What's in a F#!@ing name?
Four-letter words litter the monikers of many bands. But is this real rock 'n' roll rebellion at play or merely a cheap publicity stunt destined to back-fire? SUSAN DALY finds out
FAMOUS: But are Fucked Up trading on their name?
CANADA is going to drop the F-bomb on Dublin any day now. Punk rockers Fucked Up play Whelan's on the 21st of this month, while fellow Toronto band, experimental electro duo Holy Fuck, have a night out at The Academy in October.
We're partial to a bit of Holy Fuck in this country -- they sold out Whelan's when they last visited Dublin and were one of the hot tips at this year's Oxegen. We like their crazy live show, their psychedelic leanings and their infectious energy.
Fucked Up are hardcore punks so you might expect a bit of pottymouth in their name. But what are two nice boys like Graham Walsh and Brian Borcherdt of Holy Fuck doing with a moniker like that?
They're not the only ones giving themselves a bad name. In the past two years, the biz they call show has produced bands called The Fucking Ocean, Those Fucking Unicorns, Psychedelic Horseshit, The Fuck Buttons, Shit Disco, Fuckwolf, Stay Fucked, Mister Fuck, The Fucking Champs, Holy Shit, Shit Robot, The Fuckerettes, Fuck the Facts, Fuckpony, Fuckface and, in a courageous combination of the two profane words du jour, The Fuckin' Shit Biscuits.
There was a Californian band briefly called Ima Fucking Gymnist last year, but they chickened out and changed it to Ima Gymnist.
That's a lot of four-lettered words going around -- and none of them spell L-O-V-E. But despite their aggressive-sounding names, not all or even many of the above bands are Satan-worshipping death metallers. Some have even notched up decent releases -- Bristol experimental duo The Fuck Buttons have also played to positive reviews in Ireland and their debut album, Street Horrrsing, was named Underground Album of the Month by Mojo magazine for March.
So why are perfectly good bands f***ing up their chances to be famous for their music by angling for notoriety with their names? Perhaps they're not. Fucked Up guitarist Mike Haliechuk, aka 10,000 Marbles, admitted in a recent interview: "I think we got recognition because of the name, rather than despite it. It's been surprising to us... how much [our name] has been used in mainstream press -- The Globe and Mail printed it as is, CBC uses it as is."
MTV Live figured they couldn't get away with the full name on live telly -- they introduced them as 'Effed Up'. The New York Times wrote a review of the band's show last year without once mentioning their name. The reviewer instead pointed readers to the band's website, which has the more forgiving-sounding name of lookingforgold.blogspot.com.
The point is that instead of being ignored by the media for their profanity, the media is being forced to cope with the trend. Holy Fuck caused similar tied tongues when they were shortlisted for the Polaris prize, the Canadian equivalent of the Mercury prize. The live press conference announcing the list referred to them as 'Holy F', and the host helpfully covered one half of the band's name with his hand when he held up their album cover for the TV cameras present.
The proliferation of 'f***s' in the music business could be a sign that the word is about as taboo these days as a Fair City actress in The Vagina Monologues. Just a few years ago, it was fashionable -- nay, mandatory -- to prefix your band's name with the most common word in the English language: 'The'. It is possible that 'fuck' has become so commonplace in everyday conversation that bands don't think twice about lobbing it into the middle of their name. We should have no problem understanding this in Ireland, where the word has long been used as a catch-all verb, noun and adjective.
So many bands take the DIY approach to promotion, thanks to the power of the internet and file-sharing, that they probably don't give a f*** about what some radio DJ will struggle to call them. They'll already have their fan base sorted.
There is the tiny possibility of course that putting the profanity of your choice in a band moniker is just a good old-fashioned piece of rock 'n' roll rebellion. It's about as far away from a nice fluffy name like The Magic Numbers as you can get. And it attracts spades of attention: manna to the average ego-driven rock star wannabe.
Outraged mammies, relax: it's probably just a phase these crazy kids are going through. Band names have always been subject to trends. The aforementioned penchant for 'The' was cool for about as long as it took us to figure out if The White Stripes were brother and sister or ex-husband and wife. The classics were The Byrds, The Who, The Kinks: they should have left it at that.
One-word names took over in the 90s, as if everyone got tired of thinking up a good name and just stuck a pin in the dictionary. Phish, James, Rush, Creed, Ween -- take a bow. Stain'd manages to sound both dumb and seedy.
Intentional misspelling is a perennial favourite for badly named bands. Limp Bizkit, BoyszIIMen, Enuff Z'Nuff, Def Leppard (sorry, Joe). The use of naff numerals is likewise to be frowned upon, as in UB40, Blink 182, 98 Degrees, Maroon 5. U2 are okay because they are called after a spy plane and all things spy are cool.
Then there will always be the plain stupid names. Toad The Wet Sprocket, The Lovin' Spoonful, Puddles of Mudd, Mister Mister, Sixpence None The Richer... there's probably even a Cajun-fusion alt-rock ensemble out there called The Plain Stupid Names.
Note that not all the worst band names belong to the bands with the worst music. They just sound that way. n
Fucked Up play Whelan's on August 21, tickets €14.50. Holy Fuck play The Ambassador on October 20, tickets €17.50.
- Susan Daly
