Thee Band Janets may have thee answer …

Most of us are familiar with the Old English usage of the word “Thee”. I have been asked if our band name is “Three Bad Janets” and why are there 5 of us as opposed to having only 3 members. Our band name is in fact, Thee Bad Janets, not ‘Three’ or ‘The’.

Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary defines ‘Thee’ as:

• used especially in ecclesiastical or literary language and by Friends especially among themselves in contexts where the objective case form would be expected.

For those folks and fans that are new to the Garage Rock genre, here is a tidbit of history for you to sink your teeth into.

A post by John Brewer in the Language Log Blog, tells the story of Hank Ballard, who was originally in a Doo-wop band called The Royals in the 1950s. After a few members were replaced, the band later changed their name to The Midnighters (circa 1966) to avoid confusion with The Royals and eventually went by the name Hank Ballard and The Midnighters. A few years later, an East Los Angeles Chicano Rock band also wanted to use the name The Midnighters, but to avoid further confusion with Hank Ballard’s project, chose the distinction of “Thee Midniters”. From what pop culture tells us, this is one of the first bands of the era to use the nomenclature of Thee and contributed to a long history of Garage Rock culture.

From there, you will see many bands follow this well-recognized tradition in order to associate with the distinct Garage-rock genre, rooted in the early to mid 1960s. This includes many garage throw-back bands during the 80s, 90s and after 2000s.

Some of those bands (recognizable to most of our Garage Rock enthusiasts) include:

Thee Headcoates/Thee Headcoatees – Thee Oh Sees – Thee Minks – Thee Exciters – Thee Hypnotics – Thee Flying Dutchmen – Thee Lordly Serpents

Check some of these wild bands out to familiarize yourself with Garage Rock; each of which will surely get you on your feet and blow your mind.

In an ironic twist from 2017, Thee Oh Sees recently decided to drop the “Thee” from their band name. John Dwyer, the band’s founding member, has been known to use various acronyms on previous projects before deciding on Thee Oh Sees for 12 albums!

And to name a few local (Phoenix, Arizona) bands, we have Thee Oh Nos and Thee Faded Pyctures. Thee Bad Janets will be playing with ‘these’ other bands at the Yucca Tap Room on February 15, 2020, so stay tuned!