With the rise of simply monikered bands like Yuck, The Weeknd, Real Estate, Blouse, Corridor, Cave, and others, perhaps the world has never needed more bizarrely—or at least memorably—named groups. Who’s going to remember a name like Girls when Vomit Erection is out there? Yes, the lyrics to the latter’s “Warm Diarrhoea [sic] Blasts On My Face” are objectionable and the music nonsensical, but godammit, it’s a name you won’t forget. The A.V. Club sees thousands of band names every year, and we don’t notice most of them. We keep a list of the ones we do notice, either because they’re funny, bad, cheesy, so mundane they’re transcendent, or otherwise memorable. Here’s 2011’s bumper crop.
Animals
Bear With Hawk Fist
- Video for “Golden Paramedics” is all cell-phone footage of people—well, mainly one guy—dancing badly at a wedding:
Shark?
- Press clips include “…Shark?…” —The New York Times
Breathe Owl Breathe
Deer Bear
- Winner, Most Overwrought Band Bio. A sample: “We open a door to sadness. Sadness is a magnifying glass when used with courage. Open yourself up to it; invite sadness in when it waits on your doorstep, always eager and ready. On the doorstep of your mental house, in which you spend all your life, locked away from everything else; in your House behind the eyes. Our notes and lyrics will make you open the door, and your dogs in the cellar will cease their barking and your demons will hold their breath, just for a little while.”
Dinosaur Pile-Up
Pulled Apart By Horses
- Song titles from the band’s eponymous debut full-length: “Back To The Fuck Yeah,” “I Punched A Lion In The Throat,” “I’ve Got Guestlist To Rory O’Hara’s Suicide,” “Moonlit Talons”
- Their song names were apparently taken from The Big Book Of Hardcore Song Titles: “Scapegoat,” “Still Alive, Hands Untied,” “Virtue Never Tested,” “Infection Kills The Carrier.” Double points for “Voice Of A Lion, Heart Of An Asshole.”
- The one-woman band moniker of Aly Spaltro, who writes “sprawling, lyric & melody-based songs”—as opposed to others based on what?—about “lost, true & unrequited love, nostalgia, nectarine meat, wolf maulings, plum crumb cake” and a whole lot of other twee things.
- All-female Japanese “death punk” band. Their SXSW bio is adorable: “With heavy music that contains a hardcore element Therefore it is acting in melodic music where it doesn’t stay… It is five time habitual practice as for independent project ?PIGGY*STARDUST? by 2008.”
Horse Meat Disco
Cheer Up Moon Cat
Nipplepotamus
Sharks Come Cruisin
Tunabunny
Kittens In The Engine
Just Another Snake Cult
American Werewolf Academy
- “File under: rock, anthems, fun,” helpfully notes their website.
Animals In Human Attire
Blackwolfgoat
Wolves Like Us
All Pigs Must Die
- Most recent album: Saturday Aquatic Pixie Acid
Female anatomy
- Their website is cliteater.NET. Someone else apparently owns cliteater.com! Song titles include “She-Male Cocksucker Blues” and “For Those About To Eat Clit, We Salute You.” Albums include Clit ’Em All (2003, originally available on Dismemberment Records & Bleeding Hemorrhoid Records); Eat Clit Or Die (2005); Reign In Thongs (split with Suppository, 2006); Scream Bloody Clit (2008); The Great Southern Clitkill (2010)
- Album: Short Skirts And Long Nights. See the title track played below: “I hope every motherfucker here is wasted, and every bitch is wet as fuck!”
- Lead singer’s name: Alex “Sex” Nad. In this band’s hometown, Karlsruhe, Germany, it’s still the Sunset Strip, 1986.
- “The RBC” refers to itself as a “Pleasure band.” “A live, in your face, dub-filled & tripped out experience means we did our job and brought the pleasure,” says singer Andrew in its bio.
- You might want to use the qualifier “band” when Googling this one. Lyrics include “I got death on my shoulder / and the girl with the sweetest ass” and “She’s my high-heeled cocaine.” Party! (The band takes its name from the supposed original title to the Stones’ “Brown Sugar.”)
