Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Autobahn

This is going to be an I post. Usually this blog is written in the second person because it really is a communal and collaborative project, even if I do all the actual writing. Nevertheless, this post's a bit introspective, and communal introspection just isn't our bag.

I've been posting on here less and less lately, and it's starting to show. Fewer posts, fewer band names posted, but also fewer hits and fewer band names coming in. Sometimes I have the feeling that the joke's gone on quite a bit longer than it was funny, and I should just quietly let it peter out, or that I'm investing way too much time into something that's patently useless. At other times, though, I come across a really great band name (like the one today!) and just can't wait to post it. So for the time being, I'll just keep trundling along on here, but be warned that I'll continue to update as the mood strikes me, so it will continue to be erratic.

I like this project, and I like the collaborative aspect of it. Originally, I was determined that I would not be the only one posting on here, that we'd have three or four people all posting all the time and it would be hilarious and argumentative and obscene the way we usually are, but that didn't happen. Partly because the other people I was originally collaborating with just aren't that into blogging (at all, really) and partly because I moved out of the shared house shortly after it got started, so all of a sudden we lost a certain dynamic. When you live with people, you develop in-jokes and running gags, you know just how far you can push things, and that was what made the original Band Name Of The Day so hilarious- partly because we did it to crack each other up, and were always pushing the envelope of good taste, and partly because we had this stalwart facade of creating One Official Band Name Every Day, when it really was more like half a dozen at a time every time we hit the bars, for a total of maybe 24 band names a week.

So now I'm losing a bit of steam as the dynamic is receding further and further into the distance, and the joke goes old. And frankly, the posts have become a bit stale, all pretty much the same style of writing, a template of a short bit of background followed by a band name and some commentary. And yet...

And yet, that's how things become entrenched. We become accustomed to things, and they seem to become stale until we try to take them away, and we realize how much we'd been relying on them. Views have dropped, certainly, but I'm still getting a few hits every day, sometimes none, other days as many as 8 or 10. If I can be happy cracking jokes for one person, then I'll certainly keep doing it for 8 or 10.

Anyhow, I'm certain you're all here for the Band Name Of The Day!

No shit, there we were, driving through a freeway maze in San Mateo desperately trying to get to a decent sandwich shop before the lunch break expired, when we were stopped at a red light and staring upward at the gargantuan floating ribs of the flying overpasses above us. We commented on how they really were just a bunch of glorified mud and rock, and then someone added that they also had steel in them, and then bang! We had a Band Name of The Day:

Mud, Rock and Steel, which would be a crackin' name for an urban industrial blues band, a real working-man's ensemble that brings classic blues sounds to inner-city rock and roll and industrial music. Loud, slow and crunchy, just the way we like our music and our craw fish.

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