Bands that named themselves after books (titles/lines/passages etc)
 

The obvious ones:

The Velvet Underground
The Doors
Joy Division
The Fall

Joy Division?

I don't think that was a book, or even a line or passage from a book.

Wasn't it just the name that the german army gave to brothels in concentration camps?

Soft Machine

The Go-Between(s)

They took the name proper from 'The House Of Dolls' by Yehiel De-Nur. I highly recommend it to you too.

Belle & Sebastian
Steppenwolf
Coldplay

I stand corrected.:)

The Bible - crap band, but it fits in with the thread.

Steely Dan

Not a book but an author: Harry Crewes.

Steely Dan. Named after a dildo in Naked Lunch.

In which the prostitution wing of a concentration camp is named Joy Division.

Duh!

Pere Ubu

What's that from?

Let's have a kiss, then, Porkie.

It's the name of the main protagonist in the excellent:

Another one:

Liaisons Dangereuses

i only know about crap bands:

straylight run
hot water music

come to think of it, fugazi comes from a book ian was reading about vietnam.

my bloody valentine, after the movie...

The Feelies (after the movies from Brave New World)

Also, Stinking Lizaveta (after a character from the Brothers Karamazov)

Moby - named after the book 'Moby Dick' which was written by Moby's great uncle (or so I heard)

Yes, the mentally and somewhat physically handicapped character of Lizaveta in The Brothers Karamazov is referred to as "stinking Lizaveta."

Perhaps of note to some, Dostoyevsky had previously used the character name in Crime and Punishment. Alyona Ivanovna, the old woman pawnbroker, has a mentally challenged sister named Lizaveta that also suffers mortal blows from Raskolnikov during the robbery.

Here's a new one:

Pylon, who take their name from the William Faulkner novel.

Gyrate (DB Records, 1980) .rar link removed
Chomp (DB Records, 1983) .zip link removed
(Chomp is still out-of-print, maybe I will post it later sometime)

Listen to the .mp3 of an interview of Pylon conducted by Atlas Sound (Bradford Cox) of Deerhunter:
http://www.mediafire.com/?fvbr15lpjjd
http://deerhuntertheband.blogspot.co...on-uptown.html

Read all about the fascinating history of Pylon in Vanessa's own words:
http://www.netnik.com/jollybeggars/pylon.html

Listen to the stream of a Pylon overview and interview from 2007 with bassist Michael Lachowksi and drummer Curtis Crowe:
http://www.wellroundedradio.net/epis.../12/pylon.html

1998 interview with Pylon at Perfect Sound Forever:
http://www.furious.com/perfect/pylon.html

Pylon Gyrate Plus was reissued by DAF Records in October 2007.
Read the brainwashed brain review here:
http://brainwashed.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=6532&Ite mid=64
...and the Pitchfork review here:
http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/articl...82-gyrate-plus

additional Pylon resources:
http://pylon.pyrzqxgl.com/

Pylon - Hits (1985 compilation) link removed

always was curious about pylon. our band (twelve years ago) wanted to change our name to pylon but we didnt due us realising we were not good enough to warrant a name change!

the amazing band from ireland ROLLERSKATE SKINNY took their name from a piece in catcher in the rye
She's quite skinny, like me,
but nice skinny, rollerskate skinny."
- Catcher In The Rye, JD Salinger

..... here is their bio page
... and a bit of youtubing.... speed to my side

The Soft Machine (named after the Burroughs novel of the same title.)

"Crazy" from Chomp (1983)

thin white rope - burroughs
steely dan - burroughs
soft boys - burroughs
heaven 17 - clockwork orange
art of noise - an art manifesto (I think)
the birthday party - either the pinter or from dostoevsky Crime and P
house of love - anais nin
primal scream - can't remember the writer
oh, and how about - uriah heep (!) - dickens

Young Marble Giants-some history book

Josef K

(Kafka's The Trial)

i just wrote a song called bitch-godess, i know its a well known term, but i took it from dh lawrence