- Facebook description: LIKE A BAT STUCK IN A TENT. Releases include Bonerjamz! (check out “Pissdrinker”); Clue Juice; Meatslave.
Male anatomy
Slow Dance Chubby
Penicular Manslaughter
- UrbanDictionary (the first Google result) helpfully defines this as “killing someone with your massive man member.” “Song” titles—use the term loosely—include “My Pappy Done Died” and “Croco Gators.”
Bodily fluids & other grossness
Jizzm In A Prism
Supersonic Piss
The Vomettes
- On SoundCloud, check out “Saw Yr Tits” and “Wrong Hole”—the latter begins “I ain’t no Riot Grrl, so fuck me in the ass”
- Bio: “We stand for the human depravity! NO tolerence [sic], in any manner for NOone! Anti-ecological, anti-social, anti-human way of life, that’s what SCAT GORE means.”
- Song titles: “Scatalogical [sic] Pig Vomitorium,” “Boiling My Child’s Excrements,” “Crisis Of Rectal Mentality”
Slut, bitch, etc.
- From their Facebook wall: “WHY DOES EVERYONE LIKE OUR REFLECTIONS ON POPULAR CULTURE BUT NO ONE GIVES A SHIT ABOUT THE SHOW’S WE’RE PLAYING where did we go wrong”
- First chorus for “Smells Like Milk”: “What the fuck is up? / What the fuck / What the fuck is up? / What the fuck.” Second chorus: “Where the fuck are you guys now?” (Repeat three times.)
- Has a page on its site called “The Girls” devoted to shots of cleavage.
- Bio: “Consisting of all pro performers, ASB has genuine direction and excellent song writing ability.” “Genuine direction”? They just finished an eight-song CD, Work Sucks, which features, uh, a cover of “Strange Fruit,” the gut-wrenching song about lynching made famous by Billie Holiday.
- Fooled you! It’s an female ska band! Song: “My Friend Pants”
Exclamation points!!!!!!
The Wonderful Sound Of Induce!
Sunbears!
- Honorable Mention, Awesome Song Title: “They Think They’re Soooo Philosophical.”
- Sweet album cover:
- Songs: “Shut Up The Fuck Up,” “Acknowledge The Rage,” “Thank All You Guy Helpening,” “We’re Excited About Thinking,” “Reptile Dysfunction.” Also, awesome URL: 1994punctuation.com.
Weird punctuation
Into It. Over It.
…music video?
- Runner-up, Best Google-Evading Name
- 2007 album: Now That My TV Has Wings I’ll Never Be Lonely
W-H-I-T-E
- Winner, Best Google-Evading Name
- It’s an acronym for Washington’s Hottest And Talented. Facebook “activities and interests” include Mary Kay cosmetics, “if God brought you to it, he will bring you through it ❤,” “HATED BY MANY…WANTED BY PLENTY…DISLIKED BY SOME…CONFRONTED BY NONE.”
letlive.
Next Stop: Horizon
Sleep ∞ Over
- Winner, Most Ridiculous Website
- Winner, Most Overwrought Video
- Are bands based on Internet slang the worst of the worst? Maybe! This stands for “too long; didn’t read.”
- This band is composed of dudes who met while working on a cruise ship.
Extra cheese
The Tears Of Music And Love
- Just because it’s a Deerhoof reference doesn’t make it a good name.
- Decided to spell it that way “just to confuse every ticket and poster printer we ever work with.” Sounds about right.
The Head And the Heart
Armor For The Broken
Rivals Of The Peacemaker
For a Minor Reflection
The Amity Affliction
The Rocturnals
- This Las Vegas band that sounds like a combination of Gym Class Heroes and Limp Bizkit has a messianic streak and a guitarist who wears a mask for some reason (possibly to look like The Crow). They claim to be the progenitors of “urban rock,” which they describe as a combination of “Funk Rock, Alternative Rock music with Soulful Overtones, Hip-Hop Aggression and R&B Melodies.” “They are referred to by some Vegans [People who live in Vegas, not vegetarians. —ed.] as the urban version of Linkin Park.” (Just in case that’s not obvious, “urban” means “black.”) Member names: Pittboss, Novelist, E. Borders, Adam Crow (mask guy), and Trist. Drink it in, everyone:
- Song titles: “You Day Dream, I Day Drink,” “Grandma’s Making Bombs,” “Fucking Punk Kid,” “Don’t Be Blind To The Fact, I’m Just A Pain In The Ass.”
