Celine Dion 2013 and Boyz IV Men: Band Names Aping the Real Thing

By Ian S. Port Tue., Dec. 15 2009 at 1:52 PM

It's pretty funny when you're going through the music listings and you run into local acts using names that sound just enough like big pop stars that it makes you do a double take.

Celine Dion 2013 at the Stud

First there was San Francisco's Celine Dion 2013, a group that describes its sound as "15 minutes of your life that you'll never get back." For some of us, the same can be said about the real Celine, whose saccharine trill is much more offensive than San Francisco Celine's experimental throb of white noise and whispered vocals.

More recently, I came across a January Lab show featuring the trio Boyz IV Men (not to be confused with the original Boyz II Men). The fourth version of the group is a disco punk act with an affection for punny song titles. To wit: "The Bomb Dot Com," "Gold Stains," "Ace of Fades," and my favorite name, "Wingz N' Thingz." You can check out all these tunes--which are heavy on the bass and minimal on the instrumentation overall--at Boyz IV Men's MySpace page.

So now that my list is at a whopping two, I'm curious what other local acts out there are slyly piggybacking (and spoofing) the names of the more famous. Tennessee has the metal band The Tony Danza Tapdance Extravaganza, but If you know of other Bay Area groups to add to this list, throw their names in the comments section below.