Craft: (In)fame(y) is the game of the name

Toad the Wet Sprocket. TOAD the Wet Sprocket. Toad the WET Sprocket.

Or do you prefer racing to the finish line with a breathless Toadthewetsprocket?

Or even quicker yet, as the band's sprinting publicist usually compressed it during our recent interfaces, TTWS?

These issues of enunciation, pronunciation, and worse, were vexing us to no end us as we prepared to talk Toad with band member Dean Dinning earlier this week.

This was all the better to pave the way for the reunited '90s group's impending Castle Theatre arrival (see the resulting interview on D2).

As the legend goes, the non-sequitur gathering of nouns and adjectives, but no verbs, was lifted wholesale from a Monty Python routine -- the one about the band of the same name whose "flamboyant ambidextrous lead electric triangle player" Rex took an untimely tumble off the backend of a motorcycle.

The mishap forced the amputation of an elbow --but only the elbow.

And this wasn't even Spinal Tap.

It was, however, a sort of "so bad it's good" temp label adopted with good humor until the quartet from Santa Barbara, Calif., could come up with something legit.

Legitimacy never came, thank goodness.

Or so Dinning indicated to us, as he blithely suffered the 10,674,660th inquiry as to the origins of the name on the quartet's birth certificate.

In fact, he says he's certain the name has helped ensure the band's everlasting fame, or, better yet, infamy.

Dinning considers it an honor of the highest order that the popular humor site Cracked.com has helped maintain at least the infamy by routinely ranking TTWS in the upper echelons of its "25 Most Ridiculous Rock Band Names in History."

Currently, they are riding high, bearing the Fifth Most Ridiculous Rock Band Name in History.

The Monty Python source is acknowledged by the adjudicators, but sans mercy: "This, then, is the musical equivalent of the A/V club nerds who recite the 'Knights Who Say Nee' sketch over and over."

They go on:

"Look, just because your band's name is intentionally ridiculous doesn't mean it doesn't count. It's like wearing a Care Bears T-shirt ironically. Yes, you know it's a joke, but at the end of the day, you're a grown man, you're wearing a Care Bears shirt and, we're sorry, you need to be ashamed of yourself."

Dinning thinks the need comes up short.

After all, rising above the Toads on the list, at No. 4, is Thirty Odd Foot of Grunts (no, never heard of 'em, either) ... at No. 3, the inevitable/unavoidable Hootie and the Blow Fish ... at No. 2, Archers of Loaf ...

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