Thin Lizzy

Thin Lizzy at the Manchester Apollo, 1983

L to R: Sykes, Lynott, Gorham, Wharton; Downey not visible.

Thin Lizzy are an Irish rock band formed in Dublin in 1969. Two of the founding members, drummer Brian Downey and bass guitarist/vocalist Phil Lynott, met while still in school. Lynott assumed the role of frontman and led them throughout their recording career of twelve studio albums.

Thin Lizzy are best known for their songs "Whiskey in the Jar", "Jailbreak" and "The Boys Are Back In Town" from the album Jailbreak.

After Lynott's death in 1986, various incarnations of the band have emerged over the years based around guitarists Scott Gorham and John Sykes (Sykes left the band in 2009).

Thin Lizzy original lead guitarist, Eric Bell, came up with the band's name.  He was a fan of  John Mayall's Bluesbreakers band and noted that Eric Clapton was reading the comic "The Beano" on the cover of the  1966 album Bluesbreakers with Eric Clapton. In a sister comic, The Dandy, there is a robot character named Tin Lizzie (like the Ford Model T car). Bell suggested it and a change from "Tin" to "Thin" to play on the Irish accent's propensity to drop the 'h'.

The Pogues

The Pogues are a Celtic punk band from London fronted by Shane MacGowan. Their politically tinged music was informed by MacGowan and Spider Stacy's punk backgrounds, but they also used traditional Irish instruments such as the tin whistle, cittern, mandolin and accordion.

The band reached peaked in popularity in the late 80s and early 1990s. MacGowan left the band in 1991 due to drinking problems but the band continued first with Joe Strummer and then with Spider Stacy on vocals before breaking up in 1996.




The Pogues were founded in Kings Cross, a district of North London, in 1982 as Pogue Mahone. Pogue mahone is the Anglicisation of the Irish póg mo thóin, meaning "kiss my arse (ass)".

The band reformed in 2001, and has been playing fairly regularly since, particularly U.S. East Coast around St Patrick's Day, and across the UK and Ireland every December, though they have not released any other records.




Pogue Mahone is also the name of the seventh and last studio album by the band which was released in 1996.

Despite their limited output, Amazon.com lists 69 albums under The Pogues

LEGO

Lego (trademarked in capitals as LEGO) is a popular line of construction toys manufactured by the Lego Group, a privately held company based in Billund, Denmark. http://www.lego.com

The company's flagship product, Lego, consists of colorful interlocking plastic bricks and an accompanying array of gears, mini-figures and various other parts. Lego bricks can be assembled and connected in many ways, to construct such objects as vehicles, buildings, and even working robots. Anything constructed can then be taken apart again, and the pieces used to make other objects.

Lego began manufacturing interlocking toy bricks in 1949.


In the years since, a global Lego subculture has developed, supporting movies, games, competitions, and five themed amusement parks.

The Lego Group began in the workshop of Ole Kirk Christiansen, a carpenter from Billund, Denmark, who began making wooden toys in 1932.

In 1934, his company came to be called "Lego", from the Danish phrase leg godt, which means "play well".

Buffalo Springfield

Buffalo Springfield, l-r: Stephen Stills, Dewey Martin,
Bruce Palmer, Richie Furay, Neil Young

Buffalo Springfield was a North American folk-rock band known not only for their music, but for the bands and careers that emerged after they disbanded. 

They were one of the first bands to emerge after the "British invasion." The band's music combined rock, folk, and country music into a sound all its own.

Their best-selling song was "For What It's Worth" which became a political anthem in the late 1960s and is still used today for political statements.


The band formed in 1966 and lasted only two years before infighting, drug-related arrests, and line-up changes led to disbanding.

Neil Young and Stephen Stills first met briefly in Ontario, Canada while Young was playing with The Squires, and Stills was on tour with The Company, a spin-off from the Au Go Go Singers. When The Company broke up at the end of that tour, Stills moved to the West Coast, where he worked as a studio musician and auditioned unsuccessfully for, among other things, The Monkees.

He decided to assemble his own band and Richie Furay and former Squires bass player Ken Koblun to come join him in California. (Koblun left after a short time.)

Back in Canada, Young met Bruce Palmer of The Mynah Birds and joined as the lead guitarist. Oddly enough, their singer was Ricky James Matthews (later known as Rick James) who was arrested for being AWOL from the U.S. Navy, thereby killing their Motown record deal.

Young and Palmer decided to head for Los Angeles where, after some searching, they joined Stills, Furay and Friedman, and drummer Dewey Martin.

According to the liner notes on the 4 CD box set, the band got its name from the side of a steamroller, made by the Buffalo-Springfield Roller Company. It was parked on the street outside record producer Barry Friedman's house where Stills and Furay were staying. The newly-named group debuted on April 11, 1966, at The Troubadour in Hollywood and then started a short tour of California as the opening act on a bill featuring The Dillards and The Byrds. Jim Messina replaced Palmer early in 1968.

The band produced three original albums Buffalo Springfield (1966), Buffalo Springfield Again (1967), and Last Time Around (1968), and several compilations in the years since the breakup.

After the breakup, the members went on to form Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Poco, Loggins & Messina and Crazy Horse, as well as all producing solo albums.

Despite the band's short tenure and limited output, it was one of the most influential of its era and they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

30 Seconds To Mars

           


30 SECONDS TO MARS was started in 1998 by actor Jared Leto and his brother Shannon. Matt Wachter later joined the band as bassist and keyboard player. After working with guitarists kevin Drake and Solon Bixler, Tomo Miličević eventually came in to be the fourth memeber.

A reader, Mike Driscoll, alerted us to info on Wikpedia about the band's name origin.

Former member Matt Wachter has said that the band's name "actually comes from a thesis that the band found online that was written by a former Harvard professor. And one of the subsections of the thesis was titled 'thirty seconds to mars' and he goes on to talk about the exponential growth of technology that relates to humans and saying that we are quite literally thirty seconds to mars. What it means to us is, we thought it best described our music, in short."

Then again, Jared Leto said in an interview that "the name 30 Seconds To Mars has little to do with space, the universe or anything like that. It is a name that works on several different levels. Most importantly, it is a good representation of our sound. It's a phrase that is lyrical, suggestive, cinematic, and filled with immediacy. It has some sense of otherness to it. The concept of space is so overwhelming and all encompassing I doubt there is a song written that doesn't fall within it."

To further clear (or muddy) the origin waters, Shannon Leto, supporting the Wachter explanation said that the name "represents a lot of things. This professor had a thesis. It was talking about where technology was going; the evolution of man and how that plays a role. A sub-category was 30 Seconds to Mars. It was like the exponential growth of humans. We are literally 30 seconds away from Mars. Everything is right here and right now; everything is just so crazy and fast."

As of this posting, the band has 14 albums available.