Interlude - Real great names (2)

Some more great names I came across which have already been taken.

Slightly Miffed
I found this band years ago, because of their website. To give some idea of how long ago this was, I was trying to find out how to make some mp2 sound clips for a web site of mine. Yes... mp2!

The band make their living doing website design, so their own site is obviously pretty good. Slightly Miffed is such a great English phrase anyway, but they tie it in with the Miffy children's book character. As well as music downloads, screensavers, fonts and a way to order the band's CDs you can even download a Slightly Miffed level for Quake.

Fazed
Fazed are a band from Leicester. A bit mainstream for me, but they seem perfectly competent, and have a fantastic website, designed to look like an amp stack, with some songs for free download.

I only found this because I like a website called Fazed which provides links to all sorts of bizarre and obscure places, where I quite often come across great names for a band.

Permanent Way

Most normal people would call those things trains run on as railway tracks. Maybe railroad tracks if we were American. Rails at a pinch. But people wo work on the railways take great pleasure in referring to the railway tracks as The Permanent Way, frequently abbreviated to P-Way.

The term was used by the playwright David Hare for his play about railway privatisation. (Boy meets girl, boy privatises girl, girl makes millions of pounds profit but kills 30 passengers when a signal fails. I am guessing here as I didn't see it.)

While this sounds like a great name for a band, it also sounds like it could be some sort of new age religious cult. ("The permanent way to enlightenment! You give us all your worldly goods and we will give you peace of mind and a happy afterlife.")

The name has such an affirmative ring to it that The Permanent Way could be one of those Christian rock groups.

Leatherlips

It sounds a bit rude, like an uncharitable nickname for a middle-aged slapper, but I actually came across this word as the name of a type of beer on a list of the 100 best beers in the world, along with such tasty-sounding brews as Dragonslayer, Thumbsucker and Fourth Dementia. All of which would make (or have made) great names for bands, but Leatherlips IPA, although falling just outside the top 100, was the name which did it for me.

The beer is brewed by The Tap/Haverhill Brewery Inc in Massachusetts, and comes highly recommended by such critics on the Beer Advocate website as OldFrothingSlosh, 36PoundLoveChild, Whatalesyou and Feloniousmonk. (Now there's a name for a band!)

Aside from being the product of a microbrewery, Leatherlips is also the name of an Indian Chief - Sha-Te-Yah-Ron-Ya (or Sou-Cha-Et-Ess?) of the Wyandotte tribe. Apparently he was called Leatherlips after his reputation for always keeping his promises. He is now best known for supposedly placing a curse from beyond the grave on the US Golf Championships whenever they are played in Ohio - the golf course being built on the site of a Wyandotte burial ground.

Leatherlips would be a slighly scary band, in a Marilyn Manson kind of way I think.

Birdstrike

Birdstrike is the term for when a bird hits an aeroplane, although given the relative speeds its usually the other way round. The birds don't usually (ever?) survive such collisions, but the planes don't escape unscathed either.

Apparently birdstrike results in $600 million of damage each year just to US civil and military aviation! This, along with more information you could ever want about birdstrike can be found at www.birdstrike.org.

As someone who lives a few miles from one of the busiest airports in the world, and who used to sit on the airport's consultative committee I am reasonably well aware of the problem, so its no surprise that the word came out in a conversation the other day. And as soon as I had said the word I though... what a great name for a band!

Its a violent phenomenon so Birdstrike are not going to be a laid-back, lounge or trance band. They are going to have guitars turned up to eleven and play stuff fast. They won't be a heavy metal band though, otherwise they would be called Birdstryke, Birdstreich, or Bïrdstrïke.

Snout Baron

Snout Baron is a term which will be immediately familiar to viewers of Porridge, which starred Ronnie Barker who died yesterday, but strangely it was not any of the Barker obituaries or tributes which threw this term up at me today, but this headline in today's Guardian.

'Snout' is, amongst other things, English slang, originally for tobacco but also used for a cigarette. In prison where tobacco, by its scarcity, is a form of currency someone who controls the market, and thereby has a lot of power amongst the prisoners is often called a 'snout baron'.

The most famous example of a snout baron is 'genial' Harry Grout in Porridge, played by Peter Vaughan. (Trivia time: although he was one of the most memorable characters from Porridge, he actually only appeared in 3 episodes)

Using the term to describe Kenneth Clarke, who famously has a sideline working for British American Tobacco is just inspired. Doin that in the week he is out trying to impress the Tory party in an attempt to become their leader is downright cruel.

But what a great name for a band!

The Snout Barons sounds even better than The Soup Dragons (another name influenced by British TV). It would suit a band with a down-the-pub sort of image. A band a bit like The Ordinary Boys perhaps.

Four Candles

In tribute to the great Ronnie Barker who died yesterday, this great name for a band is taken from his most famous comedy sketch. (See the full script or an illustrated summary) Its a classic sketch, but unusual in the way the best line comes right at the beginning, almost like starting with the punchline.

The Four Candles is also a piece of spiritual writing, a short parable which crops up on dozens (hundreds?) of Christian web sites, but also in other places like The Sikh Philosophy Network.

Because of that, The Four Candles could be one of those Christian rock groups, but I think I would much rather see a band inspired by The Two Ronnies instead. And if they became hugely popular they could get involved in expensive litigation with a tribute band called The Fork Handles