Rule Two—Lessons Of Rock Success: Establish The Name*

We got this band together, the Banana Convention. • Greg, The Brady Bunch

My sporadic, mostly out-of-townish obsession with band names is long-standing. I was once an Academia Nut and with my partner nut, Mike Jager, I keynoted and presented at conferences and wrote curriculum. The Decades Project was one of our curricular creations. We explored history decade by decade, looking for information bypassed by textbooks. In an exercise from The Sixties: A New Twist (This Will Intrigue Students & Teachers), we asked students to create their own name, logo, and look–all sixties’ inspired–for an aspiring rock group, mimicking names like Ball Point Banana and Frosted Suede.

There were plenty of examples since the sixties gave birth to an explosion of imaginative band names that linked unexpected words and phrases: Chocolate Watchband. Electric Prunes. The Peanut Butter Conspiracy. Daisy Overkill. Ultimate Spinach. Strawberry Alarm Clock. Other names I love from this period include:

The Charging Tyrannosaurus of Despair
Frumious Bandersnatch (a reference to Lewis Carroll’s poem, “Jabberwocky”)
The Only Alternative and His Other Possibilities
Transantlantic Chicken Wicken No. 5
Hmmm

Hmmm indeed.

Beyond the sixties, I love A Cat Born in an Oven Is Not a Cake, Frogs Don’t Cry, Jabbering Trout, Two Cow Garage, and The New Squids on the Dock. And then there’s The Baby Won’t Eat His Corn Dog and People with Chairs Up Their Noses.

This is just a warning. Chicago, Portland, and Washington, D.C., band name stuff is on its way.

You know what I’m going to ask. Just do it! Name your band. And don’t think just because you’ve done this before that you can stop. Before the Beatles became the Beatles, they were the Beat Makers, Johnny and the Moondogs, the Nurk Twins (John and Paul only), the Quarrymen, the Rainbows, Ricky and the Red Streaks, and the Silver Beatles.

In my fantasy, I have a band named Fix Your Own Damned Supper and my first song is called “Unless Your Arms Are Broken, You’ll Have to Wash Your Own Dirty Clothes.” Mothers everywhere will download it. • Comment regarding women’s work at my exhibit, “You & Your Big Mouth: Insight and Irreverence from Irrepressible Women.”

* Thanks to Malcolm McLaren, performer and former manager of the Sex Pistols and the New York Dolls, for the title quotation.

Playing Games With Band Names: “Rendered Useless” As I Explore The “Staggering Depths” Of “Unfallen Heroes” And “The Deep Sea Vents” “Beyond the Red Horizon” With “The Control Freaks.” Stop Me Now.

For Friday, June 11, 2010, still on the road and still having problems connecting, although fortunately, not with my brain.

I like nonsense. It wakes up the brain cells. • Dr. Seuss

More band names from Portland, Oregon, entertainment mags to entertain you, along with suggested braindancing activities:

School-related band names: Math the Band (What math-themed songs might they play? Invent the names; write the lyrics.) Doubleplusgood (What other literary allusions would make good band names?) Guidance Counselor (Cliques or other school groups and employees?)

Early morning foodish names: Create your own, inspired by Pancake Breakfast, Brkfst Sndwch, and Breakfast Mountain. Mine are: French Toast, Western Omelet, Overeasy, Huevos Rancheros, TV Dinner, The Spamtones, and The Velveta Underground (definitely a tribute band with recipe-themed tunes). My husband suggests Pigs in a Blanket.

Directives: Create a band name that orders people around like Stick to Your Guns, Bring Me Solace, Explode Into Colors, Raise the Bridges, Cage the Elephant, and Close Your Eyes.

Wordplay: Thuggage and Bearracuda. Create a band name that’s a play on words.

Story creation: Insominac Folklore—choose a band name and write a story to go with it:

A Place to Bury Strangers

The Grave Babies

The Tallest Man on Earth

Old Death Whisper

Indelible Terror

Alien Parachute Man

Crypt of the Grave

Bloody Panda

Kill the Kids

Whispering Tongues

The Closet Monsters

Facing Extinction

Vampire Weekend

I Am the Monster

The Ghost Inside

Game creation: Jar of Lies. What would the rules for this game be?

