A-wooooooooooooooooooooo!

Band Name Of The Day coming in from Oakland, California, with a wicked sense of the macabre humor:

Gingerbread Massacre! We have no idea what sort of music they play. Neither does the audience. Neither do they. Every set and every song is different. They'll play Tejano one minute, and classical string quartets the next. A few weeks later, they'll do the same songs, but this time it'll be heavy metal and jug band style. Loose cannons to the max.

The Band Was Playin' Live Music

No apologies tonight. A confession, perhaps: this band name could really have gone up earlier, especially after the slacking of the past few days, but then again it really couldn't have. See, BNOTD was off at (*gasp!*) a live concert! That's right, we were off seeing Karen Savoca and Pete Heitzman doing their thing at the Freight and Salvage in Berkeley. And wow, can they bring down the house! Seriously, with nothing more than a conga, an (admittedly excellently played) blues guitar and an impressive set of pipes, these two put on one of the best concerts in years. Only advice we've got: next time, scrub the opening band and play a double set. The opening act was fantastic, no doubt about it, but not even remotely in the same caliber.

Anyhow, you'll be wanting a band name, you greedy beggars. Since the evening's entertainment had a distinct Southern flavor to it, ranging from flat-out country (opening act) to the awesome blues and floating soul vocals of Karen and Pete, we'll reach back to a band name we came up with all home-grown in the Warped House Gang:

The Swamp Trolls. These guys are straight-up southern rockabilly, a little bit country and a whole lot of soul, sour-mash whiskey and clothesline guitar strings. They play the old songs like they're new again, what Creedence Clearwater Revival could have been if they hadn't been from San Francisco and hadn't had more than three teeth in the band all together. They'll out sing you, out dance you and drink you under the table all in one evening.

The Psycho Circus

Well, we've been busy lately, and it doesn't seem to be going away any time soon, but we're still cramming in band names whenever we can! In fact, there had been rumblings of just throwing in the towel, giving in to the lord ennui (now there's a band name for you!) as it were, when we got some more awesome submissions, and really, we just can't resist that. So BNOTD lives to amuse another day!

First, we have one from Oakland, with some assistance from a San Mateo start up company and a new mother in Davis. Suffice it to say that it's been a long day, but it's finally lead to our first Band Name Of The Day:


Babycrack! Babycrack! is a hard-hitting electronica/punk rock hybrid band, the sort of thing that sounds like, well, music played by people who thought Babycrack! would be a good name.

And then we have a submission from a dear friend of ours, a frequent guest of the warped house in Davis, who came in out of the blue with: How do we submit band names...? 'Cause I think "The Clown Slappers" rocks. She's  right, of course, it's a good question. But first, the band name:

The Clown Slappers are are dirty, grungy sort of string band outfit, a bit more folk than jazz, and a bit more dirt than anything else.

Good questions deserve answering: You're welcome to submit band names in the comments forum attached to this blog, via Facebook to anyone associated with the blog, via email if you know it... really, there's no formal submission process, but it ain't hard to figure out.

Walk Around And Catch The Thrill Of Streets We Call The Zoo

So, you might recall a passing comment we made back on Thursday about a band name from a manager. Specifically, this fine gentleman had been off in Africa, and brought back souvenirs, including canned zebra and wildebeest meat.

Well, completely ignoring that (method of preservation) + (exotic animal) + (the word "meat") = awesome band name, the comment was made that canned wildebeest meat as much more "anonymous" than canned zebra meat. And... Band Name:

Anonymous Wildebeest! Think swing with an African beat to it, a funky jazz combo like you'd find in New Orleans in the Jamaican block.

Loli-loli-loli-pop!

So this morning work started, email was opened and there was an email from the manager.

The subject just said "band name."

Teeth on edge, the email was opened. It's not like any of us ever post on this blog at work or anything, so really, there was nothing to worry about.

Really.

It had a band name in it. It was a good one too, but then the day began, work went bonkers, and posting was pushed off until...

Well, until work was over, email access was no more, and now this post is being written by someone who distinctly remembers having seen a great band name, but can't remember what on earth it was.

