To think that the name of this band was considered controversial to the extent that it both brought them to prominence and then destroyed them, is an example of how hungry the media are for meaningless sensation and how titillated the public are for lapping it up. Through it all Gay Dad had some excellent songs and a couple of worthy albums before their untimely demise.Unfortunately by being called Gay Dad they struggled to simply be a band as they managed to offend or not be taken seriously –  both aspects probably led to their  break up. The humourless and the uptight had became so troubled or bored by the band’s name (like hearing the same joke over and over again) that the quality of their music ceased to have any bearing- if their name had been the Cannibal Lawyer Killers no one would have cared, this name had an impact on people, and even those that supported them initially were over the joke by the time their second album Transmission was released.

Formed by music  journalist Cliff Jones, it seems that his status as a writer wasn’t quite accepted by some either, when in reality it was about time a journalist showed he was qualified to have an opinion on what other musicians were doing. Anyone can tell you why someone else’s expression sucks whilst succeeding gloriously in smart negative opinion for its own sake but ultimately in music taste your opinion always has an opposite viewpoint, all I know is that when I hear music there isn’t always a pattern as to why I like it – I just do – or don’t. In the case of Black Ghost by Gay Dad I liked it from the minute I heard it and was disappointed to hear that they had split up before they even released their second album over something as insignificant as their hilarious name. Perhaps other bands with silly names might have had a similar fate – if for example Smashing Pumpkins were called Smashing Gay Pumpkins they too might have split up before they had the chance to develop into the interesting band they became. The same might be said for Echo And The Gay Bunnymen – The Killing Moon might never have been written.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gay_Dad