Reds Or The Reds? A Brief Discussion On Bands Sharing The Same Name

Something pretty interesting happened the other day while I was at work. I was listening to two records by the garage punk band The Reds when I discovered another record titled Is: Mean by Reds in the drawer. Seeing how the artwork and record label were different from the previous two records from the Reds – who by the way, consisted of two members who went onto form garage pop-punk favorites the Marked Men – I was a little bit confused. I quickly went into investigation mode and discovered that they were definitely not the same band. Usually when something like this happens, the only rational thing to do – in my mind atleast – is throw the cd in utter disgust because of either band’s deceptive trickery. But after one song, I was still listening. After two, after three. The other Reds was actually really, really good. Reds, sans the THE and Brooklyn-based, have much more a Drive Like Jehu sound and could be compared to a band like Dear Tonight.

I walked away from the experience confused but pleasantly surprised from my discovery. Has this ever happened to you and with what bands? I have never really ended a post on LNWF with an open question but here it goes. As Linda Richman use to say on Coffee Talk, “discuss.”