More historical than genealogical blogs this week by the sheer nature of the letters so far. And today – sadly – won’t change the distribution one iota.
Putting ‘echo‘ into Google (other search engines are available), gives hits including numerous newspapers and a plethora of sound reflection, acoustics and other scientific and music references. However, I was intrigued by some mythological and rock related mentions.
According to Greek mythology Echo was a nymph who had the job of talking incessantly to the Queen of the Gods, Hera, so that her husband, Zeus, would not get caught in his numerous affairs. Hera caught on to Echo’s trick and cursed her to only be able to say what others had just said — hence the word ‘echo’.
Echo and the Bunnymen – an English rock band formed in Liverpool in 1978 – consisted initially of vocalist Ian McCulloch, guitarist Will Sergeant and bass player Les Pattinson, supplemented by a drum machine before Pete de Freitas joined as the band’s drummer in 1980.
Interested to find out the origin of the name of the band, I discovered that, in the 1982 book Liverpool Explodes!, Will Sergeant explained this:
‘We had this mate who kept suggesting all these names like The Daz Men or Glisserol and the Fan Extractors. Echo and the Bunnymen was one of them. I thought it was just as stupid as the rest.’
More eccentric musical creations include the group who recorded Echo Beach – Martha and the Muffins! Echo Beach was the band’s only significant international hit, although they had several other hits in Canada. Nowt as odd as pop group’s names eh?