And one of my all-time favorites: Dragging an Ox through Water. Plus still more mundane names to inspire you: Window Pane, My Morning Jacket, The Sale, and Stimulus Package. Just look around the room you’re sitting in. I see The Mirrors, Ice Bucket, File Folders, Scotch Tape, and Sofa Cushions.

Invent a game to go with the name of a musical group you like. Rolling Stones would probably be an outside game; write its rules.

Still more possibilities from The Simpsons: Steamed Hams, My Cat’s Name Is Mittens, Nerdy Likes His Booky Wook, Fatty Fat Fat Fat, and It Didn’t Die.

You Knew It Was Coming And Here It Is, A Traveling Band Names’ Posting. This Does Not Mean That The Bands Are Traveling, Although They Might Be. But I Am And The Collecting Continues.

Some possible band names suggested by quotations from The Simpsons, from the site sidheinteracvite.com: You’ll Have to Speak Up, I’m Wearing a Towel; I Beat the Smart Kids; Tastes Like Burning; You Don’t Make Friends with Salad; and My Cat’s Breath Smells Like Cat Food.

I am disappointed and frustrated by my fruitless search for band names from the Midwest and the East coast. There was nothing useful in Minneapolis-St. Paul or Chicago and I’ve found nothing in Washington, D.C., although I’m still hopeful and still hunting. Of course, I could go online and find out the names of bands who are active in these areas, but that’s not the way this works. I want to hunt through pages looking for good ones. Otherwise it’s a chore and not a game. I don’t need more work in my life.

Fortunately for me—unfortunately for you—I found a bonanza in Portland, Oregon, before we left the train station there, and I’ve finally had a chance to go through the entertainment magazines and record some favorites. Today, I’m just going to share a few, but more band name games are coming at you soon. I know you can’t wait. These are from the Portland [Oregon] Mercury for May 27, 2010, and Portland’s Willamette Week for May 26, 2010.

Myselfdestruct

Ghost Town Waltz

Million Brazillions

Throwback Suburbia

Yogoman Burning Band

Betrayed by Weakness

Tiny Knives

The Hand that Bleeds

Dead Winter Carpenters

Deformity and Gorbachev

Hairspray Blues

Dangermuffin

Puke ‘n’ Rally

The Beaker Heads

Drive-By Truckers

Several of my favorites also fall into the category of mundane names, making the common ironically amusing: The Student Loan, Hurt Bird, Shopping Cart, First Aid Kit, Cheap Eats, and Night Gown (although I believe that nightgown is the correct spelling for sleeping apparel so this may refer to some sparkly and spangled fancy dress worn by a lady singer).

What mundane name would you give your band?

And more from The Simpsons: Commander Cuckoo-Bananas, To The Beemobile, Flaming Moes, Purple Is A Fruit, and Just My Bones…And Organs.

Perhaps You Have Noticed That I Am Fond Of Excessively Lengthy Titles And Thus It Will Come As No Surprise That Today I Celebrate Some Bands With Sesquipedalian* Names

Empty heads are very fond of long titles.
• German proverb (Yes, yes, I know that this proverb likely refers to the kinds of titles bestowed on people like The Grand Poobah of Illuminated Graciousness and Seriousness of Purpose Related to Quantifying Brilliance, but I still like it.)

Some band names are brief. Get on with the music, they say; quit fooling around trying to decide what to name the band. Play. There were plenty of them in my recent collection, names like Bodybox, Greenhorse, Sledgeback, Widower, Thousands, Trainwreck, and Neutralboy.

There were also many delightful and sometimes random two-word combinations (perhaps those naming the band put words into a bag and drew them out until a particular combination was found amusing, although some things, like frog eyes and tea cozies, are examples of real life stuff that’s just inherently funny): Tuxedo Man, Smile Brigade, Tea Cozies, Killer Canary, Distant Relatives, Frog Eyes, Wooden Bison, Clarissa’s Weird (Isn’t everyone?), Nervous Energy, and Quiet Life.

