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

So, is anyone going to take this on?

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Actually both the song and the band name came from a movie title.

Heaven 17 got their name from the movie "A Clockwork Orange",
During the scene where Alex goes to the music shop to buy a Beethoven tape, they are the band that is the top of the music charts in the film.

UB40 got their name from the form you used to fill in when you were unemployed. (The form no longer exists, it has been superceded)

Eric Idle made up a series of unlikely-sounding group names for a sketch only to find out that the least convincing of all - "Toad The Wet Sprocket" - was actually taken up by a band looking for a name.

Life imitating art?

for a similar artistic exercise, check out Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea's "Iluminatus!" trilogy. In the third part of the book, Shea and Wilson lovingly compile the attendance list at the biggest, wildest, (fictional) rock festival ever. This brings together real groups, bands made up for the book, alternative identitities of "real" rock bands, et c, until the reader s fair overloaded and can no longer tell, or care, which is "real" and which is "fictitious"....

Did anyone ever write this up? If not, any volunteers?

The trouble with writing this up is while a lot of them are correct most of us know them from hearsay. My Spandau Ballet one for example. I can't recall if it's something I was told or read somewhere.
The definates like Dire Straits, UB40, Green Day are a good idea though.

Any of you know the film Dirty Rotten Scoundrels?

I knew a band that were named after the name that was given to Micheal Caine's character in the last scene, by the girl who had earlier ripped him off....

Ships O'Toole



Bassman