#8: Jimmy Pardo: 'Isn't every band name shitty?'

The Never Not Funny host talks bad names

Photo by Bruce Smith

This month’s bonus edition features Jimmy Pardo, comedian and podcasting pioneer. His show, Never Not Funny, has been essential listening for me for about a decade, and with good reason: Jimmy’s hilarious and charming, and his repartee with his guests and cast mates is highly enjoyable.

More germane to Band Name Bureau, Jimmy worked at record stores for years and for MCA Records before he started doing comedy full-time. Both were professional expressions of a personal, deep-seated love of music that began as a kid growing up in the south suburbs of Chicago. That passion continues now, even as his favorite bands—like Chicago, Journey, Styx, Iron Maiden, REO Speedwagon, etc.—have long since become legacy acts. But Jimmy stays more current than his favorite artists may indicate. And as an opinionated loudmouth, he’s the perfect person to interview for Band Name Bureau.

Band Name Bureau: Do you remember the first time you noticed a band name as being especially good or especially bad?

Jimmy Pardo: I guess the first one would have been Three Dog Night. In that I was a kid, and it was the first 45 that I bought, "Black and White." That was the first 45 I ever bought because I loved Three Dog Night and didn't know what "Three Dog Night" meant. Just as a kid, that was a fun-sounding name to me.

I'm sure Led Zeppelin crept into there somewhere, and I was probably wondering what that meant. I didn't know one song by Led Zeppelin when this happened, but I was in a record store with the with my Cub Scout troop. I was looking through and I said, "Oh, my cousins love Led Zeppelin." And somebody said, "Oh, is he good?" I went, "It's a band, not a person." Again, I couldn't have named one Led Zeppelin song for a million dollars.

BNB: In general, is it better to have a name that sticks out or one that you don't really think about?

JP: Don't you think it's a name that sticks out? I mean, otherwise, you're going, "I love that song, but who did that?" Then you’ve got to rack your brain instead being very definitive about it, no?

BNB: It depends on the name, because if it's a bad name, then that's a roadblock. Whereas a generic name like the Killers, you don't even think about it. It doesn't move the needle either way.

JP: That was one of those where I was amazed that it took until 2004 for a band to be called that. How did it take this long for “the Killers” to be a band name? [It didn’t. –ed.] And I still think that whenever I hear like a new band name, like "That should've been something in 1967. Why is it finally happening in 2020?"

BNB: What do you what do you think makes a bad name?

JP: One that I don't want to say, I guess. I never liked the name Poi Dog Pondering, and it made me not want to listen to the band. Then when I finally heard them, I said, "Hey, who's this?" They told me, and I was like, "Oh, dammit, I like them." But I never would have listened to them. Same with the Sigue Sigue Sputnik. That's very unfair. And Butthole Surfers. Well, even musically I'm not interested, but I didn't know that. I just knew I hated the band's name. So I guess if it just hits my ear in a certain way—that's what makes a bad name.

Dead Kennedys is another one. That was another one that, admittedly, took me way too long to figure out what it was referencing. [Laughs.] Then I was like, "Why did the record company allow this?" I'm sure there had to be meetings of them saying, "Fellas, why don't you think about changing that band name? It might be offensive to some people." And then going, "Well, that's their style of music, and they don't care, so let them get away with it, I guess."

BNB: To what you said about the Dead Kennedys, one name I never thought about the pun in the Beatles, because I was like, "Oh, that's just their name." It never occurred to me to be like, beat/beetle/Beatles.

JP: It's funny. I had the reverse reaction in a way. That's not a good sentence, but you'll get my point of I thought the beetle, the bug, was spelled B-E-A-T until way too late in life. I so didn't get the pun, I thought that's how beetle was spelled. That's how dumb I was.

BNB: Your favorite band of all time is Chicago, who originally went by Chicago Transit Authority. Which one do you like better?

JP: I don't like either of them. Mainly because if you want to do a Google search or an eBay search for something about Chicago, boy, you're gonna get a lot of things you're not interested in. That said, before they were Chicago Transit Authority, they were the Big Thing. That's a horrible name. [Former frontman Peter] Cetera was in the Missing Links, which is very of that time, '60s-sounding band name. But “CTA” would have been better than switching it to Chicago. Any of those—Boston, Kansas.

