley) in a Mark E Smith style)

The Return of Ralph Coates: Two gigs - legendary!

had no interest in forming a band but would try and push the name to anyone who did. Unsurprisingly, no one took me up on it

in my plooky youth, a school band named "Medium Wave Band". Fantastic name, many connotations and connections, but absolute crap.. played once, very badly.

It was the early 80s in smalltown Ontario, Canada and we were bored teenagers. The second British Invasion had come and gone leaving us covered in various musical influences: The Clash,The Jam, Gang of Four, The Cure, XTC, Echo and the Bunnymen and some band called U2; the usual suspects. Oh and the Sex Pistols.

Our own group of 4 or 5 had limited musical experience so naturally we formed a punk band. We took the last name of King Punk himself Johnny Rotten and gave a nod to all the conetations and associations that came with the word "Hardcore" fused them together and became the Rotten Core.

There was also a healthy vein of Ramones that coursed through us. Our most musical proficient member brought some Frank Zappa attitude and some Robert Fripp/Talking Heads guitar pedal freakery into the mix.

And then our singers varied from Jim Morrison free association teenage morose poetics to angry young man Joe Strummer rant and raving.

We never played for anyone other than ourselves and our tolerant neighbours but it was a fantastic outlet and a reason to get together and drink underage.

We never had a proper logo but I did have a fantastic hand painted t-shirt of a Zombie head that a friend who was studying art made for me.

I wish I still had that shirt.

Nightmare Death Syndrome's t-shirst were great and I still have the (Rotring™/Letraset™ cut, paste, repro-film job) artwork in a big AGFA™ repro paper folder, the t-shirts rotted away from bad 80s deoderent and personal hygiene.

A vaguely remember discussing a manufactured band called 'Ecology' in a pub in the early 90s - they would be a mixed-race boy-girl band similar to East 17, and their schtick would be Green ishoos: Song titles were along the lines of 'Love the World' and 'Give a Little Back'. Inspired by Simon Napier Bell and Tom Watkins, mainly - they would have been huge!

Should have an imaginary band when they have grown out of imaginary friends. Mine was a heavy metal band Rancid Groin. A fellow student had a much better punk band Nora Nipple and the Knob Gobblers.

Sorry.

Back in the day (1984), I drew a comic strip about being in a band called 'The Special Executive', and compiled an extensive, fully annotated discography even though no songs were ever written, no instruments ever played or no other sentient beings ever involved. Our first album was called "Tea and Sympathy'.

It was a crap name, but better than the alternative: DASHBOARD.

NOT was conceived as a light-weight prog (it was the 80s) - we even went so far as coming up with the album names:

First album: Not One
Second album: Not Another
Third album (concept album about the sea): Reef Not

The rest of the albums were various riffs on the theme of knots (Slip Not etc) until the final album, anticipating musical differences: In a Not

I even have the imaginary covers air-brushed in my head.

Loved the mention in the Word Podcast of The Fancy Cheese People building in Farringdon. But did you know that no dairy-produce buisness ever went on inside these premises,and they were actually a front for the recruitment of MI5 personel?

This was all recently revealed on Robert Elm's BBC London show. Though the sign has gone, MI5 still ask university graduates wanting jobs with them to apply to 27 Farringdon Road - the site of the Fancy Cheese building.

James Bond and cheese - who'd have thought it?

( Goudafinger? Live And Let Brie? From Caerphilly With Love?)

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