Bad Band Names

The Deep End #18

One of the most shocking experiences of my life happened this past weekend.

The shock was this: I heard a Steely Dan song for the first time—and it was fantastic. “Do It Again” was playing on a random Instagram reel I stumbled (mindlessly scrolled) on. The caption read, “If Nirvana Was Actually Good.” The jazzy opening groove of Do It Again was edited over Nirvana’s unplugged performance on MTV to make it look like the band was actually playing the song.

Lowkey insult to Nirvana aside, I needed to know who was actually responsible for the tune.

Steely Dan.

I was shocked. A quick Google search then proceeded to turn my entire world upside down.

My whole life has gone by with my only understanding of Steely Dan being in name alone. Maybe I heard a few songs as I floated through the years, but I never took notice. I always imagined Steely Dan as a rail thin guy with no teeth and a giant beard that shredded a steel-string banjo ripping through insane redneck anthems.

Surprisingly, Steely Dan is a New York based band whose founders met at Bard College in upstate New York. Walter Becker was the guitarist, bassist, and co-songwriter. Donald Fagan is lead singer, co-songwriter, and keyboardist. Becker grew up in Queens right near where I’m from and Fagan is from Jersey. (Fun fact: Chevy Chase was the drummer for the band during their early days at Bard College where he was also an alum.)

With guitar, keyboard, strings, and a smooth and grooving musical style, they’re everything I could ask for in a band. How did it take me this long to find out about them? Actually, it’s pretty simple.

Hearing the words “Steely Dan” immediately makes  me think of the southern banjo player that I described earlier, probably named that from a few of his drinking buddies after hammering back a bucketful of PBR’s.

The Steely Dan in question

Forget the drunk hillbilly—what I’m saying is that the name doesn’t correlate to what you hear in the music, and I can’t be the only person who thinks that. Is the band name the reason why the younger generations haven’t discovered their music? I think so, and I say that while also knowing I could be totally wrong. My brother tells me rich young kids with a penchant for yachting are fond of them. So maybe it’s my lack of yacht that kept me from discovering them, not their terrible name. For what it’s worth, it turns out they named the band after a steam-powered strap-on dildo featured in the book Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs.

My favorite band is The Smashing Pumpkins. Billy Corgan (everything) and Jimmy Chamberlin (drums) are musical geniuses. I will go to my grave standing by that statement. I love the name. But I have heard people complain that it’s not a good one. I never understood it—until now.

The band name is important, it can be the reason why people will or won’t connect to the music. And sometimes an ‘inside joke’ of sorts can be fun. Similar to the, um phallic origins of Steely Dan, the word ‘smashing’ in The Smashing Pumpkins has an unlikely origin. It isn’t a reference to Billy and co destroying pumpkins. It’s the British version of smashing—The Excellent Pumpkins, in other words. Anyway. The Smashing Pumpkins resonated with me and I was hooked from the beginning. But someone else may think the name is ridiculous and write them off before they even get a chance to shit on Billy’s angelic voice.

This same thing goes for Steely Dan. The only time I ever heard them referenced has been with a raised eyebrow and high pitched tone from someone mocking 70s music as being old. “Yea, this guy listens to Steely Dan…”

We’ve heard the euphemism not to judge a book by its cover. I’m going to have to delve into some other bands with ridiculous names and see what else I’ve been missing. If you have any other suggestions let me know! In the meantime, I’ll catch up on a lot of Steely Dan music I’ve missed out on.