Wall of Voodoo (above) - Shortly after Stan Ridgway and Marc Moreland got together and started recording the first music that would become Wall of Voodoo, Ridgway jokingly compared the recordings to the Phil Spector-era "Wall of Sound". A friend commented it sounded more like "Wall of Voodoo" and the name stuck.
Spandau Ballet - Term referred to the spasms of the Nazi war criminals as they "danced at the end of the rope", when they were hanged at Spandau Prison.
fIREHOSE - Taken from a line in a Bob Dylan song, Subterranean Homesick Blues "Better stay away from those that carry around a fire hose".
The Cramps (right)- Liked the name because it is a violent, painful affliction that can be hard to get rid of.
Velvet Underground - Named after a book Lou Reed found in an apartment he had moved into. The book discusses the unusual sexual practices between consenting adults in the early 60's.
Sonic Youth (above)- Named in honor of two of the bands influences, Fred "Sonic" Smith of the MC5 and reggae band Big Youth.
Mekons - They took the band's name from the Mekon, an evil, super-intelligent Venusian featured in the British 1950s-1960s comic Dan Dare.
New York Dolls - Several stories have been used by various band members to recall where they came up with the name. Most common was based on a store that repaired dolls close to where Syl Sylvain lived and the band rehearsed.
Joy Division- The band started out as Warsaw, but there was already another group calling itself Warsaw Pakt, so the band renamed themselves Joy Division, borrowing the name of the prostitution wing of a Nazi concentration camp.
Devo - Short for "Devolution", which is what the band saw happening to the world in the 70's.
Husker Du - Which means "do you remember" in Swedish, also a popular board game in the 50's.
Thin White Rope (above)- Comes from William S. Burroughs' description of human semen.
The Misfits - Named after Marilyn Monroe's final movie.
Operation Ivy - Named after a series of nuclear tests conducted in 1952.
The Jesus and Mary Chain - One of the band members saw an ad on a cereal box offering a free Jesus and Mary chain.
The Pogues (at left) - Shortened from "Pogue Mahone", which in Gaelic (pog ma hon) means kiss my ass.
The Replacements (below)- Most common story is the band, still not set on a name, was called in to play for another band that failed to show and when asked, Paul Westerberg responded "we're the replacements".
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A new documentary is set to be released at the beginning of March chronically the life and times of Jeffery Lee Pierce, leader of the 80's punk blues group Gun Club. "Ghost on the Highway" will follow Pierce from his East LA roots to his untimely death at age 37 in 1996.
Pierce was a fixture in the LA club scene as a teenager and his love of the band Blondie led him to be president of the Blondie Fan Club. Formed in 1979 (initially calling themselves Creeping Ritual), the Gub Club mixed the raw energy of punk with blues and country to make music unlike anything that was being spit out of the LA punk scene in the early 80's. The Gun Club's sound was the blueprint that would spawn the cow-punk/paisley underground scene to follow years later. Both their debut release, 1981's Fire of Love, and follow up, 1982's Miami, are considered classics that established Pierce as one of the priemer songwriters of his generation.
Gun Club had a somewhat revolving cast of characters and contributors and, aside from Pierce, the
band lineup changed frequently. Some of the musicians that would either contribute or join the band: Deborah Harry (Blondie), Pat Bag (The Bags), Linda "Texacala" Jones (Tex and the Horseheads), David Alvin (Blasters), Robin Guthrie (Cocteau Twins) and Kid Congo Powers (at right). 
More popular in Europe than his native America, Pierce (above) spent much of the late 80's and early 90's bouncing between LA, Europe, London and Japan. In August of 1995 Pierce (pictured below, shortly before his death)formed a new Gun Club lineup and returned to America, playing several well received shows in the LA area. New Gun Club material was planned and a live LP had just been released when Pierce died of a brain hemmorhage while visting his father in Salt Lake City on March 31, 1996.
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