That's OK, though, we have other... avenues to band names! And lo and behold, here's another email in the ol' inbox, once again from Lizard (of "The Indecisive Cocks" fame), who told us about a deeply, deeply strange MyFace discussion that spawned this Band Name Of The Day:

Lollipops And Masturbation! This is obviously a slutty j-pop band. They could be a bunch of hot, of-age-but-looking-younger women in schoolgirl outfits with tall socks and very short skirts, or (more likely) it could be a couple of people of indeterminate gender in helmets spinning awesome far Eastern electronica. Like a slutty Daft Punk.

The Midnight Hour

Well, according to the nifty little hour-minute-second counter in the upper right screen of the Apple MacBook this blog post is being written on, it's 12:00 midnight. That means it's still Tuesday, and this post isn't late.

Almost, yes. Actually, no.

It's been a long day for. It was the company birthday party, so we had to go bowling. And the bowling alley was right by the rock climbing gym, so we had no excuse and had to go rock climbing afterward. And then we had to go do a first read on a brand-new unpublished novel and come up with creative commentary, so it got late in the evening before we really got down to brass tacks.

And then our literary friend Gordon made a Faceborg post. About the "most vomit inducing chapter title of the day." See, Gordon's an editor, and apparently he should have an "of the day" blog too. His would be much higher brow, though, since it'd be about literariness (that's actually a word! Spellcheck* says so!) instead of just made up band names. His post lead to the Band Name Of The Day for the Twenty-Fourth-Third Day Of March in the Year of Our Lord 2011:


The Rotten Nipples, and I swear to God in heaven, this was actually a literary discussion! The Rotten Nipples are a grunge band from Los Angeles in the mid-to-late Nineties. Sort of like Nirvana with a SoCal twist. Less artisan beer and more malt liquor, and a bit more MTV-stunning depravity than actual Seattle art. Still, they know how to use a Marshal stack and a couple of old Fenders, so they do well enough.

*Of course, Spellcheck thinks that "Spellcheck" isn't a word, so draw your own conclusions.

As Time Goes By...

...we find ourselves slowly working through the backlog of band name suggested to us by loyal readers. That means we should probably take a moment and explain the system we use to to choose which band names we'll post. The short answer is pretty much all of them. The slightly longer answer is pretty much all of them, but we get the choose when.

To break it down even further, we do try to post all the band names people suggest to us, but sometimes (very, very sometimes- we're more desperate than proud) we'll put one on the back burner or even reject it outright. Rejections (real rejections, rejections that we actually delete out of the file) usually aren't funny, memorable, imaginative or really relevant. Sure, you can name your band "Nike Sports Shoe" if you want, but we'll be damned if we'll go see you with a name like that. It's not amusing, it's not relevant to anything, and it doesn't sound good. Other things that might get your rejected are very long band names with no good reason to be that long ("Three Guys With Two Guitars And A Ukelele Standing In A Halway"), patently offensive (anything racist or utterly disgusting without being funny; we're pretty mellow on this last bit) or already taken (Hypoxia- great name, already in use).

But other than that, we really don't ever toss band names out. In fact, we very, very rarely do, partly because we think damn near everything is funny, and partly because we're damn hard to offend, but mostly because good band names are just damn hard to come by.

The next question, then, is how do we decide WHEN to post something? Really, the answer to breaks down to "when we feel like it." Occasionally, we try to have themes going (like over last weekend, when we posted Neal Gaiman band names), or we'll tie them to politics or pop culture or running gags or whatever.

And that brings us to the Band Name Of The Day! We're, frankly, tired of the news about Libya's warlord killing his people, or the horror in Japan. We're in the mood for something frivolous and amusing, like the time Anonymous tackled the Westboro Baptist Church for being a bunch of twats. That was a while ago, but among other things the WBC accused Anonymous of being "foppish hackers." And there we have a band name, suggested by our friend Mr. B. Truman who writes:

The Foppish Hackers (inspired by an open letter from WBC to Anonymous). They play classically inspired techno-punk, and at shows they dress in upper-class 18th century suits with plenty of lace.


