Eight crappy bands with cool names

Because sometimes the picture on the label turns out to be way better than what's in the can.

 

The Foo Fighters

The Name: Back in World War Two, bomber crews often flew long missions during which they were strapped immobile in their seats for hours and hours. Such prolonged sensory deprivation can cause hallucinations, particularly the false image of blobs of light flying around the aircraft. Nicknamed "foo fighters" by the crews, the phenomenon drew serious attention from military intelligence until they determined that the blobs were imaginary and not some kind of top secret, high speed enemy aircraft.

The Band: After Nirvana broke up, drummer Dave Grohl (not exactly the group's talent powerhouse) founded Foo Fighters. Their big claim to fame (other than Grohl's battles with Courtney Love over Nirvana song royalties) was a video exploiting/parodying uber-dork ads for Mentos.

 

White Zombie

The Name: Back before George Romero was even born, Bela Lugosi played the bad guy in White Zombie, considered the first feature-length zombie movie and a watershed moment in the development of the sub-genre.

The Band: Oh Rob Zombie, you just suck. Seriously, even the good stuff this guy does immediately turns to crap thanks to the adulation of his crap-loving fans.

 

Steely Dan

The Name: At one point in William S. Burroughs's novel Naked Lunch, one of the characters employs a strap-on sex toy called Steely Dan III.

The Band: Then several years later a couple of jazz fusion dildos formed a band of the same name. [Though the joke was kinda obvious, I should admit that I didn't come up with it. If I remember the original source, I'll add a cite here.]

 

Uriah Heep

The Name: As a Dickens bad guy, Uriah Heep isn't bad. He's snaky, greedy, ugly, everything you'd want in a Victorian villain. David Copperfield wouldn't be the same without him.

The Band: So why name a group after such a creep? Only this band knows for sure. They're credited along with Deep Purple and Led Zeppelin with pioneering the kind of music played by such bands. If you view that as a good thing, likely you won't agree with me about this entry.

 

Styx

The Name: As most folks learn sometime before graduating from high school, the River Styx was the divider between the land of the living and Hades (the realm of the dead) in Greek mythology.

The Band: To be fair, Styx was no crappier than any other band from the arena rock era. At least until Dennis DeYoung talked his bandmates into inflicting "Kilroy Was Here" (cool name for a crappy album) on the world. "Mister Roboto" fans please contemplate the meaning of "guilty pleasure."

 

Pure Prairie League

The Name: In the old Western Dodge City, the Pure Prairie League was a cinematic stand-in for the Women's Christian Temperance Union, a group of fanatic teetotalers known throughout the Old West for trashing saloons.

The Band: If Carrie Nation had lived long enough to hear these monsters of lite rock from the last gasps of music on AM, she would no doubt have turned her hatchets on radios everywhere in the name of protecting helpless youth from painfully mediocre music.

 

Tree of Woe

The Name: In one of the more philosophical moments in Conan the Barbarian, bad guy Thulsa Doom (James Earl Jones) gives the title character (Arnold Schwarzenegger) a lecture about the principle of "mind over matter." Concluding that the barbarian is too simple and selfish to understand the concept, Doom wraps up with the observation that "People have no grasp of what they do." Then he suggests that Conan "Contemplate this on the Tree of Woe." [It's traditional at this point for everyone in the room to shout "Whoa!"] The next shot finds our hero enjoying the recommended "think time" while nailed to a tree.

The Band: To be honest, for all I know these guys could be the next Velvet Underground. However, their web site makes them look like they're probably pretty familiar with venues that include pool tables, arm wrestling competitions and a host of other "audience distractions." Besides, even a good band would have trouble living up to the coolness of their name.

 

Sucking Chest Wound

The Name: A sucking chest wound is a traumatic injury that opens the chest cavity and draws air in through the hole when the victim inhales. You can tell when you have one because of the sucking, hissing sound it makes. That and the agonizing pain.

The Band: Okay, this one's a cheat. If the 8sails staff had ever formed our own garage band, this is what we would have called it. But despite our kick-ass name, we probably would have justified only the first word.