Square Pig in a Round Hole-March 23, 2019

Posted on by kareneisenbreywriter

Square PigNaming 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 (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 Seattle Times club listings for abundant source material!

I’m on vacation!!! Next week I will be heading down to Portland for the AWP (Association of Writers and Writing Programs) conference. I have never been to this kind of event before; I expect it to be overwhelming but fun. In addition to hobnobbing with my fellow wizards at workshops and presentations, I get to sign books with (and attend a panel by) other Not A Pipe Publishing authors, at least one of whom I will be meeting in person for the first time. The only downside: I will be away from the blog next weekend. Fortunately, this week’s crop of band names is strong enough to carry us through till next time. Catch you in April!

Be Forest

A gentle command to be one with nature, this also sounds like a superlative preposition denoting a point earlier than which one cannot go.

Delicate Steve

Only a man secure in himself would call himself delicate.

Fell from the Ship

A most poetic euphemism, previously unknown to me. I chose it from the listings on Friday afternoon, intrigued by the implied action and drama. Friday night, we watched two short films that came with the Blu Ray of Orphée by Jean Cocteau (La villa Santo Sospir and a filmed interview with Cocteau). In one of them, he spoke of old friends who had passed on. Whatever he said in French was subtitled “fell from the ship.”

Fragile Weapons

The legendary sword that shatters when used with less than pure motives.

Hand Habits

Could be nervous tics, like nail biting, finger drumming, or hair twirling. Could as easily be practiced behaviors, like instrument fingering, ball handling, or drum rudiments.

 

One last thing before you go: I share highlights from this blog in my quarterly author newsletter, as well as news of what I’m writing and reading, and other goodies. It’s called The Storypunk Report and the first issue is out! Click the link to check it out and subscribe here for future issues. Next one comes out in April. (Or just follow the blog for your weekly dose of band names.)

Square Pig in a Round Hole-March 16, 2019

Posted on by kareneisenbreywriter

Square PigNaming 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 (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 Seattle Times club listings for abundant source material!

OK, I don’t want to jinx it, but the weather forecast seems to say our sacrifice of an hour was effective and winter is beating a retreat! It’s been a rough week but it seems to have been worth it. We at Square Pig HQ are still recovering, but if you’re back on your feet, consider celebrating with a well-named band like one of these:

Amyl and the Sniffers

Before smelling an unmarked substance, remember your chemistry lab technique because it might be mustard … or ammonia.

The Antlers

I have a special fondness for both animal and body-part names, so an animal body-part name stands out. Antlers are a special case: big and showy, they are shed and regrown every year. A fresh start.

The Brook & the Bluff

Scenic natural features reminding us that outdoors is a thing and it might be warm enough to go there. Don’t fall in and don’t fall off.

Space Vacation

This was my dream until I learned about space sickness. Even if I didn’t get it, you know somebody would. There are certain things you don’t want floating around in zero-G.

Zeal & Ardor

Implies an entire alphabet of enthusiasm, backward and forward.

 

One last thing before you go: I share highlights from this blog in my quarterly author newsletter, as well as news of what I’m writing and reading, and other goodies. It’s called The Storypunk Report and the first issue is out! Click the link to check it out and subscribe here for future issues. Next one comes out in April. (Or just follow the blog for your weekly dose of band names.)

Square Pig in a Round Hole-March 9, 2019

Posted on by kareneisenbreywriter

Square PigNaming 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 (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 Seattle Times club listings for abundant source material!

Maybe if we all sacrifice an hour, the snow gods will be appeased enough to leave us alone until next winter. If that doesn’t work, turn up the music and dance. Neither snow nor sleet will keep us from our favorite band names:

Blood, Fire and Rainwater

Blood and Fire Hallelujah

Bookplate found in an old family diary

 

A heady cocktail that shouldn’t mix but does. Hallelujah.

Cat Valley

A writer’s paradise. Come for the fur, stay for the purr.

Dusty Cubby

The poignancy of one thing ending so another can start. Put on your backpack and leave the dust and crumbs of kindergarten behind.

