There's a horrible cold going around. Don't catch it. I can usually fight these things off, but this one knocked me flat. I'll have to let the band names do the heavy lifting in the cleverness department. Lucky for all of us, this batch is up to the challenge.
Cure for the Common
I'm pretty sure I would have picked this even if I wasn't down with a cold. Always great to find something to lift you out of the mundane.
Darkness Stole the Sky
Long Dark Moon
Mythopoetic explanations for lunar phases, winter, night.
Too Close to Touch
Blows the mind. I think quantum physics must be involved.
Yak Attack
Fun rhyme of the week! I feel a lot better now.
Naming a band is an act of concentrated creative expression. Square Pig in a Round Hole exists to reward five favorite band names each week. Winners are listed alphabetically. Selection is wholly unscientific and subject to whim, with a bias toward wordplay, humor, and local flavor. In most cases, I won't know anything about the bands at the time of selection. Thanks to the Seattle Times club listings for abundant source material!
Saturday, February 27, 2016
Saturday, February 20, 2016
February 20, 2016
Rather than give anything up for Lent, I decided to do something active and submit work to my friends' various literary projects. One poem, one flash fiction, and two short stories down; at least two more poems to go. Feels like a good discipline before starting another novel. Meanwhile, this blog is another good discipline: every week I get to think about band names and why I love them.
Coeur de Pirate
For reasons unknown, the mascot of my inland high-desert high school was the Pirates. It doesn't make sense, but some part of me will always be a pirate at heart. This also makes me think of a friend who is writing a book of pirate poems and had a pirate-themed wedding last Halloween. Now there's someone with the heart of a pirate! This one's for Kate.
Loudsole
Foot-stompin' music is good for that other kind of soul.
Nothing Sounds Good
I like the multiple meanings: 1) there is no good sound; 2) even absence is music; 3) everything on the menu is what I don't want; 4) I prefer the void. And probably a few more besides.
Phono Paradiso
Could be the flip side of Nothing Sounds Good, where all sounds are blessed. A sound garden, as it were. Hmmm.
Sewer Troll
Urban trolls have it figured out. They never have to risk coming out in daylight. They can lurk in the sewers and only appear on the Internet.
Coeur de Pirate
For reasons unknown, the mascot of my inland high-desert high school was the Pirates. It doesn't make sense, but some part of me will always be a pirate at heart. This also makes me think of a friend who is writing a book of pirate poems and had a pirate-themed wedding last Halloween. Now there's someone with the heart of a pirate! This one's for Kate.
Loudsole
Foot-stompin' music is good for that other kind of soul.
Nothing Sounds Good
I like the multiple meanings: 1) there is no good sound; 2) even absence is music; 3) everything on the menu is what I don't want; 4) I prefer the void. And probably a few more besides.
Phono Paradiso
Could be the flip side of Nothing Sounds Good, where all sounds are blessed. A sound garden, as it were. Hmmm.
Sewer Troll
Urban trolls have it figured out. They never have to risk coming out in daylight. They can lurk in the sewers and only appear on the Internet.
Saturday, February 13, 2016
February 13, 2016
Having taken on a bunch of debt to fix up our house, we are economizing by having Valentine's Day at home this year. But I encourage everyone who is not economizing -- single, coupled, or something else -- to share the love with your favorite local musicians this weekend and beyond. I offer a Valentine to these five:
The Lochness Mobsters
Love it when you change one letter and get a whole new image that still sort of makes sense. Grainy photograph of a guy in a fedora with a Tommy gun rising out of the water.
The Machine That Took My Family
I'm a big fan of band names with a few too many words. This one has tragic sci-fi implications.
Puget Noise
It's almost too easy! This is who we are. As a musician, it has always made me happy that our local arm of the sea is called a sound. I also find it amusing that a region known for polite (or is that passive/aggressive) introverts is also famous for jets, rock music, and football fans who register on the Richter scale. (A Google search for this band name also turned up my alma mater, the University of Puget Sound. They are both in Tacoma. Coincidence?)
Speaker of the House
Many years ago, my brother blew out a stereo speaker and turned it into a feedback machine. It was dubbed the Speaker of the House and became a beloved part of the free-improv group Banned Rehearsal (because some people can't resist a pun). I'm glad someone else saw the musical potential in this title.
Truth Decay
So appropriate in an election year. Is there something we can brush and floss to prevent this?
(In case anyone is interested, last weekend's Write Here, Write Now workshop was extremely productive. The stalled novel project is officially unstalled.)
The Lochness Mobsters
Love it when you change one letter and get a whole new image that still sort of makes sense. Grainy photograph of a guy in a fedora with a Tommy gun rising out of the water.
The Machine That Took My Family
I'm a big fan of band names with a few too many words. This one has tragic sci-fi implications.
Puget Noise
It's almost too easy! This is who we are. As a musician, it has always made me happy that our local arm of the sea is called a sound. I also find it amusing that a region known for polite (or is that passive/aggressive) introverts is also famous for jets, rock music, and football fans who register on the Richter scale. (A Google search for this band name also turned up my alma mater, the University of Puget Sound. They are both in Tacoma. Coincidence?)
Speaker of the House
Many years ago, my brother blew out a stereo speaker and turned it into a feedback machine. It was dubbed the Speaker of the House and became a beloved part of the free-improv group Banned Rehearsal (because some people can't resist a pun). I'm glad someone else saw the musical potential in this title.
Truth Decay
So appropriate in an election year. Is there something we can brush and floss to prevent this?
(In case anyone is interested, last weekend's Write Here, Write Now workshop was extremely productive. The stalled novel project is officially unstalled.)
Friday, February 5, 2016
February 5, 2016
Blogging usually happens on Saturday, but I'm getting my post done early because tomorrow I will be away from the Internet! I'll be attending Seattle 7 Writers' "Write Here, Write Now" conference, hobnobbing with my fellow wizards and hoping to get some good ideas to jump-start a stalled novel project. The good news this week is that a decidedly unstalled novel project, The Gospel According to St. Rage, will release in June 2016, thanks to the good people at Pankhearst. This garage rock fairy tale grew out of the short story "St. Rage", which was the January 2015 release from the Pankhearst Singles Club. The novel is full of fictional band names, some of them nearly as good as these real ones:
The Bird and the Bee
A reminder to parents that when you have The Talk with your kids, you can generalize many things but in the end, every intimate relationship is as individual as the participants, (with apologies to Tolstoy) happy or unhappy in its own way.
March to May
I like how this can be a simple 3-month time period, or a determined trek from the dregs of winter to the warm heart of spring.
Sound of Ceres
Live from the Asteroid Belt!
Test Apes
Experimental simians to the eye, trial cassettes to the ear.
Trust Me I'm Scared
An ironic reassurance but oddly appropriate in an election year.
The Bird and the Bee
A reminder to parents that when you have The Talk with your kids, you can generalize many things but in the end, every intimate relationship is as individual as the participants, (with apologies to Tolstoy) happy or unhappy in its own way.
March to May
I like how this can be a simple 3-month time period, or a determined trek from the dregs of winter to the warm heart of spring.
Sound of Ceres
Live from the Asteroid Belt!
Test Apes
Experimental simians to the eye, trial cassettes to the ear.
Trust Me I'm Scared
An ironic reassurance but oddly appropriate in an election year.
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