Band Names

Preface

This is a long entry that pretty much qualifies as an essay. You may want to copy and paste it into a text document so that you can print it and read it at your leisure on the subway or wherever. It's about 5 pages long, but I think you'll dig it.

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I’ve had a significant number of a certain kind of thoughts over the last several months. These thoughts entertain biological and existential questions dealing with “growing older.” I don’t recall the order these thoughts came in, but I can share with you the bulk of my ponderings and how they led me to look at a certain phenomenon in life that acts as an interesting historical marker of sorts, the phenomenon of band names. How did I get from “growing up” to band names? Here’s how.

So sometime in the past, definitely before I moved to Minneapolis, I heard a song on the radio or on someone’s computer and it popped into mind that the song was released ca. 1993. It was a Nirvana song, something off the mind-bogglingly awesome In Utero. Upon hearing the song I commented to myself that it, sonically speaking, was way “ahead of its time.” This comment led to an immediate question: In what year would I say this song was released if I didn’t already know? I decided that the answer was 2002 and I got this number from a lightning-quick series of calculations having primarily to do with the fall of Grunge, the dissolution of several bands from the early 90s, and the current trend of music – rock bands that was to (for some reason) sound like Duran Duran and other 80s bands that all make me think of warm, flat Coca-Cola. But then something weird happened. I said, “Wow, I can’t believe how long ago the 90s were!” My first, “Remember when…” comment.

I’m starting to notice my age. Maybe I’m moving into a new biological period, one that has everything to do with adulthood and nothing to do with being a kid or a teenager or a college student. When the Nirvana episode occurred I flagged it, but then I let I float away. I didn’t think about this topic again until…

My apartment in Minneapolis is in the “hip” part of the city, a neighborhood called “Uptown.” I should mention, however, that Uptown is actually geographically Southwest of Downtown Minneapolis. This fact speaks to the vibe of this city, which is hard to explain. Let’s just say for now that the misnomer “Uptown” seems to stem from some imaginary World-Of-Forms UPTOWN, a place in which, perhaps, Billy Joel’s “Uptown Girl” resides, or a place that the city planners wanted to reflect their ideas of Uptown Manhattan, which, if that is the case, has totally failed as a plan in every conceivable way. This Uptown looks more like a suburban street in Seattle or Portland, except of course for the flat terrain.

This Uptown is home to the band The Replacements who, rumor has it, lived in the apartment above the independent record store (they actually do sell records) I can see across the street if I look out either my living room or kitchen windows. The Replacements are said to have also frequented the bar kitty corner to their old apartment, a bar called the C. C. Club. From the looks of the bar and the bar’s clientele, it is totally possible that the rumors are true.

And so I was walking to the grocery store one day and, as is my custom, I was rocking out to music pumping through my noise-reduction headphones. Let’s say I was listening to Nirvana’s In Utero because it’s totally possible that that was the case. And everything on this walk was normal and my grocery shopping went smoothly and I headed back towards home when I noticed three people sort of blatantly staring right at me. These people were standing outside the Muddy Waters café and looked like, maybe, they were members of a local band. This observation was acceptable because Muddy Waters in the spot where the local bands are rumored to “hang” at and because the people themselves had the classic Williamsburg Hipster Band Uniform on. For those of you in the dark about the Hipster Code of Dress, it consists of Converse sneakers (either black and white checkered or red), ripped dark blue jeans, and a t-shirt with an ironic saying on it like “I found some guys wallet in El Segundo” or something like that. The Hipster Hairdo follows a simple rule that dictates the person must spend as much time as possible on the hair to get it to look like the person hasn’t touched his/her hair in months and that they, like, don’t care about appearances. So these three people were about 20 feet away when I noticed them staring at me and I was walking toward them so the distance rapidly closed to about 2 inches as I walked right in front of them. They had a devious grin that they were sharing and when I passed I noticed them start to huddle about whatever it was they noticed in my appearance.