- Honorable mention, Douchiest Band Photo
- The band’s bio builds up the band’s debut in Austin this year: “At the start of their set there were 15 people in the bar quietly sipping their Lone Star beers after an uninspired set from, yet another, self-afflicted Emo band sporting girls’ jeans and way too much hairspray. As the Passersby and the sleepy bar patrons got an earful of this new Memphis band, heads turned and many people packed the bar from the street to see the newest and brightest stars in ‘Active Rock.’” SXSW has no record of their ever playing the festival.
Seven Day Sonnet
Suns Of The Forgotten
- “Best described as ‘hard hitting blues metal’”
- Bio: “Laughing Eye Weeping Eye performances are akin to watching a vaudevillian story-teller in a medival [sic] church with gospel singers, gnomes, and goats.” Members Rebecca Schoenecker and Patrick Holbrook are “bandmates in this life and gurus in another.”
- Song titles: “Be Longing Always,” “The Dying Hymn,” “Human(s)being,” “Humannequin.” The dregs of screamo.
- The band’s debut, 2012: Countdown To The End “fostered an array of key placements on ABC’s top-rated teen drama Pretty Little Liars as well as MTV’s hits shows.” Wow, key placements! Their bio also says their song “Wake Up Call” “carves a psychological hole in the sun with its penetrating urgency igniting a meteor shower of wattage.” We hope they didn’t pay the person who wrote this too much.
Summer Believers Arctic Dreamers
A Winged Victory For The Sullen
- This is probably one of the top 10 all-time worst names we’ve encountered since starting this feature.
Treefight For Sunlight
Balance And Composure
Sacred Dawn
- Bio: “SACRED DAWN HAS BEEN SAID TO DELIVER ONE OF THE MOST ORIGINAL PROGRESSIVE METAL MUSICAL EXPERIENCES HEARD SINCE THE DAWN OF TRUE PROG METAL.”
Masochistic Paradox
Screaming Psyche
Acoustic Minds
Confess The Sin
Dance À La Plage
Audio Martyr
This Wicked Tongue
- Bio: “We are a hard rocking four piece from Worcester, England, founded in 2010. Subverting genre and avoiding pigeonholes, our pleasure is rocking up and rocking out. Hooks plus balls. Don’t forget the balls, kids.”
Between The Rain
Haunting The Disconnect
- Facebook bio: “Prepare to be touched in a Jerry Sandusky kind of way.” Classy! “If you like your hard rock razor sharp with a pounding southern swamp whiskey bend, Haunting the Disconnect is for you and your family (incarcerated or not)!”
- Their logo incorporates both an anarchy symbol and a hammer and sickle. Which one is it?
Movie/TV/book references
- Another masked guitarist, this one in a red mask/hood combo:
- Bio: “Music is Television for your soul, It’s animation for your thoughts and air in your lungs when your [sic] otherwise drowning.
It’s poetry with a soundtrack, where each
beat and note provokes something that a paragraph could not otherwise convey and each word is a paradoxical link to one’s own tortured time and place.” Huh? -
- Where does the song “Of Zombies, Ghandis & Such Very Dirty Laundries” fit in that?
Bad News Bears
Lo-Pan
Weerd Science
- Rap project from a former member of Coheed And Cambria. “I AM WEERD SCIENCE, BITCH.”
Left Turn At Albuquerque
Chunk! No, Captain Chunk!
- Cheeseball pop-punk isn’t limited to the U.S. These kids from Paris look like they could be from SoCal.
The Science Of Sleep
- Two Michel Gondry-loving bands actually claim this name, one from Chicago, the other from Arkansas.
The Original Marta
You Bred Raptors?
Vale Of Pnath
Rodents Of Unusual Size
- At least two groups of Princess Bride fans claim this name: a Canadian ska band and California punk band.
Band/song references
Greco-Roman Soundsystem
WhoMadeWho
- The Danish trio doesn’t look like big AC/DC fans, but maybe they just like Maximum Overdrive?