You know, sort of like Daft Punk with lace. This rolled in a while back, and in accordance with the prophecy policy we waited until an opportune moment to post it.

Land Of 1,000... Hits?

Wait, what's that? We haven't been posting enough lately? Well, come on, we're busy people! Some of us are on spring break, others are working for a living and at least one of us is off in the desert somewhere.

Still, we do have a bit of good news: Today, we pass 1,000 pageviews. Perhaps not great for a blog, but certainly not bad for something as far off the beaten path as the Band Name Of The Day. That, of course, deserve celebration! Here at BNOTD, we do that by binging. On band names, of course, and we've got a whole list from a Retarded Bee down in the South Bay Area. We've taken the liberty of suggesting musical directions for them, but feel free to dissent in the comment forum.

Nuclear Guppies- Originally this was going to be a swing band, but in (the glowing green) light of recent events, it might have to be a J-Pop band. All proceeds to go solar power research.
Arachnaphilia- Goth.
Fjord Fusion- A traditional Scandinavian band that uses synthesizers.
Clouded Minds- (a jedi tribute band)
Conch Nuts- Hawaiian.
...Spaghetti and Eels- Ew. We've got nothing. Ideas?
Electric Rhinos- 80's synth-pop. Like Daft Punk with pink hair and no helmets.
Double-Double and the Cheese- They do rockabilly covers of Richard Cheese songs.
Swimming with Gorillas- A low-profile (but very good) alt-rock/singer-songwriter group.
Vaporized Vikings- Loud, crunchy heavy metal, very much of the wall-of-sound school of thought.
Sidelined Snidewinders (yes, snidewinders. I don't know what that means either)- Obviously, a country act.
Truffle Trippers- Obviously a psychedelic band.

And there you have it: A veritable orgy of band names to celebrate our 1,000th (and a bit) page view!

Blind Lemon What?

Wow, what a weekend! For those of you who don't know, let me just say that March should be Have At Least One Party This Month month. For us, that was last night. Most of the Retarded Bees were not there, but a few were.

Really, none of that has anything whatsoever to do with anything, other than giving you a reasonably good excuse why we haven't posted since Friday night.

However, we're never shy about picking up where we left off, so we'll go right back to Amy, who suggested the last BNOTD, and who's given us several other great ones. Amy, however, is more than just a good friend to us, and so we have the supreme honor in sharing with her the next name:

The Lemon-Scented Sticky Bats, which is not only a great band name, but also is a reference to Neil Gaiman, an author we're very fond of here at BNOTD, as well as Black Phoenix Alchemy Labs who make some lovely stinks. In fact, BPAL has created this very specific stink in the name of Mr. Gaiman, and is giving all proceeds to the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund! Hell, Neil Gaiman, pretty stinks, comic books and bats! What's not to love?

There's A Reason They Call Him John "Cougar" Mellencamp...

Well, it's been a rollicking week here at BNOTD! We've had The Furious Marmots (they only look cuddly!), the Sexclamps (still think that's a great one!), Heavy Metal Meltdown (donate to Japan, folks), Patty Melt more.

Now it's Friday again, and we see ourselves reaching out to the internet, groping around in the darker corners of the web, and finding Neil Gaiman. Oh, and our friend Amy from Fresno. Amy pointed us at one of Neil's posts, and said it'd make for a great band name. By jingo, she's right!

The Wake-Up Kittens are a contemporary hipster art-rock band, but unlike many groups who call themselves that, these kids are good. Really good. Like "best new artist" of next year good, which they will win with the LP they're currently recording: Nasally Inserted: The Wake-Up Kittens.

Thanks, Neil. We owe you a beer. Or a cup of tea.

For All That And All That

Here at Band Name Of The Day we take nothing quite so seriously as drinking. Especially the type that results in drunken shenanigans.

Today, however, many of us were stuck at work, trying to make a buck, and chugging black tea in an attempt to stay awake masquerading as a tribute to Ireland's second-favorite drinking habit- caffeine.

