— Musings —07.19.2010 09:02 AM
Bollocks
Rotten says “Sex Pistols” was a lousy name. He means it, maaaan.
I say bollocks. I wore one of my many [one of 2,000 he owns – ed.] Sex Pistols Bollocks T-shirts on Friday, on the way up to the cottage, and it got a postive response everywhere. A grandfatherly type came up to me at a gas station on Kingston Road and said he bought that album “simply because of the name.” So there, Johnny.
Band names are crucially important – more important than your actual songs, in my experience. Some of the names of bands I have been in: Hot Nasties (taken from a porn film), Social Blemishes (because we were), Sick Dick and the Volkswagens (from a Pynchon novel), Nemesis Goosehabit and the Jesus Beatles (dreamt up whilst I was a telephone solicitor at Calgary’s World of Cleaning Services), Chicken Realistic and the Fabulous Kevins (featuring my friend James Muretich on lead screams, R.I.P.), and – of course – Shit From Hell, now SFH.
Speaking of which:
I wear my Ramones t-shirt every week with pride.
Punk bands I was in…The Executives (actually ska-ish), Moral Decay, Skippy and the Social Norms…life was good with only three chords to play.
I remember Moral Decay!
I read Michael Stipe comment once that no band has ever become famous if they have an apostrophe in their name. Hmm….
Hmm… that’s pretty bitchy of him, considering The B-52’s Kate Pierson worked w. him on two of their big songs (“Shiny Happy People”, “Me in Honey”). [where that band was originally formatted with an apostrophe as: The B-52’s http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_B-52s )
LOL – The “Hot Nasties” apparently still “young and green”… only later “Sick Dick and the Volkswagens” contemplaient le chef-d’oeuvre
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xisbvqvSEg8
If I recall Nemesis Goosehabit was an actual name in the white pages you came across while working one day. It’s a good thing the band went nowhere or you may have been sued ( didn’t Lynyrd Skynyrd try to sue Lynyrd Skynyrd for misappropriation of name or something?) although I have my doubts about Goosehabit being a real name.
Reminds me of a guy ( brother of a well know folk singer and musician in his own right ) who told the phone co. his name was E. Bob Yasser which, of course, was listed as Yasser, E. Bob !