[pagebreak]
First person
We Are Enfant Terrible
We Were The States
I Got You On Tape
I Hate Our Freedom
- Bio: “This is the straight-up no frills, 4-white-guys-with-guitars, canbeered and duct-taped rock we were all going deaf to before we got into girls. We’re not gonna change shit, neither is your band, everybody come on up front, this is a rock show, you’re welcome.”
- Winner, Awesome Song Title: “Never Promise Crazy A Baby”
Hope I Die Virgin
I Break Horses
Captain, We’re Sinking
- Song titles: “Manners Are Their Own Reward, Gentlemen,” “Curse Those Long Dancer’s Legs”
Second person
You Can Be A Wesley
Go Back To The Zoo
You You Dark Forest
Bring Your Ray Gun
Eat That Plastic
Fuck
Shitty Fucker
- On their Metal Archives page, under “Lyrical themes”: “Fecal Matter, Fornication.” Mixtape title: Diarrheality. Alas, they broke up.
- Make sure you go to thugfucker.ORG, because .com is a site for gay black porn.
- Influences: “A dead tree.”
Sex
- Song titles: “Ass To Mouth,” “Addicted To Analingus,” “Gonorrhea Breath,” “Vaginoplasty,” “Britney Rears.” Here’s a live performance of “Confessions Of An Anal Whore”:
She’s A Tease
Skip The Foreplay
- From a press release: “Aside from having one of the greatest names in history, Skip The Foreplay are simply Satan’s delivery system for music of mass destruction,” offers Epitaph founder and President Brett Gurewitz. Suggested addition for that press release: “…President Brett Gurewitz, who momentarily forgot he plays in one of the most important punk bands ever and thus deserves more dignity than this.”
- Also, this band is terrible:
- Check out “Fucking Out Your Brains” from Pus City.
- “RAPEDOOR MUSIC VIDEO PREMIER [sic] IS SOOOOOON!!!!! CATCH A GLIMPSE OF THE PENIS PENGUIN !!!!!”
Lecherous Gaze
Christian Mistress
- Bio…?: “In a cellar where anxiety and blind confidence collide, desperate sounds are set to flame. Marshall [sic] law screams out shallow skulls propulsed by human error. Walls of white wash marbled black. This is the freedom as a captive of sin. There’s no future here so let it burn us clean.”
Gay porn or orders from the captain?
Ramming Speed
Nudity
Naked On The Vague
The Naked And Famous
Drugs & Booze
Cocaine Moustache
- They have a theme song:
Long
Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All
A Great Big Pile Of Leaves
Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs
Surprise Me Mr. Davis
Say “No!” To Architecture
Letting Up Despite Great Faults
The Devil’s Horns Kill The Matador
- They’re supposedly from New Jersey, but their bio has an ESL quality to it: “The music they create is what some people would call ‘sporadic’. Literally jumping from one thing to the next, these boys put emphasis and subtly [sic] in every song. Their stories touch on personal topics but are told through a variety of metaphors and smilies [sic].”
He’s My Brother She’s My Sister
March Of The Mongolian Deathwvrm
You Say France & I Whistle
- In case the name didn’t set off your twee alarm: Each person’s bio lists the instruments they play along with stuff like “improvised dance moves,” “great yoga exercises,” “screams of both joy and frustration,” and “hamburgers.”
Der Blutharsch And The Infinite Church Of The Leading Hand
Why Are We Building Such A Big Ship?
Kind of genius
- Bio: “We liked Robyn before Pitchfork said it was okay.”
- Song titles: “Eat My Pussy,” “Sexual Assault Causes Impotence,” “Deep Within It Swallows”
- This band is a hobby for a couple of guys who train trampoline artists for the Cirque Du Soleil.
Homostupids
Fatty Gets A Stylist
- Chorus to “Fatty Gets A Stylist”: “When fatty gets a stylist / the world’ll gather round / shower him with gratitude and free love / when fatty gets a stylist / you’ll never keep him down / so eat up, eat up, eat up”
???