Unfortunately, distraction, lack of caffeine and haste to get through the day resulted in a slip and boiling tea water pouring over a hand. So naturally, we made it a Band Name:

Patty Melt, a psychedelic Irish band, sort of like a cross between The Chieftains and The Grateful Dead. And now, please excuse us, it's time to take our medicine.

Reach Out And Touch Faith

Some days are desperation days here at Band Name Of The Day. We try so hard to come up with hilarious, whacky, depraved, useful and awesome band names for you guys, but sometimes we just end up sitting behind our computers, being industrious little squirrels, and then the day is through and we've gotten far too much accomplished to really slack off to the degree necessary to keep 'em coming.

So we turn to the internet, and today we've got a good one from our friend Ren over at Morning Crazy, who suggested:

The Furious Marmots. We see this as a sort of angry swing band, maybe with a leftist political bent. In any case, Thanks, Ren!

It's Like "The Jackal" In A Woodshop

Sometimes things happen in real life, and sometimes they happen online. Generally, real life is the more rewarding place to be, but sometimes... just sometimes, things really need to stay online.

Like in this case. See, a friend of ours was building something, and posted on Faceborg that he needed some clamps for gluing something.

From there, the discussion devolved into how owning clamps makes you manly.

From there, it went down into how clamps make men sexy.

Descending further, the discussion turned to whether it was a good idea to have clamps in the bedroom. You know, for ambiance.

And there we had a Band Name Of The Day:

The Sexclamps! The Sexclamps are a post-punk band from the early nineties. They've seen The Village People and didn't quite get away clean. Hard-hitting rock and roll in the vein of The Cramps, Nirvana and, yes, The Sex Pistols.

7:30 am on the time change morning is way to early to be up. Really, it's just 6:30, draped in a drizzly gray "7:30" and that's an ugly thing. No band names this early, sorry kids.

Well, not in the usual sense.

See, a dear friend of ours has found and pointed us at a wonderful article in the Washington Post which closely examines the names of bands playing at Austin's South By Southwest Festival. Unfortunately, we're way too out of it to come up with a clever name for you this morning, so we urge you to go to the WPost and read their article. It's called Is This The Worst Era For Band Names?, and we're inclined to say that they make a good argument. For an essay that's primarily a list of band names and snide remarks about them, it makes an amazingly coherent (and cutting) argument. Top-notch read.

Domo Arigato

We were at a party last night, a nominal whiskey tasting, but in practice just an awesome party. Naturally, this lead to some really great band names (none of which we could recall the next morning), but also quite a bit of really good conversation about the impending nuclear explodingness in Japan.

As a side note, it should be noted that Japan has been a hotbed of international whiskey distilling in the past decade or so. Some really good whiskeys have come out of there, despite being half a world away from the ancestral home of the stuff.

And on another side note, you might want to go donate a buck or two to the Japanese Red Cross. They can really use it these days.

Back on topic, all this lead to a fantastic band name of dubious taste:

Heavy Metal Meltdown, which is, of course, a heavy metal band with folk overtones, sort of like a modern day Led Zeppelin. Alternately, this name could also be used by an electronica band, sort of like a Japanese Daft Punk.

Workin' Overtime

So for some reasons, a bunch of our friends decided to have a Green Dinner. You know, where you green stuff. One person brought rice crispies treats, and everyone else is cooking stuff with, well, greens. Arugula, spinach, collard greens and even... kale!

And with all that, naturally, there was talk about fitness.

And getting in shape.

And gyms.

And one person was even hard-core about it and talked about weight lifting, and how dead lifts are great for counteracting the natural tilt developed in the body by anyone who sits a lot and yada yada healthy stuff and she opined that we all needed to think of ourselves as chair warriors and...

And we had a Band Name Of The Day:

The Chair Warriors! It's a band! They're all in wheel chairs! They play heavy metal! They're hard core on wheels! Grar!