But wait, there’re more: Campfire OK, Reflection Eternal, Eclectic Approach, Con Dad (What’s the story here?), Diego’s Umbrella, Hey Marseilles (Is this an indication that the band would like to greet the citizens of the largest port city in France or are they simply taking delight in the rhyme?), Strong Killings, Mother’s Anger, Tough Tittie, Planet Booty, Unmanned Drone, Afternoon American, and The Basements (Let’s name the band after our practice space?!), as well as ((Low Hums)) (((which I’m not sure how to pronounce, but maybe I just don’t get the purpose of the (()) ))).

Then there are the names that truly delighted me this time, the ones that really are more: more words, more syllables, more letters. I imagine these groups being introduced and it brings a smile to my face:

Super Happy Story Time Land
We Wrote the Book on Connections
Girls Just Wanna Have Prom
The Scarlet Tree All Stars
My Life with the Thrill Kill Cut
The Pioneers of Prime Time TV

Activate your brain. Give it a shot. It’s today’s braindance: neurobics for your gray matter.

Create your own band names using one word, two words, and at least five words. Imagine that you’re being queried by Rolling Stone and the interviewer wants to know why you chose those particular names. What will you say?

I’m naming my band Things They Say When They Really Want To Say Something Else. It’s an homage to my parents. Sometimes I wish they’d just yell at me instead of always being so reasonable.
• Student response, 1997

* Sesquipedalian describes long words, having many syllables, but can also refer to sentences that are long and ponderous, or, in this case, I’m using it to describe band names comprised of many words.

There Are Certain Inevitabilities In The World: Death and Taxes, Sunrise and Sunset, Orange Plaid Culottes and Lime Green Knee Sox, and Trip Out Of Town and Band Names

I love a foam nose. I swear I do.
• Kelly Ripa on an April 19, 2010, television promo for Live with Regis and Kelly

Kelly Ripa loves foam noses and I love band names, and while I have my own private stash of round red nose-enhancing baubles, I have to say that band names blow noses out of the water. (OMG, that sentence was really fun to write! That probably means that I should delete it immediately since you know what THEY say about anything that you are amused by in your own writing. It probably isn’t as good as you think and you are well advised to delete it. No way. Suck it, THEY; this one is staying! OMG, I used suck it and a semi-colon in the same sentence. I truly have reached some nirvana of posting. I’d better write that bucket list I’ve been meaning to get around to so I can check this one off.)

But back to business. Band names. I was in Seattle and picked up the Seattle Weekly for May 19-25, 2010. I’m sure there were some good articles in it. I probably could have learned a lot from reading them. But I didn’t. Instead I made a long list of band names and they’ll be coming at you as I think of clever and no-so-clever ways to use them.

Today, I shall use them as examples of non sequiturs and thus double my pleasure by interweaving a bit of a lecture on vocabulary with an opportunity to wallow in band name delights. What about your pleasure, you say? This is all about me. You’re just along for the ride.

Loosely defined, a non sequitur is the pairing of things that do not relate, coming from non (not) and sequi (to follow). A non sequitur is kindasorta the opposite of a cliché—pairing the completely unexpected and nonsensical instead of the predictable. It can also refer to serious—and seriously flawed—arguments, but we’re on the non sequiturious band name trail, one that was well-traveled by those pioneers of the sixties who left behind a garden of delights: think Ballpoint Banana, for example.

You can find many of these by Googling®. I’d repeat some of them here, but irreverence and scatology (look it up) abound and I’ve already said “suck it” twice (oops, three times) here, so I’d best behave myself.

Gazebos of Destruction is a non sequitur. So is Blue Light Curtain (Is this where the K-Mart special illumination hides when not in use?). I like The Holy Tailfeathers and Civilized Animals too, and The Exploding High Fives creates an appealing mind picture.

More names from Seattle tomorrow.

Baffle and confuse fellow travelers on the road of life today. I am certain that as you write your own non sequiturs and try them out on your friends, three dogs will eat daffodils in the dusty lane alongside the old lady’s house.

My band would be named The Careless Curtains of Calico, a name I chose for its nonsensicality paired with its appealing alliteration.
• Response to the big-ole-whatcha-gonna-name-your-band query, 2005

More Band Names Found Without Even Leaving the Valley I Live In! My Excitement Knows No Bounds As I Peruse a Long Lost Newspaper and Find Tainted Love, Broken Social Scene, and Wasted Days.