- Honorable Mention, Melodramatic Song Titles Category: “Shattered Fairytale,” “Falling From Grace,” “Comfort In Angles [sic] Wings”
Poetry ’N Lotion
The Rumour Said Fire
Batwings Catwings
Baron Von Luxxury
Carsick Cars
Bitchin Bajas
Chipocrite
The Spherical Banana
Is And Of The
Tropical Popsicle
Psandwich
Pianos Become The Teeth
Nom Nom Nom
XXXy
White Cowbell Oklahoma
Religious To Damn
- “It’s not really about religion so much as a disposition. The span between the flames and the transcendence…” Gotcha. More from the bio: “Zohra Atash’s brainchild, Religious To Damn, is that rarest of jewels—sophisticated gypsy rock and roll that’s tender and aggressive, elegant and raw all in the same melodic burst.” She’s right: Sophisticated gypsy rock is rare.
1,2,3
The Cambodian Space Project
Mwahaha
Hank & Cupcakes
Proper names
G.G. Allin’s Dick
Youth Pictures Of Florence Henderson
Hannibal Montana
- That name sounds like a solo project of a former member of Marilyn Manson.
Hazmat Modine
Clarence Darrow
Scrum Ra
Killinger
- This hot-chicks-as-cops video for “Holding On”—with lyrics like “There’s another girl to take your place, maybe two or three” and “You made me lie”—is straight out of 1986. They should tour with Pussy Sisster!
- This Chicago band blends “modern rock/metalcore influences with the soul of 90’s grunge wrapped up in the power of 80’s arena rock.”
Com Truise
The Surreal McCoys
Schwinntonation
- This band uses bicycle sounds to make its songs.
- Song title: “Winnie Cooper Is A Goddamned Whore”
So eeeeeeviilll
- Sad story: This “tween goth punk band”—the twin girls are only 6—formed after their mother died, so their “1st generation punk” father thought music would be a good way for them to work through their grief.
- Song title: “Flaw Of The Sentient Being”
Upon A Burning Body
Book Of Black Earth
When in doubt, repeat
- Behold, the worst band in the world:
White White Sisters
Dot Dot Dot
Trippple Nippples
Bright Light Bright Light
- Possibly a Gremlins reference
Spaces/vowels are for suckers
- Bio: “Hailing from Deathlehem, producer/DJ duo GRVRBBRS have been remixing since 2008. The two met in High School and have since been drawing inspiration from marijuana, skateboarding, classical music and metal.”
iamamiwhoami
THEESatisfaction
allshewrote
- Not to be confused with All She Wrote. This one has songs like “Barack You Like A Hurricane,” “You Wish Jellyfish,” and “Breakdance Not Hearts.”
Will never be spelled correctly
Kikiilimikilii
The Ligyrophobists
- Ligyrophobia is a fear of loud noises—and a “progressive rock band” from Norway.
- Winner, Most Names Dropped In Band Description: “Coeus offers a more modern take on the Progressive Rock genre. How does it sound? Well… uh… imagine… just imagine… if Pink Floyd became a Faith No More cover band… pulled a drum machine out of the trash for percussion… let folks punch Roger Waters in the throat before he started singing… and had an acid-induced Robert Fripp mix it all in his basement.”
- “a.k.a. Old Bastards With More Baggage Than The Train They Rode In On”
Food
Personal And The Pizzas
Mustard Pimp
The Pineapple Thief
Ominous
Bass Drum Of Death
Mexicans With Guns
The Hong Kong Blood Opera
V Is For Villains
- Ever wonder what the Watchmen would sound/look like if they started a band? Wonder no more!
Less so
- “Influences: Our own talent”
C’mon, you’re not even trying
Range Rover
Diseases
Tuberculosis
Herpes
- Press release subject: “Yes, the name of the band is Herpes”
Tribute bands
- All-male Lady Gaga tribute
Misc.
- Song titles: “Fuck! I’m Richard Marx,” “Tonight We’re Going To Drink Alcohol At A Party We Will Attend To Get Drunk,” “Ballad Of The Intergalactic Hitman Underwear Fetishist,” “Heinz 57 & Cocaine,” “Yellow Vulva”
Different Opinions Of Good
Abominable No Men
The Library Is On Fire
The Shitty Limits
- Song title: “When Humans Shout At Dogs”
Djembes And Jump Ropes
Dope Body