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.