NO! DON'T quit right now! 'Cos I've discovered THE MOTHERLODE OF KICK-ASS NEVER-USED-BEFORE BAND NAMES. DOZENS of 'em. Suitable for any genre. Band names so incredible that the mind struggles to comprehend the overwhelming kick-assness of the 'em. And where did I discover this mythical haul? Why, dear reader...IN THE TWILIGHT ZONE.
Dig: I'm flicking through an A-Z Of Television type book this week and I'm reading about The Twilight Zone, a show which is unspeakably cool for a whole buncha reasons that I don't really have time to get into here, and I'm looking down the episode guide - thinking, 'gee, I wonder if there might be a good band name here, I mean, "We got it from an old episode of The Twilight Zone" is a pretty hip reason to give when explaining "how we came up with our name", but I suppose that would be too much to ask...OH MY GOD! THERE'S HUNDREDS OF 'EM!" Check 'em out! The hits don't stop coming!
The Best...
Deaths-Head Revisited (Season 3): I've baggsied this one, and you bastards'll have to have me buried in my cold, cold grave 'fore you get your dirty mits on it. This is an incredible band name; the Nazi / Hells Angels insignia reference, the Brian Jonestown Massacre styled slacker punk pun...when I get my Velvets / Warlocks drone rock outfit going, y'all better watch out for DEATHS-HEAD REVISITED.
Black Leather Jackets (Series 5): How great is that? The Black Leather Jackets. I'm thinking...scuzzy, dirty Hamburg-era Beatles styled Rock and Roll combo, all dressed in...y'know...and this wouldn't even be their actual name, it'd just be what the local German girls call 'em 'cos that'd be they can't translate their proper name (like the Japanese called The Beatles 'The Yeah Yeahs').
The Purple Testament (Season 1): S'gotta be prog. "Hello Wyoming! We are PURPLE TESTAMENT!" I hope you like our new direction..."
Ring-A-Ding Girl (Season 5): The Ring-A-Ding Girls. 50's hipster slang reference, with a femme twist. S'gotta be a Shangri-Las meets Etta James girl-group go RnB combo...like The Pipettes, but with more than one good song.
And the rest... (really good ones in bold) (Pluralisation added where appropriate)
Season 1: The Lonely / The Four Of Us Are Dying (emo) / The Hitch-Hiker (s) / The Last Flight / The Fever / The Big Tall Wish (US college rock) / The Chaser (s) (acid-jazz) / The After Hours / The Mighty Casey (Alt. Country)
Season 2: The Howling Man (Men) / The Lateness Of The Hour (emo) / The Trouble With Templeton / A Most Unusual Camera (post-punk) / The Whole Truth / The Invaders (already name of a legendary funk band) / The Odyssey Of Flight 33 (prog) / The Prime Mover (s) ('High Numbers' style Mod) / The Rip Van Winkle Caper / The Silence / Shadow Play (Joy Division tie-in) / The Obsolete Man (Men)
Season 3: The Shelter / The Passerby (s) / The Midnight Sun / (The) Dead Mans Shoes (Tom Waits / Nick Cave) / The Trade-Ins (Post Libs grot-rock) / The Gift (Velvets tie-in)
Season 4: The Thirty Fathom Grave (goth) / The Parallel / The New Exhibit (art rock) / The Incredible World Of Horace Ford (hands off, this ones mine too) / The Bard (Shakspeare rock)
Season 5: (The) Nightmare At 20,000 Feet / The Last Night Of A Jockey / The 7th Is Made Up Of Phantoms / The Long Morrow / The Self Improvement of Salvadore Ross / The Masks (art rock) / I Am The Night / The Jeopardy Room / The Encounter (s) (soul revue) / The Brain Centre At Whipples / The Fear / The Bewitchin' Pool
So at a rough count I figure The Twilight Zone is responsible for 45 kick-ass band names! Print off this page and stick a pin in it! I look forward to catching The Brain Centre At Whipples at Glasto next year... ¶ 11:13 AM 0 Comments
The Wombats - Let's Dance To Joy Division
Music: Fast-Track Graduate Scheme Rock In The Contemporary Style. Jack Panate not enough of a dumb-headed posho for you? The Hoosiers not sickeningly desperate enough for mainstream Jo Whiley sponsored faux-indie success for you? Do you find Scouting For Girls just don't appeal to Sports Science students enough? Try The Wombats! They've got a crazeee name! They probably claim they make 'intelligent pop music'! But actually they hate pop music! It's post-modern double-thinkery of the most irritatingly pretentious kind! If they really liked pop music they'd be making exciting, fizzy, dance floor slaying records that sound like Girls Aloud instead of this wonky, humdrum, watered down sub-Young Knives chart alt. rock, and we'd all thank 'em for it! Climaxes in the deployment of a school choir, a pop music tactic which has become something of a cliche of late (see Jamie T), apparently thrown in because the air raid sirens, crowd sfx and kitchen sink couldn't be located.
Lyrics: The real kicker. Chorus: "Let's dance to Joy Division, and celebrate the i-ron-y." There are so many things wrong with this lyric that the mind reels at the kaleidoscopic awfulness of it all. I don't really care what point The Womats are making, I dunno if they're berating clueless hipsters for jiving to Joy Div, or applauding the recontexualisation of Joy Div as indie disco music, whatever, it's all pretty confused and of absolutely of no value to anyone either way. Referencing Joy Division is simply an act of artless clever-cleverness. I mean, come on guys! Joy Division? Is that the best canonised post-punk doomapalooza act you could come up with? Why not Gang Of Four? Caberet Voltaire? Aren't we all sorta over the whole Joy Div thing by now? Even The Killers don't care about 'em anymore! And word to the wise: when you're producing a song as drenched in irony as this, DON'T ACTUALLY USE THE WORD 'IRONY' IN THE LYRICS! It's sorta unnecessary don't ya think? It's like, WE GET IT! You're CONCEPTUAL!
Oh, and anuvva thang: you're from Liverpool. You should sound like The Las. That's the rule. If you don't like it, be from somewhere else.
Labels: Indie Rock 'n' Roll
¶ 10:57 AM 2 Comments