Pragmatic Chaos

Evokes Keith Moon: strategic deployment of musical forces in service to the illusion of wildness.

Salt Lick

Last summer, we encountered a sculpture in Baker City, OR, cast from a salt lick shaped by critters obtaining minerals. Two great monosyllables, better together at the intersection of nature and art.

 

One last thing before you go: I share highlights from this blog in my quarterly author newsletter, as well as news of what I’m writing and reading, and other goodies. It’s called The Storypunk Report and the first issue is out! Click the link to check it out and subscribe here for future issues. (Or just follow the blog for your weekly dose of band names.)

Square Pig in a Round Hole-March 2, 2019

Posted on by kareneisenbreywriter

Square PigNaming 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 (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 Seattle Times club listings for abundant source material!

When I started this blog back in 2010, it had nothing whatever to do with my fiction writing beyond a personal bias toward sci-fi and fantasy themed band names. That changed when I happened to spy a sign on a local mini-storage with a burned out O. ST RAGE seemed like the name of either a superhero or a rock band, so I made it both. That turned into my first published novel, a garage-rock fairy tale titled The Gospel According to St Rage. The book is now in edits for an updated, enhanced second edition from Not A Pipe Publishing, due out later this year along with its sequel, Barbara and the Rage Brigade. I’m having so much fun working with these characters again! Read to the end to subscribe to my quarterly newsletter and keep up with news about these and other books. Or just follow the blog for your weekly dose of band names, such as these fine examples:

Alfredo Ghosts

Who ya gonna call? Obviously, your favorite Italian restaurant.

Bodies on the Beach

What kind of movie is this, bikini dance party or disaster? OR BOTH!? Beach Blanket Tsunami.

Mansionair

Cash poor, house rich.

Prying Free

Oysters, mussels, hard hearts and closed minds about to open.

Spendtime Palace

Sounds like an oddly translated name for a vacation resort or kids’ TV show. (The listings lost a comma, so for a moment I thought there was a band called Ceramic Animal Spendtime Palace, which was like the too-long psychedelic band name of my dreams. Turns out I featured Ceramic Animal on September 1, 2018.)

One last thing before you go: I share highlights from this blog in my quarterly author newsletter, as well as news of what I’m writing and reading, and other goodies. It’s called The Storypunk Report and the first issue is out! Click the link to check it out and subscribe here for future issues.

Square Pig in a Round Hole-February 23, 2019

Posted on by kareneisenbreywriter

Square PigNaming 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 (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 Seattle Times club listings for abundant source material!

I’m not getting out to any band shows this weekend but I did get to play in something much weirder: Piano Drop Live Performance at Jack Straw, a concert of an array of short pieces composed for and performed on the remains of a piano that was dropped from a helicopter in 1968. I was part of the ensemble performing “Piano Gusting” by Aaron Keyt. From the event page:

In 1968 KRAB FM—which was founded and run by the Jack Straw Foundation, now known as Jack Straw Cultural Center—collaborated with the Helix newspaper and KRAB producer and musician Larry Van Over to drop an upright piano from a helicopter at Van Over’s farm in Duvall, Washington.

The Piano Drop installation, a commemoration of this historic occasion, publicly displays what remains of this instrument for the first time since the event, along with historical film footage and documents, and recordings of new music composed and performed on the instrument.

The concert was a one-off (and spectacular) but the installation continues through March 15. As far as I know, none of these bands has dropped a piano from a helicopter but they all have great names.

Abstracter

A comparison of concreteness, but chosen for unrelated personal reasons. Decades ago, when my spouse and I began a long-distance Seattle-Tacoma relationship, he was in his first corporate job, which held the impressive title “abstractor,” but actually involved a lot of reading court documents and typing. We took as our superhero names TacoMan and the Abstractor.

The Gotobeds

I’m seeing exhausted parents of preschoolers. If that’s not punk song fodder, I don’t know what is.

PickleBoy

The name is likable in that goofy, fun-to-say way. These pickles are the sweet kind.

Saves the Day

Whoever is listed before them on the poster gets to be a superhero, at least for one night.

