INANE WEDNESDAY... REMIX!

More Good Reasons to Hate Rob Thomas: Tips For Naming Your New Band So That We Won't Have To Put You Up Against the Wall When the Revolution Comes

This is not your band

As anyone who's been part of a band knows, the hardest part after convinceing your mom and dad that "you really, really will practice so let me get the fender please Jimi Hendrix played one so I'm gonna be awesome" is to get all of your friends to do the same thing, but with the less appealing, even pricier instruments like drums. Some people think that drumming, and being out of the spotlight and all, turns percussionists into dicks. Others of us know that friendless douch-bags are the only people who can be convinced into buying a drum kit for playing in your garage. Ahh, well. Six of one, as they say. Only they don't say that very much anymore.

Anyway, once you've got all the instruments in order and your cock-sure posturing down, the hardest task ahead of you will be to name your ragtag bunch, only you don't want to call yourselves "The Ragtag Bunch," because that makes me think of the Cabbage Patch Kids, which actually wouldn't have been such a bad band name before Bedford Avenuecorporatized skinny-boy irony, so it's a no-go now as well. Also there are probably trademark issues involved, provided that Xavier Roberts isn't cool about that sort of thing.

You might be saying to yourself, "but wait, sure writing the songs would be the most difficult part, not to mention playing them somewhat competently while doing that eyes-half-closed thing to show how heart-felt my impossibly vague and trite lyrics are." You would be wrong. Not only do you not have any talent, but you don't have enough perspective to even see that you've got no talent. Moreover, you won't care. You'll be singing about darkness and Stacy being the dawn of your soul as if it's a dadge of your emotional depth, only you won't use Stacy's name because you've never actually spoken to her, and you only formed the band in the first place so that you could tell her that you're a guitarist without buddies calling bullshit on you. Well, that and as a front for smoking pot, because you're hopping that if mom and dad ever venture past the noise barrier (a long-shot, as it involves them coming to terms with the fact that their son is really the one singing this shit) you can pass off the smell by saying that one of the amps just had a blowout. Come to think of it, maybe you can pass off the noise that way as well. Sure, you might get one member who bitches that you don't sound good yet, and need more practice, but you'll kick him out of the band anyway for killing your buzz. Hopefully it isn't the drummer, but it probably will be.

Getting back to the pointless topic at hand, what you name your band will determine the level of polite simle that Stacy gives you before escaping your grasp to give her real boyfriend a hummer in his Jeep, so the stakes are high. Not only that, but the terrain is rocky. Also, my metaphors are mixed. You can try to refer to my previous column's treatise on bullshitting, but remember, you're trying to bullshit cool, which as every teen movie ever has taught you, is virtually impossible. We're not shooting for great here. All we're going for is a name that you can say out loud with a straight face that won't involve five mullet-headed dipshit jocks immediately materializing out of nowhere to call you "fag." And considering what your image is already, this is order is tall enough.

So here we go. No crying. 'Cuz crying isn't Rock. Except when it is.

#1. The best way to attempt cool is to not even try

The Tao of Cool follows it's own rules similar to that of theoretical physics. That is, the mere observation of it is enough to change the outcome. When I was eight, my friend Ryan and I started up my first "band," which of course meant that all we did was sit in the park drawing up logos and thinking of great names for songs. Us being eight, and this being 1988, the best name we could think of was Techno-Wave. Clearly we had much to learn, and thankfully a couple of eleven-year-olds came by to see what we were doing and harrass us. They took some of our paper and made up a much better name and logo for us:

The Condoms (This was written on a crudely-drawn condom)

I'm actually a little surprised that no one has used that one yet. It's brazen, confrontational, and purely snot-punk, but it doesn't "smack of effort" in that category the way, say, Anal Cunt does. For what it is, The Condoms is a great band name, and one that still makes me smile. Techno-Wave is god awful, but you knew that, so maybe you could say that you're already halfway there.

