25 Horrible Bands Named after Places: Music from Hell and Elsewhere

Much like hypertension or obesity are predictors for cardiovascular disease, geography is a measure for determining whether a band’s music will make you want to cover your ears.

Before you start penning a terse letter to your city councilor, we’re not referring specifically to where a band might be from, but one whose name is geographic in origin.

Now, there is no question, there are a handful of talented place-derived bands in genres other than rock/pop. These include punk bands UK Subs, New York Dolls and MC5, soul bands like the Sugarhill Gang and the Ohio Players, not to mention traditional acts like the Blind Boys of Alabama or the Clinch Mountain Boys. However, with few exceptions, the vast majority of rock/pop bands at least, whose names reference a particular place are overwhelmingly and unspeakably awful.

There are several reasons for this. First, if you’re feeling less than creative when coming up with a band name, say, Julius & the Epileptic Caesars is already taken, the first thing that may spring to mind after a failed bid by the drummer to name the band after himself (The Tommy Hitzenberger Three), is a particular land mass or continent—especially if you were excited about tectonic plates in high school geography class.

Second, some bands are filled with a great sense of civic pride. The Doors, for example, whose version of Alabama Song received kudos in our Top 10 ‘Bar’ Songs of All Time would famously be introduced: ‘From Los Angeles, California, the Doors’. If an announcer isn’t available, or for some reason your band doesn’t believe in loosening up a potentially hostile crowd with whimsical banter, naming yourselves after a particular city works as this removes any doubt as to where you’re from for future ‘why don’t you go back to __________ ?’ heckling.

And thirdly, there are several bands, who for whatever reason, likely because they’re fond of anything and everything ironic [see the book/site, Stuff White People Like: The Definitive Guide to the Unique Taste of Millions and for Sharkguy Chris's review of said book in this past weekend's Globe and Mail click here] go out of their way to name themselves after somewhere they’re NOT from. Perhaps you’ll find them on our next list, that is, if they have enough staying power and a big enough fan base to extend beyond Brooklyn or Chapel Hill.

Here, alphabetically then, is an in no way definitive list, (as awful acts sporting geographic monikers are sprouting up literally everywhere as we write this), of 25 of the most notable, and quite horrendous bands with geographic names.

1. Alabama: Not coincidentally, as far as your ears are concerned, this band hails from Fort Payne and brought us Christian Rock-like crossover hits like Dixieland Delight, proving that a taste for piss-poor country translates to a lousy taste in MOR pop.

2. All Saints: after All Saints Road, London. Pure Brit blasphemy

3. America: Their songs have elevated people, but unfortunately only in the context of entering, and pressing your floor. America’s big hit ‘Horse with No Name’ is often mis-attributed to Neil Young–a guy who’d never pen anything like this. I mean, what good is a horse going to do in the desert? That’s what camels are for.

4. Asia: A wretched prog-rock outfit whose keyboards were so large they’d likely need to be hauled off by Hercules jets.

5. Backstreet Boys, after Back Street Market, a shopping area in Orlando, Florida. If you name your band after a shopping area, what more can be said, other than your tunes will provide musical accompaniment to mall teen loitering. As far as their Youtube videos are concerned, embedding has been disabled by request, and not by us either. A big thank you to whoever that was.

6. Bay City Rollers: According to legend, the Scottish ‘Rollers’ threw a dart at a map of the continental US and landed upon Bay City, Michigan. At least they really did put Bay City on the map.

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