#16: The story of Ned's Atomic Dustbin

[Loud startled cluck of chicken]

Here’s something new I’ll do periodically: look into the story behind a noteworthy name.

In the short history of Band Name Bureau’s paid-subscriber posts, one name has come up more than any other: Ned’s Atomic Dustbin. I cite the British band famous for its two bass guitars and goofy name a lot because 1) it’s an undeniably ridiculous name, and 2) it’s an example of how names—with the exception of the most ludicrous or offensive—tend to recede into the background with time.

So much hair.

The truth is, I don’t know how much the name registered with me back in the day, and I’ve been a fan for so long that I definitely don’t think about its inherent silliness much. Nearly 30 goddamn years have passed since I saw the video for “Happy”—from God Fodder, the band’s debut full-length—on 120 Minutes in 1991. I was immediately on board, and not because it’s a great video. It’s a run-of-the-mill montage of home videos from the road and live performances, but it hit me hard in what I would come to know as my sweet spot: melodic, punkish rock.

As a moniker, Ned’s Atomic Dustbin follows the long, undistinguished tradition of bands needing to come up with a name quickly, settling on something, then being stuck with it forever. They explained in this 1995 interview:

You have been around since 1987, right? Did you have any other names for the band before you chose Ned’s Atomic Dustbin?

Ned’s: Well, we were going to do a gig at this small pub. It was like our first gig, and we did not have a name. We were doing it just for laughs, and we were just having fun. So we needed a name like within a week and just basically pulled it out of a hat. “Yeah, all right.” At that time we didn’t think we would use it more than once.

How did it get into the hat in the first place? Prepare for the most British of answers. “Ned’s Atomic Dustbin” was an episode of The Goon Show, a comedy radio program that aired in the UK in the 1950s and is perhaps best known for starring Peter Sellers. The story goes that the mother of Ned’s vocalist Jonn Penney owned a book of Goon Show scripts, and supposedly she would read him the script for the episode “Ned’s Atomic Dustbin.” Here’s an excerpt.

Henry Crun: What is the word, sir?
Greenslade: Well its er um... um... Yes yes yes, ‘Holly’!
Henry Crun: What’s wrong with it sir?
Greenslade: Well it is believed to have an undertone of eroticism.
Henry Crun: Oh Dear...
Minnie Bannister: Ohhh!
Henry Crun: Could you write this, mnk, word down?
Minnie Bannister: Blindfold yourself Henry, don’t look!
Greenslade: Yeees I could.
FX: [Writing]
Grams: [Loud startled cluck of chicken]

It probably sounds better if you listen to it.

A 1993 interview with Ned’s guitarist Rat that appeared on the Knight-Ridder wire notes that another Goon Show episode was in contention for their name too: “The Spy: Or, Who is the Pink Oboe.” I find this a bit dubious. (Only a bit? I really have descended into the band-name rabbit hole.) This is just a guess, but I suspect Rat was putting one over on the interviewer. Having read a fair amount of Ned’s press, I’ve learned that Rat is laconic in interviews at best. If I had to guess, I’d say he was thrown the interviews Penney didn’t want to do—not that it looks as if Rat wanted to do any of them. In the photo above, he’s the pouty one hiding behind the crimped hair. To be fair, that wire story isn’t good, and the interviewer didn’t seem terribly familiar with Ned’s. In those situations, I empathize with the band. How do you respond when someone, say, asks you to describe your sound?

“Uh, mmm, uh, I’m not sure if I can answer that,” said a befuddled Rat.

You know why? Because it’s a bad question.

Rat had a better answer for Spin in 1993. The interview is backhanded from the start, beginning with the headline, “ATOMIC ENERGY: Ned’s Atomic Dustbin may seem pretty mindless, but that could be the reason you like ’em so much.” The story notes it’d be easy to dismiss the band “as a bunch of English fraggle-rockers with some loud, catchy tunes but not a clue or care in the world,” and calls them “the missing link between the Chipmunks (sans the squeaky voices) and the Ramones.” I think it’s supposed to be positive?

No wonder Ned’s has trouble being taken seriously. It doesn’t help that its moniker has raised comparisons to British parody rockers Dumpy’s Rusty Nuts, or that, when asked whether they would’ve thought twice before using the name had they known how much confusion it would cause, Rat replies in a very Spinal Tap-ish manner, “No, if our name were any shorter, it wouldn’t fit in the logo properly.”

Good for you, Rat. Don’t take that shit. The article also describes Ned’s “as animated as a Saturday morning cartoon, twice as predictable, and three times as wired.” Thanks…?

But that’s the curse of the weird name: dumb questions and comments for the rest of your life. Even now, more than three decades since the band formed, they still get asked about it, like in this 2015 interview with Penney.

It’s ridiculous, and I thought, “Yeah, we’ll run with that because no one else is going to have thought of it.” So that’s what we did. And again, it’s been a kind of a blessing and a curse. A blessing because every time someone asked me what we were called, we’d say, “Ned’s Atomic Dustbin,” and they’d say, “What?!” So we’d say it again, and then they’d remember, and they’d remember how silly it was. An album and a half into our career, people were wondering whether we were a serious band or a joke band. We were never really up ourselves and desperate to be taken massively seriously, but I do think some people probably took us a little less seriously than we maybe deserved.

I can only speculate how their fortunes would have changed with a more traditional name, but I doubt it would’ve made much of a difference. Bands have sold way more albums with weirder/worse names. God Fodder’s release in April 1991 arrived right before the rise of grunge, and Ned’s weren’t edgy enough for the grunge era, or enough of a novelty to achieve the left-field success briefly enjoyed by some of the decade’s quirkier acts. They didn’t fit in anywhere, and at Band Name Bureau, that’s a badge of honor.

POST-SCRIPTS

• I saw Ned’s at my first club show ever: They opened for Jesus Jones at the Unicorn in Houston Aug. 29, 1991. My ears rang for three days afterward, and I’ve worn earplugs at shows since.

• Jonn Penney and Rat still rock that hair in their 50s.

  

• You know what probably didn’t help Ned’s? Their impenetrable accents. I eagerly picked up the Nothing is Cool VHS they released after God Fodder, and I needed subtitles. I still don’t know what the hell they were saying.

• God Fodder got all of the attention, but Ned’s sophomore album, Are You Normal?, is significantly better and more cohesive. The bass guitars aren’t just playing octaves of each other, the songwriting is more assured and nuanced, and the songs are great. Highly recommended. “Spring” is probably my favorite track. Ned’s lost me when they drifted into electronica for 1995’s Brainbloodvolume, but I should give it another shot. They broke up shortly after that album.

• A few original members started playing again in 2000, but the whole original lineup reformed to play the occasional show in 2008. In fact, they were scheduled to play their hometown next week for the first time in 30 years, but you can guess what happened to that plan.

• I used to scheme with my good friend, fellow Ned’s enthusiast, and former A.V. Club editor Josh Modell how we could get the band to visit the States again. We even thought about trying to book them for A.V. Fest, the A.V. Club’s music festival, but our friend who worked at a booking agency had already looked into it. Turns out one member is intensely afraid of flying, so coming to the States again isn’t going to happen. Still, I remain hopeful.

• The writer of that dismissive Spin interview? Jon Wiederhorn. He’s a veteran music journo perhaps best known for Louder Than Hell, the metal oral history he wrote with Katherine Turman. I don’t mean to give him shit about that interview. God only knows what terribleness lurks in my old clips.

• Hey, thanks for the BNB shoutout from my old AVC colleague Mike Vago in his latest Wiki Wormhole. That’s always a fun read.

• BNB #9 will arrive around 12/1. Happy Thanksgiving.