Naming a band is an act of concentrated creative expression. Since 2010, Square Pig in a Round Hole has been rewarding five favorite band names each week. Winners are (usually) 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 Stranger’s Everout nightlife listings for abundant source material!
It’s the first Saturday of the new year, the Feast of the Epiphany, and the third anniversary of an event I still can’t believe happened in my lifetime. Whatever happens in 2024, let’s start it off right: with band names.
If you are able, please buy these bands’ music and merch. And … hit the follow button at the lower right to never miss a post.
Aunty Pho
I’m not sure who has the better pun game, Vietnamese restaurants or rock bands. Whichever it is, the resistance runs on soup. (So underground, they don’t seem to have any online presence, alas.)
Beecreeping
Hanging around outside the hive, trying to pick up workers.
Bog
As much as long band names win me over, I am also a fan of the monosyllable. Especially when the word sounds as muddy as the body of water.
Vertigo Zoo
If exposure to animals makes you dizzy, maybe don’t lean over the fence around the lion exhibit.
Water Is the Alien
The stuff that makes life possible came from space.
Two last things before you go:
- I run The Rage Brigade, a Facebook group for conversation about fantasy, science fiction, superheroes, and music (and the intersections thereof). If that sounds like fun, come join us here.
- I share highlights from this blog in my quarterly author newsletter, The Storypunk Report, as well as news of what I’m writing and reading, upcoming events, and other goodies, including “Wizard in the Mosh Pit,” an exclusive short story just for subscribers. Click the link to check out the archive and subscribe here for future issues. (Or just follow the blog for your weekly dose of band names.)
Karen Eisenbrey 
I can’t remember if I wrote you last year on this topic or if I just thought about it. I did a whole flash fiction on this idea a few years ago, in the course of which one of the characters cites his all-time favorite name–and these are a pack of young males, which contributes to their gobsmacked reverence for the handle: THE TESTICICLES. Male and cool, both. Back in the late 70s, when I just beginning to write stories, living in Montana, I had a character roadie for LOOSE CABOOSE, which I thought had a ring to it, and of course it wasn’t long afterward that I saw that it was a real band. One of my young boy’s bands, 20 years ago, was PAXIL ROSE (not too bad), and in the late 80s I and my fellow neer-do-wells had a blues band called TUT & THE UNCOMMONS. I’ve always liked GOD SPEED YOU, BLACK EMPEROR and WE WERE PROMISED JETPACKS. The conceit of the flash I mentioned was guys trying to come up with a name before the first gig; on says all the names have been used up so there can’t be any more bands.
LikeLiked by 1 person
LOL, these are all so great! I particularly like Tut & the Uncommons. I’m pretty sure writing this blog made it possible to write The Gospel According to St. Rage, in which I had the fun job of naming a bunch of fictional bands. Only one of them, Plague of Turtles, has since turned out to be real. St. Rage, of course, came from a sign with a burned-out O. I wrote about We Were Promised Jetpacks on November 11, 2011: “I have an enduring soft spot for the past’s vision of the future. We have near-instanteous global communication that some use to complain that we don’t have jetpacks and flying cars. Meanwhile, I have at least 10 household lasers and I’m typing on a tiny yet powerful computer connected wirelessly to every other computer in the house and to the Internet. I admit it — it’s the future.”
LikeLike