I have fallen in love with American names, the sharp, gaunt names that never get fat.
• Stephen Vincent Benet

I am easily amused. I have said so before and I do not lie. At least not about this. Please do not ask me if I like your new purple paisley ascot or if that dress with a gigantic ruffle around your midsection makes your you-know-what look big. No. And yes. That is the truth and that is what I will be thinking, but it is not necessarily what I will say. I am likely to admire your choices. Who am I to rain on someone else’s paisley or ruffly parade?

I am truly delighted to find the pink newspaper—the Datebook Pink Section of the San Francisco Chronicle from March 7, 2004—that I’ve saved as part of my band name Collectory project. Many such savings have been lost to household moves and origami projects. (If you’re practicing origami folds, I highly recommend newspaper—it’s big and it’s cheap and it folds easily. A double sheet makes hats that fit children AND adults!) Of course, I can search the internet and find band names, but that’s too easy, although coming across names like Me First and the Gimmeegimmees does make these searches tempting.

I am intrigued by what I find. How did Curse of the Birthmark get its name? Soft Pink Truth is appealing and Rubberside Down’s amusing. Tristan Prettyman sounds like someone who’d date Barbie. As a robot collector, I find The Secret Machine, Head Automatica, and Ima Robot particularly entrancing.

Various artists have their sidekicks in The Pink and I write down a few: The Fly-Rite Boys, The Saddle-Ites, The Bad-Ass Chicken Bones, The Pimp Jones Luv Orchestra, The Voom. And I wonder, what would I be? Nancy and the Drews? Pearl and the Onions? Lolly and the Pops? Zinn and the FanDells?

This is hard. I can’t settle on anything I love and I wonder if that’s what happens to most bands: deciding on names by default when they get tired of trying to think up the ultimate cleverness.

What would your playalong, singalong posse be named?

Frantic Yogurt.
• Band name on a poster in the movie Kick-Ass (2010).

Six Words a Teacher Dreads Hearing: “I Bet You Don’t Remember Me.”

If you want to win friends make it a point to remember them. If you remember my name, you pay me a subtle compliment: you indicate that I have made an impression on you. Remember my name and you add to my feeling of importance.
• Dale Carnegie

I do try. I’m a teacher. I know names are important. I’ve read plenty of advice about ways to remember names and I can associate Barbara Greene with a tall tree (Barb is a tall gal) that has leaves with pointy edges (barbs!). Trouble is, I’m just as likely to call her Felicia Fir or Martha Maple, since the rationale for such memory devices escapes me pretty quickly, seldom lasting long enough to actually try them out in real life. I may still see the tree when I look into Barbara’s eyes, but I won’t remember why.

If you want to win friends, here’s my advice, and it runs contrary to Mr. Carnegie’s comments: Don’t make people play guessing games when you run into them in the supermarket or find yourself behind them in the long line waiting to ride Pirates of the Caribbean at Disneyland. Introduce yourself. Don’t say, “You probably don’t remember me.” Don’t ask if you are remembered. Don’t do anything that will make the other person feel vaguely guilty or off balance when s/he can’t immediately recall who you are or where s/he knows you from. And for goodness sake, don’t be hurt or feel diminished or take it personally if your name doesn’t immediately jump off someone else’s tongue.

Say, “Hi. I’m Joey Albers-McMinnville and I was in your ninth grade English class eighteen years ago at Herman Melville High (Go, Whalers!!).” Let the conversation move along from there. You might even go on to provide context: “I was the one who accidentally destroyed the class set of Fahrenheit 451 with my book-burning demonstration.” Or perhaps not.

People change. When I see a former student at Wal-Mart or Target or Costco and s/he is fifteen years older than the last time we were together and now has children as old as s/he was then, I’m clueless. When I encounter students from five years ago, I almost always remember their faces, but often not their names, and sometimes, not even the context (which course they were in) of our relationship.

Be kind. Take people off the hook. Don’t feel bad if someone can’t immediately recall who you are. Even smart people can’t remember everything. Enrico Fermi, the Italian physicist known for his contributions to nuclear physics and the development of quantum theory, once said, “If I could remember the names of all these particles, I’d be a botanist.”

Some people remember names easily. Others do not. And even teachers who are good at learning and remembering names in the moment may forget them as years pass.