Love Is Like Oxygen

Ah, today's been a good day- we got another great band name from one of our musician friends! Elena writes in from somewhere in Seattle (we think). Seattle, of course, is a place that has more water than air in the atmosphere, so this might be an entirely apropos band name:

The Oxy Morons, or possibly Oxy and the Morons. In any case, these guys are a small-time party band that rocks hard. The sort of band you see in your local bar, think about how awesome they are and you really should see them again, and then suddenly, bang, MTV and VH1 are airing specials, studios are fighting over movie rights and every damn teenybopper has all their records (except for the early demos) even though they have no idea about how deep those lyrics are, man!

In any case, it's commonly agreed that The Oxy Morons got their big break some years ago opening for a band that would totally be our Bonus Band Name Of The Day:

Hypoxia, which actually exists and is technically not qualified for the blog, but has an awesome name.

Courtin' In The Kitchen

Well, we started it, so now we have to continue it. That's right, food-based Band Names Of The Day. Yesterday we treated you to pork-product roses, and today isn't much better.

A good friend of ours, once again a musician who has the sick sense of humor that seems to be endemic to the species, was reading the ingredients to the meat-product Taco Bell uses in their food.

If you feel queasy now, we recommend you stop reading.

It seems that this fine gentleman was not content with The Beefy Oatmeal, which is an interesting concept but not really that great of a Band Name, and moved on to something which truly has the makings of an excellent Band Name Of The Day:

Meatloaf Slurry, which should give you pause right there. Unfortunately, this is Band Name Of The Day, and we don't stop when common sense kicks in, no sir! We need to know what sort of music Meatloaf Slurry plays! We think it's drunken Irish covers of old Meat Loaf songs, or perhaps a variety act specializing in his greatest hits through the ages. In any case, it's an ugly scene.

Meat Loaf? You Ol' Dirty Bastard!

It has been a long, rough day here at Band Name Of The Day. There was a lot of Stupid, loads of Tired, quite a bit of Frustration, a double helping of Disappointment and a pinch of Mean which, mixed together in the Devil's own cocktail shaker, created a Slurry of Hate.

Hey, there you've got the Bonus Band Name Of The Day:

Slurry Of Hate, a powermetal band. A very, very angry powermetal band.

Anyhow, that just occurred to us so we had to share, but on topic: It's been a rough day, the sort of day that makes you want to just bite something. Not in the hungry way, or even in the I-think-you're-cute-so-I'll-do-something-that'll-just-be-awkward-as-hell-and-we'll-both-regret-it sort of way, but in a spiteful sort of way. The sort of day where even something as awesome as bacon and as romantic as roses, mixed together, turns your stomach:

Bacon Bouquet, another creation by the brilliant and twisted Lizard, would be a great band name for an indie band. It really plays on the current obsession with bacon while still bringing in the hipster ideals of romantic love, the bacon/veganism paradox, even the implicit violence inherent in our system, nay, in our very food supply that makes us weep as we can't stop eating* tasty, tasty bacon.



*Disclosure: your usual scribe does not, in fact, eat bacon or any other non-seafood meat, but can still clearly recall the awesomeness of bacon, especially when mixed with whole-wheat toast, fresh lettuce, ripe tomato, perfect avocado and just the right amount of mayonnaise.

Coin-Operated Boy?

Let's face it, most of the time we have silly band names here that few self-respecting bands could pull off. They're funny, good for a chuckle or maybe a quick bit of insight, but ultimately they're either too raunchy or too cumbersome to make a good band name in a real-world situation.

In a way, this goes against the one of the core ideas of this blog. Sure, the most important thing is to entertain and bring about a laugh or two, and we take that very seriously, but it goes beyond that. We'd also like to create a repository of band names that anyone who needs a name can come to and pick one out. This might be a name they hope to change the world under, the way that the Beatles did, or this might just be something used for a one-off, a band that can't contractually use its own name for a fund raiser or something, but the idea is there.

And so it is with great joy that we get submissions from our readers, most especially those who are professional musicians and music teachers who give us names that would be kick-ass real-world band names. One of those is today's Band Name Of The Day:

Prim and Improper, which we see as an all-female rockabilly group, a sort of tarted-up Red Elvises with better hair, classier suits, no weird accents and every bit as kickin' guitar riffs. Betty Paige with a Gibson, the sort of act that could roll up to the smokiest roadhouse in Texas and leave the whole place frustrated and thanking them for it.