Now, I’m not vain but I do think about everything all the time. I immediately began to wonder why the “cool kids” were staring at me. I realized at first that my headphones could have been the source of interest since they are pretty big and juxtaposed with the iPod ear buds I think we could say my headphones were ridiculously conspicuous, but I like my music so fuck them and everybody who casts condescending glances, right? Right. But then I took note of my wardrobe and I realized something major about my situation, my life, the biological/existential dilemma from months ago in New York, and about aging. I sped up my walk and scurried home to think this thought alone. Here’s the short version of the thought:

I was wearing a flannel shirt with a white undershirt exposed underneath. I had sort of loose-fit jeans on and my green Adidas sneakers. Also, as has been suggested, I was probably listening to Nirvana and the degree to which I was rocking was pretty damn high and some Nirvana definitely escaped the earphones and flew out into the surrounding world. Because of my stereotypical appraisal of the Hipsters (circle R) above, it’s only right to turn the penetrating gaze back on myself, and when I do this I understand the staring and the grinning and the huddling. It was abundantly clear to me that I, walking from my co-op grocery store, looked like I had walked straight out of 1993. In fact, if we could find a picture of me from 1993, I’m pretty sure we would find some similarities in my clothes and my rocking-out-ness. And so here’s the first part of my big question: Is my 90s wardrobe as visible to people today as a Grateful Dead shirt? Are the golden days of the 90s truly over and in the past with things like Woodstock, Captain Beefheart, and Yes! ? My first defense against this would be to say, “Well, it wasn’t that long ago,” but we know that’s not true. As became clear that day in New York, 1993 was 12 years ago. I own clothes that comprise the entire costume wardrobe of the show My So-Called Life, and if you’ve seen that show recently you’ll know this isn’t necessarily an awesome thing. Jesus, I also own the box set of My So-Called Life. Every episode!

My Shorter Oxford English Dictionary (“…more than one third of the coverage of the OED in one tenth of the size) defines grunge thusly: 1. A repugnant, unpleasant, or dull person or thing. 2. A style of rock music characterized by a raucous guitar sound and lazy delivery. The stilted and stodgy definition prosody goes to suggest that Grunge and the early 90s are passed. The Time They Have A’ Changed. But all this musing about music and age made me think about Time in general and concepts like “dated” and “retro.” Is a major anthropological/ethnographical/archaeological/historiographical tool to be found in the bands that constitute the Gods of Rock for their ages? In 200 years, is a scientist going to find a Grateful Dead shirt and win the Novel Prize for Literature with his/her book about the 1960s and his/her ingenious reconstruction of the soul of an age long gone? Will someone find the journal of an angst-ridden teenager in which pages and pages are covered with detailed descriptions of Sadness and the all around downer that was the Kurt Cobain vigil held after his suicide (like, maybe my journal??!)? Are bands a hallmark of the Times? I propose that the answer is yes and maybe all we have to do to prove this idea is to do some word association. If I say “Grateful Dead” and any of the following words or phrases jump to mind, then I’m probably right: Acid, Peace, Hippies, Make Love Not War, The Magic Bus, Nixon…

I think this is an interesting topic because for bands to be historicized and looked to as the mouthpiece for different slices of culture in years gone by means that band names actually serve a kind of important function. How much does the name of a band matter, given that the name could wind up in a dictionary one day as an abstract noun referring to a mindset or to a group of people? This is certainly not a scientific inquiry. After all, The Grateful Dead isn’t necessarily a great name. Neither is Nirvana. They are names that we cannot now divorce from the music played under that name. But maybe bands today should think more carefully about what they name themselves. If a band’s goal is to “make it,” I think the band name must receive adequate scrutiny before the word(s) are emblazoned upon the kick drum. This whole essay started from a survey of band names in the Minneapolis scene – I know, I took a long time and a winding road to get here but bear with me.

The thing is, Minneapolis is supposed to have a kick-ass music scene and maybe it does. I can’t honestly say because I haven’t seen any bands play. What I can say, however, is that if a scientist found the “City Page” newspaper dated the week of Jan. 8, 2006, he or she would have very little evidence to suggest that the music scene was indeed kick-ass. The band names listed certainly do not help the historic cause.

The following three names are from bands playing at a venue called The Rock. I’m warning you, it’s not pretty: Severed Nerve, Scarred Embrace, and Unbroken Remains. Now, not only will those names fail to break into the annals of History but also I can’t imagine that they will attract a crowd to their show either. Marketing is hard for bands, I know. I have many friends in bands and I know that trying to get the random person to pick your band’s name out of a list of 1000 band names all written in 8 pt. Type in the Music section of a weekly magazine is frustrating and Herculean in its difficulty. That said, what possessed people to settle on Severed Nerve? I hear “severed nerve” and I think about extreme pain. I’m actually wincing right now as I write this. Might the sound experience of said band be similar to the though of pain induced by mere mention of the band’s name? I’m not going to risk finding out, and I’m willing to bet I’m not alone.

Overall, I think there are three or four fatal flaws to avoid when naming a band. I’m certainly not claiming to be an expert on the subject, but maybe I can be looked at as a warning sign that if not heeded may cause embarrassment stemming form people writing about bad band names, for example.

