October 13, 2012

I've been on vacation this week! Our glorious summer lingered just long enough for a trip to Mt. Rainier and the last perfect day in Paradise. Suddenly we're staring squarely down the barrel of winter -- just the time to hunker down in a dingy bar and hear some loud comfort music. A few choice morsels to consider:

Mausoleum Neeson
I'm always a sucker for the ones you have to read out loud to get the joke. As a fan of Mr. Neeson's work, I also appreciate a shout-out when I see one, backhanded as it may be.

Science!
It's the exclamation point that does it. We should be excited about science!

Skip the Foreplay
Can't necessarily recommend this as good advice, but I have to admire their confidence that whatever they're doing will be worth it.

The Solvents
Something harsh and strong to strip away all that is sticky or extraneous.

Toxic Reign
Fun with spelling and double meanings. Perhaps also a comment on this electoral season and what may lie ahead.

October 6, 2012

As I blog, I'm listening to Your Mother Should Know, live at the Blue Moon. We sound pretty good! But the best part of playing shows is still that it ensures we get out regularly to hear other people. Yeah, I'm talking about you, Andrew James Robison, Red Ribbon, and Peterman! Great show. On to Reverb Fest tonight. Meanwhile, some band names:

Brokestra
In which our heroes discover just how much money there is to be made in music.

Little Green Cars
One of my brother's high school classmates owned a little green Opel named Stewart (after a pet turtle, I believe). I've liked little green cars ever since, especially when they have names.

My Heart is an Idiot
Technically not a band, but this about sums up 98% of blues, rock and country songs.

Pink House
Across from my childhood home was a pink house, known as The Pink House. Later, it was painted white, and now it's yellow, but it will always be The Pink House to me.

Two Heads is Twice as Many Teeth
Why mess around with metaphor when you can go straight to literal, mathematical fact?

September 29, 2012

So I'm trolling through the Times club listings like I always do on Friday afternoon, looking for good blog material, when I come to the very last listing: Your Mother Should Know, Peterman, Red Ribbon, Andrew James Robison, Thursday night at the Blue Moon. It took me half a tick to go, "Hey! I know those guys! That's us!" Here's the link to the events page: http://www.facebook.com/events/526955247320118/

And I found some other good names, too:

Deerhoof
Eyeball
New Lungs
These three all appeal to me for the same reason -- odd parts out of the context. They can be regarded as gross (in your soup), sinister (giant movie monster), comical (how is one eyeball going to play all the instruments?!) or perhaps hopeful (a new set of lungs when the old ones fail). I kind of hoped to do an all body-parts theme, but I couldn't find two more.

Great Spiders
Giant spider in the third act!

The Leafy Greens
I have always maintained that rock music is good for you.

September 23, 2012

I go out of town for a weekend and many of my favorite bands have gigs! Not fair! Very sorry to miss Pouch, Curtains for You, and Young Fresh Fellows. Well, maybe next time. Great names just keep coming:

Guitars
This name is like Snakes on a Plane-style truth in advertising. Unless, of course, there are no guitars in the band at all, which would also be pretty great.

Moose Portrait
I think I saw this on Facebook last week. I wondered, "Where is squirrel?"

Owl Pussycat
This sounds like the introduction: "Owl, Pussycat. Pussycat, Owl." Then they went to sea in their beautiful pea-green boat.

Slug Guts
Warm Soda
I'm grouping these together because they appeal to me for the same reason: they make me go yuck, but laugh at the same time.

September 15, 2012

Best wishes to longtime Square Pig faves (and friends of Your Mother Should Know) Curtains for You, playing at the Paramount tonight!!! They're opening for The Head and the Heart, but I'm rooting for CFY to steal the show. As always, there are lots of creative band names out there this week, including:

Baba Ganoosh
What's not to like about a band named for a food that sounds like a person's name? I'm also a fan of garlicky eggplant dip, so there you go.

Chixdiggit
This one gets in for self-confidence and creative spelling. It looks like the name for an effects pedal. It's the one that makes an out-of-shape guitarist look like a rock god.

Fearless Lieder
Any band that can combine references to German art song and Rocky and Bullwinkle gets my vote. I see this and I hear Boris Badenov saying it. "That voice! Where have I heard that voice?"

Icky Blossoms
I like the word "icky." Then there's the apparent disconnect with "blossoms," typically a nice, non-icky concept. Are they poisonous? Stinky? Rotting and slimy? Or a gift from a loathed one? I'm intrigued.

The Wizards Sleeve
I'm always on the lookout for wizard references, and here's a new one. That it's just a sleeve, not the entire robe, amuses me. The resident gamers inform me that this is most likely a reference to an item in the game Dungeons of Dredmore. Who knew doing a blog would be so educational?

Special notice this week goes out to a hilarious misspelling: You May Die in the Dessert. I know it's bad for me, but really! (This is actually a favorite image from my childhood; I once wrote a story about an intrepid, shrunken explorer, lost in a towering banana split, all because of what the misspelling suggests.)

September 8, 2012

If I hadn't been up late last night and if I didn't have to get up tomorrow, I would be at the Funhouse tonight for Tom Price Desert Classic and Pierced Arrows. So if you weren't and/or don't, go! On Monday (again, at the Funhouse), I'm sad to be missing Peterman, Charms, and Andrew James Robison, who have appeared with Your Mother Should Know on other occasions. Darn this grown-up schedule, anyway! And there's much, much more to choose from this week:

Dante Vs. Zombies
This sounds like one of those literature + monsters mash-ups. My money's on Dante, because he's got Virgil and the virtuous pagans backing him up. (That would be a good name for a band, too).

Not From Brooklyn
I guess Brooklyn is where the New York hipsters go now, but what could be hipper than Seattle? (Apparently, Tacoma!) After I left Tacoma, I did live on Brooklyn for a month, but that was a long time ago.

Snaketopus
I like this one because it's just campy and silly. Do the tentacles have snake heads? Does it slither up onto the beach and bite people?

Squirrel of Shame
Years ago, I read The Children of Odin to my kids. One of my favorite figures was Ratatosk, the Squirrel of Discord that runs up and down the World Ash Tree. I'm guessing this is his brother.

Trampled By Turtles
I love this image, because of the slow speed. Anything heavy enough to do any damage, you could just roll out of the way. I picture some poor dude, passed out and engulfed by turtles.

September 1, 2012

September already? Sheesh. There's a lot going on this weekend, even for those -- like me -- avoiding Bumbershoot. I recommend Tyrannosaurus Grace at the Comet tonight! No theme to the picks this week:

Author and Punisher
One of the least pleasant parts of writing fiction is being cruel to your characters. Then again, sometimes they deserve it.

Broken Water
Once this happens, there's no turning back. A process has started that ain't over till it's over.

Dead Sonics
I hope this is neither a reference to the band's sound quality nor to the great Northwest garage band. Maybe it has something to do with basketball . . .

Dun Bin Had
Love the spelling. It tells you how to say it, and creates a nicely balanced, complete sentence in three three-letter monosyllables.
 
I Made Them a Steak
As written, this is kind of a strange sentence, which I like. Read aloud, it could have at least two different meanings, one of them about mishearing or misdoing something, which I like even more.