Sterling Serpent

Loving the sibilance and internal rhymes. This would be a great title for an epic fantasy novel.

 

One last thing before you go: I share highlights from this blog in my quarterly author newsletter, as well as news of what I’m writing and reading, and other goodies. It’s called The Storypunk Report and the first issue is out! Click the link to check it out and subscribe here for future issues.

Square Pig in a Round Hole-February 16, 2019

Posted on by kareneisenbreywriter

Square PigNaming 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 (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 Seattle Times club listings for abundant source material!

I don’t know about anyone else, but snow wears me out: the heavy boots, the shoveling, the unreliable bus service … I’m pleased to see the return of our regularly scheduled winter, i.e. 40 degrees and raining. That should mean shows won’t be cancelled and these bands will get to play:

Digging for Change

In spite of what Urban Dictionary says, I choose to believe this has to do with tunneling through the Earth to somehow bring about the good timeline. Or else couch cushions and bus fare.

Einar

Chosen entirely because this was my grandfather’s name at birth, before his adoptive parents changed it to Charles. Had my mother known in time, my brother might have been named Einar.

Reptile Brain

I’d like to believe music reaches through all the layers of consciousness and instinct.

Sluglicker

Here’s another one where the literal interpretation is funnier (and grosser) than the Urban Dictionary definition. Local flavor at its ickiest.

Thumpasaurus

Great big prehistoric funk.

 

Updated exciting announcement: My comic multi-piano haunted house flash fiction story “Aunt Clara’s House” has been accepted as one of 100+ stories by 100+ authors in Itty Bitty Writing Space, a print and e-book anthology to be released in June 2019. The Kickstarter had a wildly successful launch, allowing the addition of 4 more authors and receiving enough pledges to a 48-hour library benefit to provide 256 books to libraries. The campaign continues for 5 more days (through February 21) and there are many wonderful premiums available at all levels, even $1. Learn more and back the campaign here.

One last thing: I share highlights from this blog in my quarterly author newsletter, as well as news of what I’m writing and reading, and other goodies. It’s called The Storypunk Report and the first issue is out! Click the link to check it out and subscribe here for future issues.

Square Pig in a Round Hole-February 9, 2019

Posted on by kareneisenbreywriter

Square PigNaming 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 (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 Seattle Times club listings for abundant source material!

This weekend’s events have most likely been cancelled. Go back to bed. Or shovel your neighbor’s walk. Or download music by your favorite local bands and/or books by your favorite local authors, snuggle up by the fire, and enjoy this unusual weather. (For readers outside the greater Seattle area: we have several inches of snow on the ground and more on the way. It’s too hilly here to do anything but shut down for a few days. See you after the thaw.) Even if these bands’ gigs get cancelled, I will celebrate them here:

13 Finches

There are 13 ways of looking at a blackbird and 13 ways of being a finch in the Galapagos. But I chose this one because on Thursday, a friend described an art installation consisting of finches and electric guitars. Wish I’d seen/heard it!

Beige Radio

It may be drab on the outside, but the interesting stuff comes from the speakers.

Bible Study

How you get to band practice when your parents disapprove of the devil’s music.

Blackberry Smoke

Not a local band, but this seems like a cocktail or barbecue sauce one might find at our neighborhood smoked meat emporium, local flavor procured from the local bramble.

Supermissive

Passive-aggressive taken to a new level? Or an acceptance letter from your dream publisher?

 

Updated exciting announcement: My comic haunted house flash fiction story “Aunt Clara’s House” has been accepted as one of 100+ stories by 100+ authors in Itty Bitty Writing Space, a print and e-book anthology to be released in June 2019. The Kickstarter had a wildly successful launch, allowing the addition of 4 more authors and receiving enough pledges to a 48-hour library benefit to provide 256 books to libraries. The campaign continues through February 21 and there are many wonderful premiums available at all levels, even $1. Learn more and back the campaign here.

One last thing: I share highlights from this blog in my quarterly author newsletter, as well as news of what I’m writing and reading, and other goodies. It’s called The Storypunk Report and the first issue is out! Click the link to check it out and subscribe here for future issues.