You could, but I wouldn't. Think of yourself as Lenny in Of Mice and Men - that is, a confused, socially ill-adept lummox, and "cool" is the quivering mouse in your hand. Your instinct will be to cling to that mouse with every fiber of your being, killing it in the process. Yes you will.

Instead, attack "cool" the classic hipster way, by shunning it altogether, or at least pretending to. Remember, there's no good reason you'd want to hold a mouse in your hand to begin with, and the mouse is embarrased to be seen with you. Let it go. The hipster method says that you run so far away from "cool" that, in theory, you'll eventually go around the world and hit it from behind. This is dubious, to be sure, but in your case the chances are still better than meeting "cool" at it's face.

#2. Be careful with self-deprecation

This is now the theme for every garage punk band that never goes anywhere, and I can at least get why. If you name yourselves We Suck or The Wastes of Space, then at least you can answer your critics with a nice "I told you so," but I give it two caveats. The first is to remember the Stacy test. (For the remainder of this article, I will the - as far as I know - fictional name The Grizzly Bears as my generic control name.)

The Stacy Test

(Grizzly Bears version)
You: Hey! Stacy!
Stacy: Umm.. What?
You: Hey, I just wanted to see if you wanted to come see my band on Saturday. We're playing in my back yard!
Stacy: You have a band?
You: Yeah, we're called The Grizzly Bears. So you wanna come?
Stacy: Well, I'll have to see what Brandon is up to. I think he's in his Jeep right now.

(Self-Deprecating Name version)
You: Hey! Stacy!
Stacy: Umm.. What?
You: Hey, I just wanted to see if you wanted to come see my band on Saturday. We're playing in my back yard!
Stacy: You have a band?
You: Yeah! We're called The Worthless Crybabies! So you wanna come?
Stacy: Wait right here, I've got to get Brandon and four of his friends to hear this.

In high-school I played keyboard - very briefly - for a band called Ronald Chin and the Losers. Despite having the homecoming king and the most cred-tastic indie girl in town among our members, the name did what it was, I guess, supposed to do: prepare people for the fact that we sucked. The fact that we actually sucked didn't help much either, but the name did us no favors.

The second caveat I'd give you is that the guys in We Suck aren't deathly afraid of getting punched in the mosh pit, so they have a little more leeway with calling themselves whatever they want than you do.

#3. Don't use a number in your band name unless you know how. And you don't know how.

Think for a moment about two different bands: Train and matchbox twenty. They're simliar to the point where if they both put out a new single on the same day, I wouldn't be able to tell who did which song. Yes, they're both bad. That's not the point. The point is that while I simply don't like Train, and thus don't give them a lot of thought, I wish dispicable fates upon the members of matchbox twenty, particularly Rob Thomas.

I think it's the magic of the number. If they'd simply called the band matchbox (and maybe gave up that stupid convention about not capitalizing anything) I doubt I would have given them anymore thought than I did to Candlebox. But something about that non-sequiter bullshit "twenty" tacked on at the end reserved them a special place in whatever circle of hell Dante used to punish the talentless-yet-somehow-popular artists of the Medici era. It's just so calculated that it's unforgivable, like they called up the team in charge of marketing Crystal Pepsi.

Some bands manage to pull it off, of course, but I think that's because the number actually has a perceived relevence to the rest of the name. Ben Folds Five, for instance, is fine, as it alludes to there being five members of the band (though in reality there were only three.) Blink-182 doesn't play, because it doesn't mean anything. Blink-182 is also somewhat better than matchbox twenty, though, by virtue of using specific images to actually make a point (surely a subject for a future article) so the name doesn't seem like the product of pseudo-hip committee thinking in the same way, but it isn't good, either. Sum41 is on the fence. I don't hate them, because Guitar Hero drove that one song so deeply into my skull that I have to admit to enjoying it. Plus, the word "sum" implies a numbers theme, at least, so it's consistent, but it still evokes no images at all, I don't know what to expect from them. There's no personality to speak of. Seven Mary Three is, obviously, the worst, but it seems as though someone drove them out to the desert where they could detonate without hurting anyone, so no real harm done.

