Music

12 band names inspired by Canadian geography

by Mark Teo

For a moment in the 1970s and 1980s, it was fashionable to name your band after places. That’s the era that bred Boston, Asia, Alabama, Chicago, and Europe—even if many of those them are less remembered for their musical accomplishments, more celebrated as trivia-night fodder.

Canada, too, has plenty of bands named after the many, many corners of the nation. Though, quite frankly, we’re surprised that no one’s named a Moist-style Kama Sutra-core band after Dildo, NL. Or a British post-punk band after Swastika, ON. Or a smooth, sensual R&B act after Climax, SK. Or a mega-stoopid pop-punk group after Balls Falls, ON. Or… well, we could go on.

Of course, there are still plenty of real bands named after Canada. Here are our favourites—drop yours in the comments.

Of Montreal

Not counting Neutral Milk Hotel, Of Montreal are arguably the most beloved band borne of the Elephant 6 collective. (Sit down, Apples in Stereo.) The only thing? Like that Collective, Of Montreal isn’t from la belle province—they’re from Georgia. We can hardly blame them for fetishizing Quebec’s biggest city, though. We do, too.

Toronto

Unlike of Montreal, Toronto aren’t trying to obscure where they’re from—they’re actually from the Big Smoke, and if you’re a record collector, you’ll find zillions of copies of their LPs littering the city’s vinyl stores.

Chilliwack

Chilliwack sounds like the type of place that Don Cherry would fetishize: It’s surely stocked with good Canadian boys, a bar where you can still legally smoke indoors, and, uh, more good Canadian boys. The type who win hockey games when it counts, boy. But they were also a rock ‘n’ roll band in the ’70s who earned major hits—”Crazy Talk” included.

Manitoba

Before Dan Snaith became one of the world’s most influential electronic experimenters as Caribou, his musical projects had a different title: Manitoba. In fact, Snaith might’ve actually kept his previous moniker, were he not slapped with a lawsuit not from the province, but from a dude named Handsome Dick Manitoba. (Who was not from Manitoba, but may have been an actual real-life dick.) Fitting, then, that his Polaris-winning album was called Swim—the province of Manitoba, after all, has an estimated 110,000 lakes.

Whitehorse

Whitehorse, is a 26,000-person city, boasting 20 summertime daylight hours and the largest weathervane in the world. It’s also the capital of the Yukon. And, as we found out in an adorable, adorable, and—did we mention adorable?—adorable AUX video feature, they’re also an adorable couple who sometimes doubles as a folk band, made up of Luke Doucet and Melissa McLelland. They also happen to make Polaris Prize-nominated albums.

Yukon Blonde

OK, Yukon Blonde—the Regina indie rock band who recently cut Tiger Talk—are technically named after a type of potato. A delicious one, at that.

Bruce Peninsula

The Bruce Peninsula is a region in Ontario that lays somewhere in between Georgian Bay and Lake Huron. But it’s also the name of  an incredible band, who used a high-powered gothic choir—which, at one point, counted Timber Timbre’s Taylor Kirk, Austra’s Katie Stelmanis, and Ohbijou’s Casey Mecija among its ranks—to create dark, demented folk songs that made the Ontario wilderness sound downright haunted. Their two albums, A Mountain is a Mouth and Open Flames, feel like the Ontario autumn and make us want to eat preserves from mason jars, drink whiskey from mason jars, and, well, get really into mason jars.

Vancougar

We don’t need to tell you what this all-girl band—who come off like a scrappy udpate of ’60s girls groups with a heavy does of power pop—is named for. OK, OK, fine: They’re named after Vancouver. And cougars.

Mohawk Lodge

Damaged Goods, the fourth album by the Mohawk Lodge, saw them emerge as a gruffer, anthemic, punk-informed indie rock band. No surprise, then, that folk-punk philosopher Eamon McGrath chose them as his backing band. Their name, however, doesn’t refer to either the tribe or the chosen hairstyle of ’77 punx; rather, were we betting types, we’d wager that Ryder Havdale’s project is named for a fishing lodge in Sharbot Lake, ON. [UPDATE: We wagered wrong; apparently, it’s named after Havdale’s apartment complex in Vancouver. That could, technically, still count as Canadian geography, right?]

North of America

This legendary mathy Halifax post-hardcore band—who, at their peak, were signed to white-belt screamo institution Level Plane—is one of Atlantic Canada’s most beloved, and influential, bands. They’re also named after whatever’s North of America. They mean Minnesota, right?

Sackville

Way before Sackville, N.B. got cool—can someone please send us to Sappyfest?—there was Sackville the band, who were based in Montreal. Pairing roots with an art-damaged, experimental aesthetic, members would join several Cancon mainstays, including A Silver Mt. Zion, Set Fire To Flames, and The Carnations.

Swan Lake

Swan Lake were an indie rock supergroup, featuring Destroyer’s Dan Bejar, Frog Eyes’ Carey Mercer, and Wolf Parade fave Spencer Krug. Considering all three members hail from B.C., their band name likely doesn’t refer to Swan Lake, Montana, or Swan Lake, Missisippi, or Tchaikovsky’s ballet, Swan Lake—it’s a nod to their home province, which is also the name for a provincial park, a reserve and an actual lake (duh).