Wednesday, July 27, 2011

As Time Goes By

Hey folks,

This is going to be an "I" post. You see, I've been busy. I wouldn't say terribly busy- that would imply some sort of calamity, which isn't the case. Sure, there have been some trials and tribulations, so I wouldn't say I've been wonderfully busy either, but mostly I was just very busy. Work's been rather busy, and my commute's been a bit longer than usual lately, so I haven't been posting much during the week, and then I actually got out of the house and went away from the internet over the weekend! In fact, I even went away from cell reception (mostly)!

So I've got some band names for you now, and I'll post them forthwith. Not as many as we came up with (put 8 Burning Man and Renaissance faire junkies in a tight gang at a hippie festival and funny things WILL come up!) but quite a few nonetheless.

Our first Band Name Of The Day comes from one of our favorite cafes, the Blue Danube in Alameda. Plopped down, injected some caffeine in the eyeballs, and had a piece of their fantastic chocolate cake and bang! Like a bullet out of the blue sky, came the First Band Name Of Wednesday, July 27th:

Delicious Danger! Because that's really what this thing was. This would also make one hell of a name for a chick rock band. Sort of an updated take on The Runnaways.

The next one comes from a post on BoingBoing, which you can go read yourself. I think you can surmise the back story pretty quickly:

Robot Octopus, a band name that seems custom-made to a contemporary indie band, consider the current popularity of both robots and octopuses (and yes, that's grammatically correct!)

Next up, we have a couple of band names from Squirrel. The first one comes from said hippie festival and one of the Burners there:

Bad Cream. Bad Cream could be a modern punk band, but we're thinking more along the lines of classic rock. You know, like Cream but a bit further along in the rock and roll evolution- more 80's hard rock, the sort of thing that would make The Beatles blush and would give Ozzy Osbourne a dangerous hard-on.

*ahem* Moving right along, Squirrel didn't leave us hanging with just one band, but today came through with a second one:

Filthy Russian Keyboards, which seems to come out of the bowels of a silicon valley startup's IT shop, but would probably be awesome as Russian electronic and disco band. Sort of like a Eastern European take on Daft Punk.

And finally, we have a great one from a drummer friend of ours who seems to be afflicted with a classic Northern European disease: he heals too well. In fact, his body's healing something that wasn't even broken! And, because the bastard's part Scandinavian, it's not just healing: it's growing a spike. We, however, never afraid to make lemonade, looked at that and said "Hey! That's the Band Name Of The Day!"

And so, the reigning Band Name Of The Day, to make up for the past twelve (12!!) days of slacking, is:

Grinder and the Bone Spurs! Truly, a more epically hard-rock band there has never been! Think Rammstein meets the Flintstones playing a show on the world's biggest amplifier mating with an explosion in a World War II naval shipyard in full boom. The singer plays a diesel-powered angle grinder, and the rest of the Bone Spurs play any instrument that can be played with sticks, mallets, hammers or compressed air.

Friday, July 15, 2011

Stawberry Fields Forever

Oh man, do we ever have band names for you tonight! We'll just skip the excuses and whacky stories about the hows and whys and wherefores we haven't posted recently, and just jump into this gluttony of band names!

Up first, we have one inspired by a deeply embedded correspondent in central California. How, exactly, this band name came to be is up for debate, but suffice it that it includes a discussion on the new Google+:

Carnivorous Clowns, which can only be some sort of rock and roll horror show. Maybe something as passe and insipid as an Insane Clown Posse cover band, but probably more along the lines of Slayer crossed with Operation Ivy doing an arena show a la KISS' Psycho Circus tour.

Next up, we have one brought directly to us via that other social network, where our San Francisco source writes:

"Zonule of Zinn" has got to be the best anatomical name ever, and should be either the title of a children's book about wizardry, or a band name — possibly both.

Quite likely both, we'd say, in fact, a mid-70's style psychedelic trance outfit. But our source isn't done yet! He continues:

I was thinking 60's, but yeah: "On tonight's bill: The Strawberry Alarm Clock headlining; Zonule of Zinn opening."

Good times all around. Zonule of Zinn could be just about anything, but it would be far out, that's for sure.

Then we have another quick one stemming from another Google+ conversation, this with a certain punk from Oakland:

The Rocket Snails, who can only be some sort of indie or punk band. Wait, what's that? You want to see what inspired that? Oh, alright:


*ahem*

And finally, we have a truly great band name inspired by a spoonerism (of sorts) on tonight's NPR program:

A Switch At The Sleep. Boy oh boy, this could be be anything, from a blues band made up of power plant employees to a band of middle-aged banjo players toodling away in the folk music scene. Have fun, enjoy your weekend, and don't burn down anything that can't be replaced.

Saturday, July 9, 2011

The Devil Went Down To... Mordor??

Some days you just gotta sit back with some good folks, have a few drinks and watch Torchwood. But that's no reason to let the blog sit and ferment like the Dead Marshes, but to post more! Because not everyone has Torchwood and booze, but is stuck reading the internet and... well, you get the point.

So without further ado, here's the first of the two Band Names Of The Day! Needless to say, it's somewhat inspired by The Lord Of The Rings, which is a fantastic novel, and umpteen inferior imitators:

The Orc Stompers, which is going to be nerdy no matter how you slice it or dice it, but would likely make a fantastic name for a metal or fantasy rock band.