There are three things I always forget: names, faces. . .and the third I can’t remember.
• Italo Svevo

What do you have trouble remembering? What strategies do you use to aid your memory?

If I could remember your name, I’d ask you where I left my keys.
• Bumper sticker wisdom

More Band Names, and While I’m on the Subject of Names, Why Name Your Bank After a Weight Loss Aid that May Cause Uncontrolled Expulsion of Unmentionable Nether Stuff?

Ally® the bank and Alli® (no more ® for them in this post) the weight loss product are homonyms. Alli weight loss product appeared first, at least in any advertising I’ve heard, and now, every time I hear Ally the bank’s ad, all I can think of are the unfortunate aftereffects of eating fatty foods while you are taking Alli. Good times.

Names matter and I question the wisdom of naming a bank Ally. I’m aware that the name might have been chosen to indicate that the bank is on the side of its customers. I’m pretty sure that they didn’t actually name it after the other product. Still, one does wonder, thus I Google® the question, “Why did Ally Bank choose its name?” figuring I might find out. And I did find out that it was previously GMAC Bank, associated with a parent company, GMAC Financial, that used to be associated with General Motors, and that the name change is an attempt to distance itself from association with distressed auto and financial companies.

Okay. I get that. But why Ally? Did they order business cards and letterhead without talking about their choice? Were they hoping to inspire confidence with this word that brings to mind war and the defection of allies as the conflict persists? Ally. I’m no more confident about a bank that names itself after a word that can be a either verb or noun than I am about a financial institution that’s named The Bank of Jim. There’s lots more that you can read about if you do your own Googling®, and I make no judgment at all about the reliability of this bank or any other no matter what its name (or any weight loss product, either). I’m just a wordish person interested in wordish choices. I also remind you to beware of unfortunate acronyms–you can find lots of them online, including a collection at a blog called “Acronyms Sometimes Suck,” a name that is a deliberately unfortunate choice.

And thus, I also remain fascinated by band names. Here are a few more from March 12-18, 2010’s LA Weekly. My very favorite thing in this issue is an event that is not likely to come to the small town where I live, The Evisceration Plague Tour with Cannibal Corpse, Skeletonwitch and Lecherous Nocturne. There are other bands listed elsewhere in the Weekly that should consider applying to join this creepy throng. I offer their names here:

Primal Fear. Infernal Damnation. Surfer Blood.
Made in Chernobyl and The Devil Makes Three.
Smile Empty Soul.
The Black Widows. Auto Da Fe. Internal Corrosion.
Kill the Playground. Sick Life. Bury Your Dead.
Cactus Chainsaw and Saturn Grenade.
And, of course, The Dred Crew of Oddwood should join in.

There are more, so many more, on the eight-plus pages of notebook paper I filled on the long drive from LA north to Oregon. I’ll inflict them on you in the days to come.

If you were thinking of joining the Evisceration Plague Tour, what would you name your band? I might be Donnerbones or Lizzie B and the Axes. Or maybe I’d just be Alli. Oh, the horror!

These, Tom, are the Causeheads. They find a world-threatenning issue and stick with it for about a week.
• P.C.U. (1994)

I Went to California and All I Brought Back Was Some Absolutely Awesomely Amazing Band Names Like Thousand Dozen Gloves and The Crooning Crabcakes, Five Carved Wooden Masks, Umpteen Books, and Some Other Extremely Odd Stuff

Oooh! “Baby in a Straightjacket!” That’s a good band name.
• Rashida Jones, Parks and Recreation, 2010

Some things are inevitable; I simply cannot resist hunting for nifty band names. Of course, I could do this by Googling®, but that’s not nearly as entertaining and doesn’t allow me to collect names over time. I have several decades worth of intriguing appellations. Many thanks to LA Weekly, March 12-18, 2010, for this round.

One category I especially like is names that possibly provide a hint of somebody in the band’s life outside of music: Butcher’s Apprentice, The Shoe Salesmen, Staplers Can Kill, and The Health Club. Here’s some real ad copy celebrating Brute Force’s former occupation: “It’s Brute Force! Kick Ass Heavy Metal Band, featuring Slammer, Jammer, and Will Wallner. These guys are ex-pro wrestlers! Now they play heavy metal music and are out for Blood!” Whoopee!

