h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Nice one jimbo!

Led Zeppelin: originally there was a seminal sixties' guitar/blues band called the Yardbirds (named after blues and jazzman Charlie "Yardbird" Parker), which in its seven or eight years or so went through several changes in personnel.

The Yarbirds had, over the course of the band's life, three of the greatest names in British music as its lead guitarist: Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, and finally Jimmy Page.

While the band had its single hits ("For Your Love", "Over, Under, Sideways, Down", "Better Man than I"), its significance lies in the way it continually experimented with the form of rock music, continually pushing the envelope of the available technology, experimenting with the form and function of the rock track.

For a picture of the Yardbirds at their most experimental, pick up a copy of "Roger the Engineer" (Jeff Beck period)and give it a damn good listen. To my ears at least, you can hear echoes, or perhaps precursors, of a lot of British music of the following twenty years: eerie "future echoes" of acts as divergent as the Buzzcocks and Kate Bush.

Anyway, by 1968-69, the Yardbirds were played out as a band: the death of original lead singer Keith Relf saw the final break-up of the original lineup. Jimmy Page kept it staggering on as the "New Yardbirds" for a year or so, but they were just treading water and re-hashing old glories.

It is said that following a disaster tour which was marked by cancellations and misjudged gigs of which Spinal Tap would have been proud, Page called together the band and said "It isn't working. We need an image change. I mean, we're going down faster than a lead zepellin"

A couple more personnel changes later, the "lead zeppelin" remark was remembered and the name (mis-spelt) was taken up as an ironic salute to humour in adversity. An LP was recorded that in some respects was reminiscent of the Yardbirds of old, but with a heavier, darker, edge and the image of the blazing Hindenburg (a Zeppelin going down in flames)proudly emblazoned on the cover...

At about this time, the Gnadige Frau Grafin von Zeppelin, a dauhter of a proud Prussian family and widow of the original Count von Zeppelin, levelled a serious and legal objection to "a bunch of long-haired degenerate hippie drug-takers" appropriating and mis-using a proud family name, ie, hers.

I understand the legal action was discontinued, because the successful defence was that the band were not naming themselves after the PERSON of Count von Zeppelin. Rather, the term "Zeppelin" had entered the dictionary as a generic term for any powered airship, and in this sense had passed out of the domain of the von Zeppelin family.

Had the group called themselves "Led von Zeppelin" the case might have been upheld; but as they'd named themselves after the generic airship, there was no case in law and, regrettably, German law could not proceed with the action...

But imagine what might have happened if the case of "von Zeppelin v. Page, Plant, Bonham and Jones" had gone the other way....

Regrettably the Yardbirds were still doing the rounds as of three years ago when they appeared at our local blues festival playing to an audience of about 3.

And the Stones were named after a song by Muddy Waters, not by Bob bloody Dylan. Practically everything about their sopund was 'borrowed' from Waters in the early days, so they'd have had little excuse.

It's all part of the flotsam and jetsam of an original group breaking up, isn't it... I'm thinking of the way there seems to be at least three spin-offs from the Bay City Rollers treading the boards now, each with one of the original group members and a slightly different name, each claiming to be the one-and-only Rollers...

Or the phenomenon of the Northern club circuit, where a minor Motown band from the sixties can be playing three gigs simultaneously at, say, Chorley, Heckmondwycke and Accrington, on the same night (each incarnation with possibly one of the original group members, if you're lucky)

I understand Chris Dreja and Paul Samwell-Smith both fronted variations of the Yardbirds for a long time after the original band broke up? Dreja, I think, is no longer with us, but Samwell-Smith (the original bass player in the Clapton and Beck days) might still be doing the nostalgia circuit and has rights to the band's name? Maybe his band is the one who played to three people at the blues festival?

Buffalo Springfield took their name off a big piece of highway construction equipment, a steamroller. For What It's Worth ...

It was Keith Moon who made the going down like a lead zeppelin remark

The creators of cartoon pop band The Gorillaz chinese year symbol was year of the monkey

Hi Bassman,
Spock's mother was human.

Re: Beatles

Yes, they were The Quarrymen before they became The Beatles; but, in between, they were the Silver Beatles.

Swing Out Sister chose the name to sound 'American'

Miami Sound Machine was thought to have chosen their name for the same reason, before it became apparent that they WERE American and not European trying to sound American.

Public Enemy:

Back in the day, Chuck D and Flavor Flav were working at a radio station in New York as DJs. One day a rival DJ grabbed Flavor Flav and started dissing Chuck D. Flav went up to Chuck D and told him about this guy who was dissing him. In retaliation, Chuck and Flav wrote the song "Public Enemy #1", which righteously dissed the guy back.

Chuck had a rap group called Spectrum City, but after getting signed he decided to take the name from the song and call it "Public Enemy".

Probably been mentioned earlier but the Prodigy are named after Liam Howlett's (first synthsizer...a Moog 'Prodigy'

Theres actually a competetion win one of Liam's Moog Prodigy synthesizers on Amazon in the UK at the moment!

GRRR why will H2G2 not let your own edit earlier posts like most forums do, it's very annoying and means double postings and such like...

The Pogues - is an abbreviation of the Irish phrase 'pogue mahone' - which means "kiss my arse".

The YES name has a short or long version. Original guitarist Pete Banks said he suggested the name because it was so short it would be printed bigger on posters. The long story is that when Lennon went to Yoko's exhibition at the Indica, he had to climb a ladder to read a small message on a flap of paper glued to the ceiling. The message was the word YES and he found it deeply significant.
They recently called an album 'the Ladder' to commemorate the scouser's path to true love and its link to the band's name.
They did initially want to name an album after Yes Tor in Devon but expanded the title to Tormato in order to explain the album cover consisting of a tomato pelted photo of the band supposedly (but not actually) grouped at the peak of Yes Tor, looking off into the distance, scanning the vista for ley lines. Significantly, each band member looked off in a different direction, with each trying to look furthest.

Dire Straits were so named because of their financial situation at the time.
and T'pau were named after a Vulcan High Priestess! fancy not knowing that.
Spandau Ballet - that's how they described the kicking of the feet of people executed by hanging in Spandau prison.
The Beatles (because of buddy holly & the crickets, but they were originally called The Silver Beatles and just dropped the word Silver)

Ash go there name because there origan name Vietnam was deem awfull buy the record company so they just grabbed a dictionary and found the first one sylable name they could find.

I've told this before at H2G2, but it fits here ... the Beau Brummels were asked about their name, they explained it got their records next to the Beatles on the record store racks. "Location, location, location ..."

http://www.amiright.com/artists/beaubrummels.shtml

So somebody is gonna name a band "49 Cents", just wait ...

As people are probably already aware,Black Sabbath called thenselves Earth before renaming themselves after one of their early songs.However,their road crew in their early days - up until 1978 when Ozzy left/was sacked - called them Slack Haddock.

My misconception, for those Trekkers who were so quick (or not) to correct me, was that I thought Spock's mother was called T'Pau. I did know she was human though.

I'm sorry if my lack of Star Trek miniscule detail anoys anyone, but it's just not THAT important to me.

Ask me what the Bass line to Spirit of Radio is - that's another matter



Bassman

Rage against the Machine took their name from one of Zach de la Rocha's band "Inside out" songs. If that makes sense.