The other Band Name Of The Day, the Bonus Band Name Of The Day, the BBNOTD, that is, is quite a bit more versatile:

The Devil Take The Hindmost! This is a fairly versatile one, but would probably work especially well for a bluegrass band or or any sort of country-influenced band- country, southern rock (a la Creedence Clearwater Revival, etc). That isn't to say that it couldn't also be used for something like indie rock or even an electronica band like Daft Punk.

Friday, July 8, 2011

Gotta Get Down On Friday

So here we are, another Friday. Fridays, before they were ruined by some lackluster yuppie, were great days. Now, they're great days once we get over the gibbering-in-the-closet-and-go-catatonic thing brought on by Ms. Black. Nevertheless, we do look forward to the weekends, especially summer weekends, that are drawn out by a late sunset into something just a little bit longer and a little bit sweeter.

On that note, we have a sweet Band Name Of The Day for you this Friday:

The Jelly Bean Mafia, which we envision as a techno rave group, sort of hyperactive, kandy-kid version of Daft Punk, but with a hard, coked-up edge. Cute, poppy, peppy, and addicted to an a rainbow of narcotics of legendary purity that have them mixing all night and recording all day up until the rainbow's end, when hard reality sets in.

Incidentally, they're not the first band to use jelly beans in their name. You can find a couple of others right there at the end of the Wikipedia article on the things, and of course through Google.

Unfortunately, Wikipedia has killed the second possible Band Name Of The Day, when they informed us that Harsh Reality actually exists. Apparently they're a little-known, proto-prog band born in Stevenage, Hertfordshire out of the remnants of the Freightliner Blues Band (formerly the Revolution) in the early 1960s. Too bad the name is taken.

What's really depressing about that, though, is that the name is taken by such a low-level band. It's a fantastic name, but reading the Wikipedia article makes it pretty clear that it's a band that did little more than squat on a great name, like those "websites" that have links to other sites that sell stuff just so they can legitimately claim to be "using" a domain name. And for what? Once you discount the masturbatory writing on the wiki page that sounds like it was created by a nostalgic member of this band,  it comes out that they released one single and one album, and disbanded. Have you heard of them? We sure haven't. But now that name is taken, and because they released and album, probably copyrighted. Bang, 32 years later nobody can come and redeem such a great band name.

And that, dear readers, is why we have this blog. Not to claim or to squat or to copyright anything, but to find these rare gems of band names and bring them to the light where they can be used, preferably by a band that's already got some chops and has the good sense to do more touring than cocaine, so that hopefully something like the Jelly Bean Mafia will go down in history with other great band names like The Stray Cats, Iron Butterfly and The Battlefield Band, and not with gobshites like Harsh Reality.

Tuesday, July 5, 2011

So What IS The Rumpus?

No shit, there we were, geeking out over Google+ like good little geeky things, when someone *ahem* said his life was a bit too proper.

As these things happen, people agreed. Well, what would you expect from people who come up with a band name every god damned day?* We're not the sort to enjoy being normal, common, pedestrian, or in any ways "proper."

This needed to be solved, opinions were stated, and the next thing we knew there was a club proposed and then instantly taken out back and shot, because what's more commonplace than a club? But this left us with a name sort of flapping in the breeze and not being of any use to anyone.

So we recycled it as the Band Name Of The Day:

The Rumpus Club, which could be anything really, but more often then not plays a swingin' sort of modern take on 1940's tiki-kitch-style "Hawaiian" music. They have a ballad about the Wild Things, and another one about Trader Vic, and yet another one about Woody Woodpecker, and supposedly a rude one about Santa Clause and one of the reindeer, but we can't substantiate that.


*Yes we do. Don't forget that we only post a small percentage of the band names invented every day, so don't think for a moment that we don't have at least one for every day! Hush, you in the back! Do not question The Blogger(s)!

Sunday, July 3, 2011

Summertime, And The Livin' Is Easy

Well, it's well and truly summer. Long, hot days are here, it's the (in)famous Fourth of July Weekend, and that means long walks, playing at REI, barbecues, things of that nature. It does not, traditionally, include hanging around at home playing on the internet and posting to blogs, but it's been a while, so we'll put some new Band Names Of The Day up for you.

The first one comes from someone we know and love cleaning chipped toenail polish of her tootsies:

The Acetones, which can only... wait, what? It's already taken? Yup, seems there's The Ace-Tones, Acetone,  and even The Acetones! We can't use that, it's already taken.

OK, so, earlier in the day we were off on a long walk climbing Albany Hill, and in a pinch, that could do quite well. Especially since it calls out to "Blueberry Hill," made famous by Fats Domino. And with that in mind:

Albany Hill, which... is also already taken? God damnit! Stupid local boys using local names...

When in doubt, they say, look to inspiration from nature. Unfortunately, we're inside right now, so the nearest things to nature at the plants on the mantelpiece and Willie the cat who, incidentally, seems to enjoy hanging out inside the fireplace. Apparently he isn't black enough and need to track soot wherever he can. However, that in itself can lead to inspiration:

The Chimney Cats, who could be a hell of a blues or swing band. They could go old-time jugband too, or even more toward a contemporary hipster-style acoustic rock- really, quite versatile. And there's no band named The Chimney Cats that comes up in the first page of Google, so we've done due diligence and the Devil take the hindmost!