Some bands may just want to sound bad (not literally, of course, or at least bad in a good way): You Say Party We Say Die takes the lead, followed by Yearlong Disaster, The Pretty Reckless, Crime Wave, Kill the Academy, Three Bad Jacks, Murder By Death, Harmful If Swallowed, Cold Blue Rebels, Broken Decency, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Masked Villain, Vengeance for the Fallen, Too Rude, and Rock & Roll Suicides.

Others take a softer and gentler approach: Family of the Year, The Pain of Being Pure at Heart, Softsilence, Greenland Whalefishers, Whisper Into the Roar, Sleepy Sun, Learning Music, Sunset and Silence, Residual Echoes, Name of Stars, and Choir of Young Believers.

And then there are the messages, some comprehensible and some not so clear: Think About Life, Swallow the Sun, Activate the Intuition, Pet the Music, Protect the Dry Fishes, and Wait Until Never.

If your band’s name were a message, what would it say?*

Names are an important key to what a society values. Anthropologists recognize naming as one of the chief methods for imposing order on perception.
• David S. Slawson

* Reminder: Band name exercises are braindances, possible ways to break the ice with a study group. This is a loose connection to student success, I know, but I’m happy anyway.

“Ladies and Gentlemen: Them Crooked Vultures.” Ashton Kutcher Introduces a Band on Saturday Night Live and Since I Am Unfamiliar with This Kind of Cool, I Will Instead Discuss More Band Names I Love

I’m not too fond of the band, but I always thought Gatsby’s American Dream was an awesome name. :3 I loved that book.
• lokita

I’ve been watching Saturday Night Live since its inception. I remember the first night I saw it, coming across the show accidentally while channel surfing without a remote—much more challenging then, twisting that knob back and forth. Bands come and go and once in a while they play on SNL. I like what I like, so I won’t comment on the TCV, particularly not given the small sampling I heard.

But enough of the SNL commentary. I still have pile o’ band names I haven’t used from last month’s visit to Portland. So I shall amuse myself, and perhaps you as well, with more band names I love from the pages of Willamette Week:

I envision a battle of the bands. Good versus evil played out on the stage with guitars and drums and keyboards. God Forbid would be the judge. On one side, the Starry Saints, Faithless Saints, Hard Money Saints, Defending the Caveman, and The Decency. On the other, Wild Beasts, Pagan Jug Band, Hell’s Belles, Doom Patrol, and Sin on Heals.

The loser is doomed to Tragic Ends from the Five Finger Death Punch and banished to the Deep Dark Woods to live for Ages and Ages, Stuck Runnin’ and Blinded in Chains in A Blinding Silence after being Painted Grey. The winner? That band basks in Dark Tranquility, enjoying 48 Thrills along with some Sonic Jelly & Jam and Happy Prescriptions under a Cloud of Suns as they Think About Life and go Bargain Hunting for a Punk Bunny with Blue Horns after a bit of kindness from The Hugs.

Or perhaps there will just be a small battle between I Can Lick Any SOB in the House and Bill Skins Fifth Will Punch You Right in the Face.

Life is grand in a world full of band names.

Www.buzzfeed.com suggests that you find the name of your band by going to Wikipedia®, hitting random, and taking your name from the first article you get. I give it a try and would thus be Carneddau, naming my band for a group of mountains in Snowdonia, Wales.

With a bit of creative punctuation, spacing, and capitalization, I get Carne d’ Dau. I look up dau and discover that among other things www.onlinedictionary.com notes that DAU is an acronym for the “stupidest imaginable user” in German (D’ummster Anzunehmender)—or a person who might cause something like a nuclear meltdown. So there it is, my band name: Carne d’ Dau or Meat of an Idiot. Perfecto. How delightful what a little time wastery can accomplish.

Find a band name in your favorite magazine. Open the pages at random. Shut your eyes and point at a word. Choose four or five this way and see what you can do with them. I got Drowsy Bedtime Monster Engage World. Or Drowsy Monster. Or Monster Engage World. Or World Bedtime. Or. . . . .

Naugahyde Windpipe and Oedipus and the Mama’s Boys.
• Band names suggested in the movie PCU (1994)