| Indie-eletronica prodigy Dan Snaith has been forced to change his stage name from Manitoba to Caribou following a lawsuit in the U.S. Handsome (Dick) Manitoba, front man for the punk band The Dictators, sued Snaith for trademark infringement, despite never having released music under the names Manitoba or even Handsome (Dick) Manitoba. Snaith, who released Up in Flames (2003) and Start Breaking My Heart (2001) as Manitoba is currently working on his latest project, The Milk of Human Kindness, which will be released as Caribou.
According to Snaith, reasons for the choice stem from hanging with his hippie friends before his Canadian tour this summer when they soaked proverbial bandanas in the brown-acid dunk-tank, strapped themselves to crucifixes on the back of a flatbed truck and talked to large caribou.
Other groups have fallen victim to similar legal headaches. Seminal North Carolina punk outfit Superchunk were first called Chunk (supposedly inspired by a typo in a piece of mail addressed to their drummer) until it was learned that world-famous Knitting Factory musician Sam Bennett had a band of that name.
Indie-rock group Dinosaur Jr. (originally sans Jr.) had to add on to their name in 1986 when a hippie-rock group called Dinosaur – featuring former members of Jefferson Airplane and Country Joe & the Fish – sued the band.
Other illustrious name changes include those of the infamous Prince. In 1993, Prince changed his name to a symbol in an attempt to bow out of his contract with Warner Brothers. Prince went on to call himself The Artist Formerly Known As Prince and later simply The Artist. He’s back to the name Prince, but apparently not before threatening to change it to Britney Spears. After Prince’s much-ballyhooed shenanigans, Canadian musician-activist (and former member of Blue Rodeo) Bob Wiseman planned on recycling the name Prince himself, until he ran into legal problems
U.K. pop star Robbie Williams has, of late, been attempting to have people refer to him as Robert. The obvious question in this situation is, "Who cares?" Sean (Puffy) Combs spent the ’90s making a name for himself as a producer, while performing as Puff Daddy. In 2000, Combs decided on a new name, the inspired P. Diddy. Jennifer Lopez followed suit soon after and invented J. Lo as both her new name and the title for her second album. Jello references aside, she claimed it was always her nickname and attempts to re-establish herself as Jennifer Lopez have failed. |
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