musical nomenclature
Blake Rainey and His Demons, Seaxe Club, Essex UK
I am on the verge of belonging to two bands. One is named “The Forever War,” after a sci fi novel. The other has a tentative name that I won’t mention, but that spawned a frantic burst of writerly creativity this afternoon. That kind of writerly goodness that comes out in the form of a rant, but is nonetheless wildly entertaining to waste time on in the middle of weekday.
While contemplating the second band’s proposed name (and remembering the cluster that naming the first band was - lists and lists and finger-pointing and disgruntledness that stretched on for weeks), I find that I have a very strong opinion about band names.
Things I think to be true:
- No band name should ever be longer than 3 words, with 1 or 2 being preferable. Some context: look at the EARL website (a local venue here that books bands of the same genre we play in–straight-up indie rock.) Check the names of upcoming bands. Moresight. Elevado. Can Can. American Princes. Caribou. Jesu. The Shins. Film School. Spoon. Jawbox. etc. etc. etc. Not that all of those bands are even great, but their names are definitely easy to remember. The human mind is fickle and forgetful and there are a hundred thousand million unsigned, easily forgotten band names out there. My rule: even three words is pushing it, and four or more starts to sound like bad teenage poetry. Simpler is better. (An exception: Names that are “So and So and the Blah Blah’s” See next bullet for more on that.)
- Personal names work great, even if it’s not your name or the name of anyone in the band. The Wayne Williams’. The Donnas. Gnarls Barkley. (and that’s a pun, even). Neko Case. Rizzudo. Anna Kramer. The caveat on that is that straight first-and-last-names work best when the type of music is more singer-songwritery or acoustic. In my head, “the someones” works much better for harder stuff and bands that don’t have a frontman/woman who is the soul of the group.
- Ellipses are the devil’s handiwork. Everyone has their own punctuational hangups. I use too many em-dashes. Ellipses are, in my opinion, a bit of a base-level cop out. They say “I had more to say, but couldn’t be bothered to be concise enough to work with the space I had.” To wit, the worst band name ever, especially for such a great band: “…And You Will Know Us By TheTrail Of Dead.” Bastards. Great music. Hideous, long, pretentious-sounding name.
- Names that evoke intentionally subtle references to political things. If you’re going to make your band name a statement about the war or the administration or social injustice or mental illness or something equally contentious, for crap’s sake, get some balls and just name it “Mother Fucking Bush” or “Iraq Blows” or “Nobody Wins” or “Slit Your Wrists” or something. For the record, I only agreed to “The Forever War” because it’s a sci-fi novel title and could therefore semantically divorce itself from being nothing more than a thinly-veiled rail against the ongoing war in Iraq. Other things that work might be things like “Untied States” - because it’s clever (but I argue that that one actually kind of sucks because I for one ALWAYS read it “United States,” even though I know who they are.)
- In my opinion, sentences do not work as band names. See rule one. I cannot thing of any sentence that would be strong enough to carry an entire band’s persona on its back. Single or double words just have more impact.
My best advice for naming a band would be the same advice that I’d give to someone branding a company or naming a product. I’d ask, “what is the overlying personality that bubbles to the surface among the band? What’s the music like? What does the band “sound” like to you?”
“The Shins” works for them because a “shin” is a strange, out-of-context body part that you don’t think much about, it’s a little neglected, nobody wants to be kicked there, it’s just sad and childish, and as a word it’s unique to roll around on one’s tongue. All of which goes well with a band that writes mostly in heavy, 6-syllable metaphor. It just works.
Now that I’ve put my two-cents in to the other bandmembers, I’ll have to come UP with something.
So, an open question: what makes a good band name to YOU?
