The Beatles

                      

     

Original band member Stuart Sutcliffe came up with THE BEETLES, as a play on Buddy Holly's group THE CRICKETS who they loved.

Thet actually called themselves The Beatals for the first few months in 1960 and had tried out other names including "Johnny and the Moondogs", "Long John and The Beetles.

They were using the name THE QUARRYMEN and sometimes THE SILVER BEATLES - and by late summer of 1960 the members settled on THE BEATLES emphasizing the BEAT aspect of music and poetry.

Some sources say that John Lennon listed the influence of the film The Wild One, which featured a motorcycle gang called the Beetles (female gang members). An interesting email came to me from Bill Harry (www.mersey-beat.com):

I was with John and Stuart at the Gambier Terrace flat when they discussed a new name. Indeed, Stuart suggested a name like Buddy Holly's group and they started coming out with the name of insects and liked 'beetles.' This was the name Buddy Holly originally thought of himself before decided on Crickets. None of the Beatles knew of 'The Wild One' and none had ever seen it because it was banned in Britain for 14 years and was first shown in 1968.

The rumour came about 'The Wild One' in the mid-Sixties when Derek Taylor saw it in America and asked George Harrison did the reference to a motorcycle gang called the beetles influence the name. George wasn't around when the name was conceived and didn't know, so he assumed Derek was right, unaware that the film had never been shown in the UK when the name was conceived in 1960.

John Lennon never at any time mentioned 'The Wild One' in association with their name.

Lennon is generally credited with combining Beetles and Beat to come up with THE BEATLES spelling.

   

   


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Blink and Blink 182

Blink is a pop/rock band from Ireland known for their mixture of humour and melancholy. They have released three albums:  A Map Of the Universe by Blink (1994), The End Is High (1998) and Deep Inside The Sound Of Sadness (2004).
A Map of the Universe by Blink was an Irish top ten album and The End is High was a Billboard magazine album of the week. Deep inside the Sound of Sadness was nominated as Best Irish Album of the Year in the 2005 Meteor Music Awards.

Blink was formed in the early 1990s by Dermot Lambert (vocals/guitars), Robbie Sexton (keyboards), Brian McLoughlin (bass) and Barry Campbell (drums).

http://blink.garageland.ie/

The San Diego, California based pop punk band now known as Blink-182 was originally also called Blink, but changed their name after being notified by the Irish Blink. They say that they appended "182" but that it has no special meaning.

Blink-182 is an American rock band formed in Poway, a suburb of San Diego, California in 1992. The trio consists of bassist and vocalist Mark Hoppus, guitarist and vocalist Tom DeLonge, and drummer Travis Barker.

The band is considered a key group in the development of pop punk music; their combination of pop melodies with fast-paced punk rock featured a more radio-friendly accessibility than prior bands. The group, with original drummer Scott Raynor, emerged from the Southern California punk scene of the early 1990s and first gained notoriety for high-energy live shows and irreverent lyrical toilet humor.

Better Than Ezra

Better Than Ezra is an American alternative rock band based in New Orleans, Louisiana that was formed in 1988.

The four original members are vocalist and guitarist Kevin Griffin, Joel Rundell, lead guitarist, bassist Tom Drummond and drummer, Cary Bonnecaze. They were all attending Louisiana State University at the time and their first public performance was at Murphy's in Baton Rouge.

Their name is certainly odd and there is no definitive origin story. The one I like best is that it comes from a line in Ernest Hemingway's novel A Moveable Feast. Hemingway is describing a very annoying sound as "...no worse than other noises, certainly better than Ezra learning to play the bassoon."

Fans of the group (Ezralites) know that the band had a "Chimes Street Demo" cassette tape in 1988 and it is something fans pride themselves in owning. The band released a cassette-only album, Surprise, in 1990.

Joel Rundell, the band's lead guitarist, committed suicide on August 8, 1990. After a break, Griffin, Drummond and Bonnecaze reunited Better Than Ezra as a trio in late 1990 playing house parties and fraternity shows across the southern U.S. into the early 90s.

Their first nationally-distributed album was Deluxe in 1993 on the indie Swell Records. The album got them noticed and got airplay and they signed with Elektra Records in 1995. Elektra rereleased Deluxe and "Good" reached #1 on the Hot Modern Rock Tracks chart. The album went platinum by the end of 1995. Drummond said in a 1998 interview with CNN, "It took us seven years to get signed, and then seven weeks to get to No. 1." when describing the overnight success of Deluxe and its single "Good".

Black Sabbath

BLACK SABBATH is the English heavy metal rock band from Birmingham formed in 1969, by Ozzy Osbourne (lead vocals), Tony Iommi (guitar), Geezer Butler (bass guitar), and Bill Ward (drums).


The band was earlier known as "Earth" and had a very different blues/hard rock sound. The band has had multiple line-up changes, with Tony Iommi the only constant presence in the band through the years.

Black Sabbath are cited as pioneers of heavy metal and helped define the genre with releases such as quadruple-platinum Paranoid, released in 1970.


They were ranked by MTV as the "Greatest Metal Band" of all time, and placed second in VH1's "100 Greatest Artists of Hard Rock" list, behind Led Zeppelin.

Ozzy Osbourne's heavy drug usage led to his firing from the band in April 1979, after which he began a very successful solo music career, selling over 100 million albums and television celebrity.

The original line-up reunited with Osbourne in 1997 and released a live album Reunion. The line-up featuring Iommi, Butler, Dio, and Appice reformed in 2006 under the moniker Heaven & Hell until Dio's death in May 2010.

Black Sabbath, the  film

HISTORY:  While playing shows in England in 1969, the band discovered they were being mistaken for another English group also named Earth, and that summer they decided to change their name. A cinema across the street from the band's rehearsal room was showing the 1963 horror film Black Sabbath starring Boris Karloff.

Subsequently, Osbourne and Butler wrote the lyrics for a song called "Black Sabbath" (listen to track), which was inspired by the work of English occult writer Dennis Wheatley. Butler also claimed to have had a vision of a black silhouetted figure standing at the foot of his bed.The song uses the musical tritone, AKA "The Devil's Interval" along with an ominous sound and dark lyrics which became the themes for their musical sound.

Official Website: http://www.blacksabbath.com