A common tactic deployed in coming up with band names seems to be thinking of an ironic or familiar conceptual event or state of mind. Two Minneapolis bands that tried this tactic came up with the names Deconstructing Jim and High on Stress. Let me admit right off the bat that these names aren’t horrible. Compared to the Titanic-like disaster of Severed Nerve, these names are only S.S. Minnows. The word “deconstructing” alone has a secure place in the contemporary vernacular. Post-structuralism and Psychoanalysis have endowed the word with significant meaning such that, as a band name, the word connotes intelligence or the possession of wit. I feel let down with the name Jim, though. To make a stab in the dark, if I was trying to discern what type of music Deconstructing Jim plays, I’d settle on either ska-based power pop or some kind of hillbilly rock that has songs about beer and books read in high school English – maybe rhymes formed with Hester Prynne and Gin. High on Stress also makes me think of high schoolers. The type of people who start as dweebs and grow up to be managers at Starbucks. They certainly have no songs over 2 minutes, and if I had to wager I would bet that at least two of the band’s members are usually high on something besides stress.

The thing about the Conceptual Event Band Name is that you’ll always be trying to balance between sounding unpretentious, on the one hand, and outright dumb, on the other. Jimi Hendrix nailed this kind of band name with the Jimi Hendrix Experience. That name makes me feel that I’m in for something surprising at their show. The Arcade Fire is another band that has capitalized on the Conceptual Event. Creedence Clearwater Revival might fall into this category, though they run the risk of being too esoteric. Only once you hear the bayou rock-a-billy quality of CCR do you realize that the name fits. My personal favorite in the genre is The Fire Theft. I like the Greek mythology reference. I think we should take note that “Fire” is a keyword that goes a long way in contemporary rock music…off the top of my head I can think of the Hot Hot Heat and the Fiery Furnaces.

Another genre of band name is one in which on or more adjectives modify a noun with the noun being a person or an object. Here I’m thinking of Alice In Chains, The Beastie Boys, The Flaming Lips, and Nine Inch Nails. From these names and many others from the last several years it seems like this formula allows a band to use a slightly silly or absurd series of words. It’s tricky because you can’t sound too silly or people will dismiss you. It also helps if the type of silliness or the image evoked by the band name directly corresponds with the sound created by the band. The dark, tortured, and slightly sadistic sense derived from “Alice In Chains” finds immediate purchase in the hard-edged bite of the band’s songs Man In the Box and Angry Chair. Or, it would take about five seconds for someone attending a Nine Inch Nails concert to realize that there is nothing silly about that band and that, in fact, they rock in a serious way. But again, these bands are already established and who knows what coincidences led them to getting signed. The music speaks for those bands above and the name sort of acts like an exclamation point for the sound. I came across a band in the paper here called Plow of Evil. Sucks. That band name conjures up an image of a band that has 4 keyboardists and plays every Thursday at a Goth Strip Club. I also found A Scanner Darkly, which I won’t comment on because I don’t understand what it is or what it is supposed to be. And lastly there was Slander Junky. All I’ll say about that name is this. Even though the band had their first gig in like only four hours from now and still hadn’t come up with a name, Man, I think there needs to be a revision made or a follow up meeting, and if you just say the name Slander Junky over and over again out loud, I think you’ll find the flaw.

Then there are place name bands. Black Mountain, The Eastern Seaboard, Muddy Waters, Oasis. The danger with place names is that many locations have been co-opted by capitalism or pop culture. For example, the Minneapolis band Boogie Wonderland runs the risk of sparking the same part of the brain that stores associations with Boogie Nights and Alice In Wonderland, which might not be a bad thing if Boogie Wonderland plays Porn movie soundtrack music in seedy lounges that open at 8 a.m.

So, see, band names are something to think about. Maybe the only hard and fast rule here is that after you come up with The name, as out loud “Do we really want to call ourselves ______?” Do we really want to call ourselves Profuse? Do we really want to call ourselves 3 Pill Morning? A little self-reflexivity won’t hurt; neither will sleeping on the idea. Actually, Sleep On It isn’t a bad idea for a band name.

If anybody is reading this and needs a band name consultant, I’m happy to help fill the position. If you are one of the bands that I mentioned here, I’m not sorry in any way. Band names are serious business so get real White Squirrel, The Crime Novels, and Eagle River. As far as me and my vintage 90s self, I’ll keep you informed of the politics on my block.