Toto - Man's best friend

Musical omnivore from Los Angeles, California, with an appetite for all contemporary genres: pop, rock, soul, funk, R&B and jazz – the overall effect is soft rock according to some experts.

In an interview guitarist Steve Lukather once joked that Toto is derived from the real surname of the singer and frontman at that time, Bobby Kimball. It was a corny joke that would dog the band for many years to come.

Completely unfounded of course, because the real dog behind the band is the cute two-year-old female Cairn terrier that plays a role in the film The Wizard of Oz (1939, director Victor Fleming).

Pleasant side-effect of this name: toto is the Latin word for 'everything' – completely matching Toto’s repertoire.

Active: 1977-2008; 2010-present, USA
Site: http://www.toto99.com/blog2010/index.php?/categories/1-Hot-News

Ten Years After - After you, Elvis

Blues rockers from English Nottingham who were very popular mainly in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Ten Years After - Elvis Presley promoting Jailhouse Rock

A considerable amount of time was spent choosing an appropriate name. First the band was called Ivan Jay and the Jaycats, then The Jaybirds and after that Ivan Jay and the Jaymen. Blues Trip and Blues Yard followed before the name finally became Ten Years After, a name coined by drummer Ric Lee, a big Elvis Presley fan.

The new name of the band was put into use in 1966, ten years after (yup!) Elvis The Pelvis had scored his first hit.

Would Lee have adored the Beatles, then the group would have been called Four Years After; if the B52 's would have been his favourites, then we would have had to live with Thirty Years Before – not too bad either.

Active: 1967-1974; 1983; 1988-present, GBR