Full disclosure: My own ideal band name is The 21-Gun Solution, but that name at least works. The 21 is necessary, and it evokes a feeling of odd menace that you can't quite put your finger on. I know it seems to break this rule, but it doesn't. Remember, I know what I'm doing. You don't.

#4. The So-and-So & What's-his-Name phnomenon

Names within this formula always work for me. I don't know why, but look at it for a minute: Sam and Dave. Belle and Sebastian. Tegan and Sara. Even Hootie and the Blowfish. Regardless of what you think of them, you remembered that name from the first time you heard it, and it conveyed folksy whimsy. Say what you will, but you've never heard anyone say, "I thought I'd love Hootie, but they're just too jangly and precious. Where was the hardcore?"

My theory is not that this is a formula for success, though it at least works as well as The Grizzly Bears. No, Hootie aside, all of the bands in this formula are settling on the most stripped down, unmemorable possible name, but they're all great. So the only bands we hear about who use this convention break through on raw talent. Again, remember, you don't have that.

#5 Black Metal, Math Rock, and other obscure genres

As you can see, I'm branching out from simple names a bit here, but you'll hopefully get the point. Some obscure genres carry their own conventions for names. These genres also tend to be unlistenable, and yet painfully difficult to play. The point is that if you call yourself Pythagorus and the Angry Euclidians, people will expect you to play Math Rock, and thus not show up. This might be a good thing, as you can't play Math Rock and wouldn't want to anyway, but it still doesn't do anything for your image. Similarly, if you call yourself Mordred, or anything else from fantasy or folklore, people will expect Mortiis-style Black Metal, with all the Norwegian extremist racism and death-fetishes that are involved. People will move if need be to keep from accidentally stumbling onto that shit. Just stay away from Sci-Fi and Fantasy altogether, as it fails the Stacy Test more spectacularly that just about anything else. Look, I love Harry Potter to a degree that some might consider unhealthy, but if you name your band The Crumple-Horned Snorkacks, don't be surprised when Brandon and his buddies show up with bats. It's just the evolutionary instinct to thin out weaker members for the survival of the herd.

Other genres, such as indie-hip-hop and other experiments, tend to do things such as use Spanish names. De La Soul, Yo La Tengo, and Los Lobos are all great. If you have even a single "ethnic" member of your band, do this. Meatheads can't make fun of it if they don't know what it means, and they can't attack you on the Spanish front for fear of some vatos overhearing. But if you don't have any ethnic members (it doesn't matter what ethnicity, as long as it isn't your white ass) don't do it. People already think you're a poser as it is. Don't help them along. Also, if you think rock is tough, don't even think about trying alterna-hip-hop.

(An exception. A group of white kids in my high school had a fun little punk band called Tres Pesones, but they got away with it because everyone who saw them knew that it was a reference to their Spanish teacher's fabled third nipple. That was clever, so it worked. You aren't clever, so don't try it.)

And never, ever, use French. Again, the Stacy Test, and Brandon isn't scared of the Frech Canadians.

Your best bet is to just use the first plural noun that comes to mind. Think of The Strokes, The Vines, The Hives, or The White Stripes. That way, no one will care, but you probably won't get your ass kicked either, unless you really deserve it, which you might. There are aot of other rules as well, and I don't pretend to understand them all. Such as, why do Train and Jet obviously suck, but The Cars get a pass. I don't know, but more importantly you know even less, so go with what's safe, and if all else fails, use The Grizzly Bears. I won't call you on it, because I won't be there even if you do manage to get a gig.

I'd like to thank Progressive Boink for the inspiration for this piece. I promise I'll stop riding on everybody elses coattails soon, as I don't want to be thought oof as the poor man's ebaum, but for now think of it as training wheels and just be happy that I'm finally posting again.

Now, for the questions!