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I was talking to someone at a party on Saturday night. She was telling me about her new band and at one point she remarked that choosing a name was "the most difficult part" of the whole process of starting a band.
To be honest, she's probably right. My current band hasn't got a name yet (indeed the subject hasn't even been broached yet), which is somewhat annoying as it tends to be the first question people ask you.
There are a huge number of difficulties inherent in choosing a band name (the rise of myspace making thinking up an original one being one of them, but I won't discuss that at great length here). For me, I have to try and repress the part of my brain that thinks it hilarious to make obviously stupid suggestions, as it's not terribly helpful to volunteer names such as "Honksack" or "Dr. Fudgington's Frabtabulous, Funkatonius Band-o-rama" (both true, I'm deeply ashamed to say).
The other major worry I have is that I'll suggest something flippantly and it'll be adopted as a temporary name but will end up sticking due to familiarity or an inability to come up with something better, despite the fact that everyone hates it. Case in point: The Quatermass Experiment. Yes, dear reader(s) it was I who came up with the idea of naming ourselves after the cult 1955 film (I know there was an earlier TV series, but I wasn't aware of it at the time). The name was adopted grudgingly and we so carried on under that moniker, even though our guitarist in particular wasn't very keen on it.
Not that we didn't try to find a better name, oh my no. The closest we got to something viable and not shit was "Operation Ernst", which I think was never adopted because we were too used to Quatermass. And we broke up. In our early days we briefly tried out "Hell Hath No Fury Like A Nerd Scorned" and "Real Melvin" before reverting back to The Quatermass Experiment. Just so you know, it physically hurt me to type that. It also really annoyed the guy who was running our website at the time. The Quatermass story, as far we're concerned here, ends with our very last gig when we played, one member down, under the name "Handsome Hobo And The Pits". Which is ok, as a name for a joke band, which we had effectively become by then.
The naming of my second, hitherto unmentioned, band was a much simpler affair. I was in my other half's room and noticed a Cuba Solidarity Campaign postcard on the wall. I misread it's slogan as "Hands of Cuba" rather than "Hands Off Cuba" and so we were christened. Seriously, there was a priest and a font and everything. Incidentally there is a band called "Hands Off Cuba", who played on a Lambchop record or something but I figure if you can have Battle and Battles then it should be ok.
Thus ends my slightly dull band-name stories for now. Who thinks I should pitch "Honksack" at the practice on Friday?
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7 comments:
Before we became the electro trio we are today, we were a guitar band called, after an anecdote of mine that I care not to repeat here, Buckfast.
Turns out that there are in fact, other Buckfasts, unsurprisingly.
One of the joys of doing the job I do is that people ask what they should call their band, giving me the opportunity to rattle off some insanity at a moment's notice. Although once a band showed up actually CALLED "Keith" I had to stop offering that one.
In fact, I've found some of the suggestions I've sent out to people. Easy money (although I don't claim that any of these are available, also note we were usually asked for modern "Trivium" style metal band names):
Drop D Tuning
The Large
Dental Block
Duodenum
The Night Porter
Servalan
Rock Shop
Pinstripe
Endometrium
Zaalbar
Anger Man
Fight My Liar
Collision Detection
All-Night Noise Machine
Rumpole of the Bailey
Filth
Globule
Grrrr!
Earsmash
Facecake
Suicide Kids
Fist/Face
Grubby Pups
Stench
The Motley Mohawks
SMERSH
All Soles
Sports Bra
The 4th Vampire
Blank
Star Fleet
23 Lengths
Mystery Audience
Sax and Death
Slaughter Bar
Acker Bile
The Fallopium Crusts
The Tracheas of Void
Buck Fuddy
Tenner Sex
Apricunt
Fireface
Archipelago
OpusX
Vodou
Heroc
Galvatron
Kiber
Xerion
Divinorum
Rhino
Cassif
Shemhamphorasch
Mitochondria
Supernature
Sanctus
Gutsika
Graphite Fist
Headcrab
Hit Points
Garrottebags
Forty Times Forty
Songs Of Graze
Cabal
OCP
Succulents
For this we get paid, etc. Oh last lot - requested for "girl emo rock band":
Treacle Tears
Cuts
Suffrage
The Fingernails
My Little Boneyard
Princess Peach
Girls Are Loud
The End Of Forever
They all get a bit dull from here on in.
For this we get paid, etc.
I'm taking "Rumpole of the Bailey" right now. Some of them are actually quite good - SMERSH is oddly appealing, for instance (and yes, I do know where it's from).
Thankfully most of the names suggested in pre-Quatermass days have fled my mind. "The Electric Funk Monkeys" is only one I can still remember.
Once you get past the barrier of some wag suggesting the following:
Free Beer
Special Guests
Playing Live
Then you're halfway there.
I really was hoping someone would take Rumpole of the Bailey for their teen angst band.
Oh, and I believe I've suggested this to you before, but for Quatermass related bandnames you really should be aiming more for these two:
The British Rocket Group
Quatermass and The Pit
As in "Hi, I'm Quatermass, and this is The Pit" - probably followed by some bass noodling and a paradiddle.
I also recommend Blogger word verifications - especially if they're unpronounceable like Pkwxpk.
It's where "Proat" came from, anyway.
I believe "Quatermass And The Pit" was suggested, possibly by me, for exactly that reason but was shot down.
Also: 6 comments! That's a record. Maybe we can break another record and have 3 people comment on one post.
Actually, that word verification back there (Pkwxpk) looks like it would be pronounced Pickwick's Pick, which is quite a good one.
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I'm astonishingly tired.
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