I've only just realised....

Hell, I don't know why they're called 4AD. So what's the reason?

Isn't it because they're on the 4AD record label?

i always assumed it has somethig to do with the supposed actual year of the birth of j. christ! but to answer the question - when i was watching Blackadder 2 again the other day, and it's the episode "Money " with the Bishop of Bath and Wells in it, towards the end when Blackadder blackmails him he says "it's no good destroying the picture, we have the preliminary sketches". and i ONLY JUST REALISED that that's the Renaissance equivalent of "we have the negatives". DOH!

the electric light orchestra EVEN THOUGH THERE IS A PICTURE OF A LIGHT BULB ON THE SLEEVE => i knew the light orc which is electric bit of the pun and never twigged the other bit unti posting to ILM last year? HOW??!! (I have nevah owned this record btw) (BUT STILL!!)

I am assuming the birth of Christ thing too.

May also be why Creation is called Creation (biblical event which took place earlier).

ha! ph34r m3 as i set up... BIG BANG RECORDS!!!

Isn't it because they're on the 4AD record label?

Um...that answer is a bit of a tautology, isn't it?

I thought Christ was vaguely determined to have been born in 6 BC by standard reckoning. And Creation named themselves after the sixties group, but doubtless that lot were thinking of the original thing. ;-)

deptford fun city!! oh wait...

It's obviously satanic.

4AD in hexadecimal is also 1197 in decimal. Add up the digits in 1197, and you get 18... which is 6+6+6

(sorry)

I like the idea of Christ being born before christ. A strikingly obvious thing I realised involved suddenly realising olive oil was made from....olives.

Re: 4AD records
Maybe, maybe not. Here is an explanation from the 4AD mailing list FAQ (http://www.evo.org/4ad-faq/otherQs.html):

Where did the name 4AD come from?
As far as we know, it's a contraction of "Forward": Forward -> 4wArD - > 4AD. Ivo originally named the label Axis but someone else already held the trademark so he had to change it in a hurry. An alternative explaination is given by Tym Rourke: "I've heard a different story on where the name came from. I was told it was a play on words. The label was created to act as a one-off label for Beggar's Banquet, much like Guernica for 4AD (Bauhaus was the only band to follow this route). So bands were originally going to be on the label for only one release...For A Day...4AD...". It seems likely that the former explanation is correct as the new 4AD mail order catalogue (circa December 1998) has the following text in the introduction on page 1:
"1980 FORWARD. 1980 FWD. 1984 AD. 4AD"

I just got the joke of the Adverts drummer's name. Laurie Driver...oh yeah! I suppose if I was British it wouldn't have taken so long. I just thought it was funny that he was this butch looking guy and his name was Laurie.

Why Big Audio Dynamite was called Big Audio Dynamite. Also, I ignored a hoverer was named after Hover for a very long time. I used to wonder why it was not called a dysoner...

It was years before I got the pun in the title of a terrible old Eclipse crime comic called 'Ms. Tree' (abt a female detective, natch.)

And, on a (slightly) less obv. note, I listened to 'Venus' by Television many many times before I realised that the line "I fell right into the arms of Venus de Milo" was a gag...

never ocurred til real recently that 'revolver' by the fabs, meant gun, aswell as something that goes round. funny that about blackadder 2 though kate - i'd never mentioned that either.

"hello...it was lovely...working with you"

that's meant to say 'noticed' that either. (hungover)

driving up the M6 over the weekend and just past Birmingham there's a kind of advertising space complex with huge huge HUUGE billboards overlooking the motorway. i have driven past the "that'll be the Daewoo" advert countless times on my way to and from The North and also seen the advert in many other places... but last weekend i FINALLY realised "ohh! that'll be the DAY!! that'll be the DAEWOO!" that'll be me being slow again...

A slogan whose sole purpose make us pronounce the name right.

'makes us' = 'is to make us', sense fans.

Blimey, mark s, today , June 20, 2002, is the first day I realized that Electric "Light Orchestra" was even a pun!