Gather Lords And Ladies Fair

Well, life continues apace, right down to idiotic customers making the last few hours of Friday an exercise in stupidity so we didn't get a BNOTD post up for you last night.

We're OK with that, though, because we have a fantastically and wildly- nay, flamboyantly!- versatile one:

Dragonfruit! Think about it- it could be a band of Renaissance faire nerds, or a gay heavy metal band. It could be just about any sort of calypso of island-sound band, what with the tropical influence, it could be a misguided rock and roll band from the Philippines, it could even be swing band with a completely non-apropos name. Yes, Dragonfruit will rock the house, no matter what they play!

Wine Is Fine But Whiskey's Quicker

Ladies and Gents, the rest of the guests have (mostly) arrived, so we need to keep this brief.

No shit, there we were, the three of us in the kitchen cooking away like industrious little cooking things, drinking wine and trying very hard not to peek at the London Broil in the oven, when the timer went off. It was time to flip the meat! The meat was summarily flipped, and it splished a bit of gravy on the cook.

Ew, she said, I got meat goo on me!

And bang! We had a band name:

Meat Goo! We really have no idea what sort of music they play, so please leave us a comment and let us know, and we'll update the blog with opinions!

When A Man Loves A Woman (Very, Very Much)

Evolution is a tricky thing. Sometimes, our social evolution actually runs contrary to our biological evolution, and we start deliberately ingesting poison in a sort of social bonding ritual.

In case you were wondering, no, we're not talking about  Native American peyote rituals or obscure cult initiations through near-death experience... well, yeah, OK, in some cases the latter holds true. No, the act in discussion is drinking potable liquids, the ingestion of alcohol, in short, boozing.

The Warped House boozes a lot, even now that we're a bit more spread out, so we need to make due with half-drunk text messages, such as the one which just passed through the space between at least some our readers ears not five minutes ago. In fact, as the first draft of this post was being typed, the message came in:

Neanderthals are totally homo. Homo since fucking habilis.

Instantly, the first draft was erased as this text bored itself into the collective consciousness. There's a band name in that!

Homo Fucking Habilis, a band that plays primitive rock and roll, a sort of primordial Chuck Berry-meets-The Clash event. They're down to earth, cynical, heavily bearded and rock like, well, it's the stone age. Most people are to thick to realize that Homo (the singer) and Habilis (the bassist) are, in fact, fucking. Alternately, we might have a Bonus BNOTD and give you:

Homo and the Sapiens, a fabulously gay rockabilly band. But that would be tasteless, and we're never tasteless, so I'm afraid you don't get a Bonus BNOTD today.

Dance, Dance The Shaking Of The Sheets

Last night was the end of an era. One of us here at BNOTD moonlights as a musician, and was involved for most of the past 4 years or so with the Alameda Ceilidh* Band. We didn't have a website (that's a link to the ceilidh's site, not the band), a solid lineup (it was mostly the fiddler plus whoever showed up that night) or even a name- we were always just "the band" at the ceilidh, and "the Alameda Ceilidh Band" everywhere else.

Anyhow, the ceilidh has ended a long run, and the band has taken its last bows, shaken hands, and dispersed to the four winds. Sure, we'll play together again, and the same music most likely, and for at least some of the same dancers, but that last, silent member of the band was the hall and that is no longer part of us.

Right now, I bet you're thinking "yeah, yeah, great, band's dead, what's this got to do with the blog?" Easy! Now that the name isn't taken anymore, we can use it here:

Alameda Ceilidh Band, a boisterous and sweaty bunch of snarky bastards (and the occasional composed, attractive and snarky lady or two) who play drinking songs stone-cold-sober.

What? It doesn't count because it's a real band? Oh, fine. Bonus Band Name Of The Day:

The Meat Donuts. They play rock.


*Ceilidh.