Almost ready to launch this website and blog thing...

I was having a discussion with a friend about band names, and the fact I used the word 'fake' in my bio on the travino website to describe my musical handle. I thought it was appropriate, as I feel that all band names are phony in some way.

We've all heard some of the goofy band names people have come up with over the years, but it got me thinking, who came up with the first band name?

A quick check through some old vinyl from the 1930-1940s confirms that virtually all the recording artists I could find used the name of the band leader. Your Benny Goodmans, Duke Ellingtons and Count Basies... How did Bill Haley end up playing with a band called The Comets?

Gone were the huge orchestras of the swing era, replaced by smaller groups at the dawn of rock and roll in the 1950s. And yet with fewer band members, along came the band names: The Orioles, The Chordettes, The Five Royales. Why the need for a made up collective name all of a sudden? What changed?