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!
July is here! Always a favorite month, and this year more than ever. My debut novel, The Gospel According to St Rage, will be released in 12 days; I have a vacation right after that; my birthday’s at the end of the month; and here at the beginning, July 4 falls on a Monday and gives us a 3-day weekend. Everybody drive carefully, be excellent to each other, don’t blow off a limb, and don’t black out. Meanwhile, I’m celebrating these band names:
Local flavor! Those of us of a certain age will wax nostalgic at any mention of the Bubbleator, like the Space Needle an homage to the past’s future. I was happy to learn the original had been repurposed as a greenhouse and a recording studio, and perhaps even happier to find it in a band name. The umlaut and the apostrophe add to the appeal: there’s still only one Bubbleator, it’s a metalhead, and it possesses . . . something.
One of the resident young people once explained to me the difference between scary and spooky, in terms of skeletons. A real skeleton on the ground is scary, a reminder of death and danger. An animated skeleton is spooky: macabre but silly. So a dancing skeleton would be extra spooky.
Found this one on the same bill with Extra Spooky. It starts out lovely and poetic, then turns a bit silly as it dozes off. Three is the exact right numbers of z’s.
The pirate association makes this a popular band name — I found three without hardly trying. It’s more fitting for a Seattle band, though, because you can also reference the neighborhood. Watch out, South Lake Union.
As a novelist, I rarely know the ending of the book before I start writing, but discover it as I go, sometimes not until I’m there. The Gospel According to St Rage is the rare example where I knew where I was going and just had to figure out how to get there. It’s the tenth written but the first to be published. Maybe that should tell me something. Or not.
Karen Eisenbrey 