BNB: That was my next question. How do you feel about bands that named themselves after cities or regions?

JP: I mean look, it worked for that for the bands that we just mentioned. But for every one of them, there's one, like a band called Burbank, that never had a hit or anything. But I guess at the end of the day, I don't like it. Give me a band name that doesn't make something else show up in the Google search.

BNB: When I was doing the Year in Band Names, I would always do a category called "impossible to Google" or something. It'd be band names like President Bill Clinton or six lowercase letter Hs. To quote Jimmy Pardo, "Oh aren't you interesting."

JP: That's it! I assume around the table, they went, "Oh, my God, yes!" There was a big trend in the late '70s, early '80s to name your band TBA, so that when it was on the marquee, it would say "TBA," and you'd be on every marquee. It was like, "Yeah, but that joke's funny once," then you're not getting any promotion. Nobody's talking about you after they're annoyed the first time.

BNB: That's the same as the old "free beer" joke. "We're gonna call our band Free Beer!" I thought that was hilarious when I was about 16. Speaking of 16, you were in a band in high school called Rainbow Bridge, which was briefly known as the Jimmy Pardo project. The name came from the Jimi Hendrix album, right?

JP: It was from the Jimi Hendrix album, yes, Rainbow Bridge. Our guitarist was obsessed with Jimi Hendrix. The other one he wanted—and admittedly, I didn't get it at the time—but he wanted to call the band Some Mountains. I wish we would have been called Some Mountains, because, "Please welcome: Some Mountains!" I guess I was so busy wanting to be an actual rock star that I was like, "That doesn't work!" But in reality, that's a fun name.

BNB: Have you googled Rainbow Bridge recently?

JP: It's for pets going to heaven.

BNB: Yes! When I googled Rainbow Bridge, the avalanche of dead-pet stuff that came up had me questioning whether it was Hendrix thing, because I was like, "Surely Hendrix would show up higher in these results."

JP: I think if we had Google at the time, we probably would have googled "Rainbow Bridge," saw what it was and went, "We can't be called that."

BNB: You touched on this a little bit, but what's a band with a bad name that you ended up liking?

JP: Aren't they all shitty? At the end of the day, isn't every band name shitty? Iron Maiden? That's a good name, though. Iron Maiden is a good band name, and you know what you're getting, too. I think Journey is a nice band name. One of my favorite bands is Marillion, and to this day I have to google to find out what that means. I think Rush is good—Rush is a good band name. I'm trying to look at my albums without glasses on, and by just looking by the spines, hoping I come up with something.

Poi Dog Pondering, I guess, is the most recent one that I was amazed that I enjoyed them. Oh, you know what? The Jesus and Mary Chain. I hate that name, but I love the band.

I mean, Hootie and the Blowfish is a shit name because it's confusing for everybody. Everything about that name sucks.

BNB: You can't put a name in your band and not expect people to ask you which member that is.

JP: Especially when you have a guy who's a frontman! There's an obvious frontman, so you go, "That one's Hootie." And then to go, "I always get asked if I'm Hootie." Yes, of course you do!

BNB: As you've gotten older, do you think you're more or less critical of what people call themselves?

JP: Maybe I'm more accepting. Although I do remember hearing on SiriusXM, "Here's so and so," and just going, "What a stupid name!" And then going, "Really, Styx?" The bands that I've known my whole life, I've just accepted them. "Well, yes, that's a bad name." Then when I hear something fresh now, I get mad about it. So maybe I'm talking out of both sides of my mouth, but I guess my point from earlier stands. Every band name kind of sucks, but we're accepting of them.

POST-SCRIPTS

• This year Jimmy debuted Jimmy’s Records & Tapes, a web series that used a specific album to talk about a year in music, beginning with 1975 and going through 1995. The albums serve as a jumping-off point for Jimmy to tell funny stories, and the series is super fun. Jimmy recommends the 1988 episode, and I second that.

• Jimmy also did an episode of Stand Down, the series I created for The A.V. Club a million years ago where comedians talked about their worst gigs ever. His story was one of my favorites. Watch!