Interlude - real great names

A few bands who already found great names, even if they didn't necessarily find huge success.

The One-Unders

A 'one-under' is tube-workers' slang for when a passenger falls or jumps off a platform in front of a train. When I worked for London Underground some of the workers on the Piccadilly line formed a band and called themselves The One-Unders.

Daddy Those Men Scare Me

Another colleague on the tube was in a band with this fantastic name. They even had a fantastic nickname - the Daddies. They are still going, have a website and have some MP3s available there. I recommend that anyone who has teenagers at home listen to their song 'Teenagers'.

Never The Bride

I first saw Never The Bride back in the early 90s in Tufnell Park when some Kiwi friends introduced me to The Church one Sunday. When we went in the club the band were playing and I thought they were OK - competent and hard-working. They were one of those bands who seemed to always be playing somewhere. They must have been doing 150 to 200 gigs a year. I was amazed to find today, via Google, that they are still going. Great name though.

The Unflushables

A 3-piece punk band from Cleveland. (An mp3 is available here). The name popped into my head when I paid a recent visit to the toilet at work and found it had previously been visited by someone who must have left a few kilos lighter. Unsurprisingly the name had already been snapped up.

Four-Man Trio

I saw this lot supporting Spizzenergi. They were OK, but I loved their name. Don't know if they are still around - they used to have a site called www.fourmantrio.co.uk but its dead now.

A little searching on the internet revels an American band of the same name who sing songs of the 50's, and New Jersey bar band with the same name, and probably a few more - "four man trio" gives 1,260 hits on Google.

The Screaming Ab-Dabs

I saw this band in about 1979 or 1980 playing in the old 'Top Alex' pub in Southend, and again at an open air rock festival in Basildon for local bands. They did straightforward blues/R&B and the female singer who we all just knew as 'Alf' really belted those standards like 'Mojo Working' out, although they had a few songs of their own. A few years later she turned up as half of Yazoo, then turned solo.

I wonder if they knew that Roger Waters and Nick Mason had a band of the same name before they became Pink Floyd?