Category: Band names

Square Pig in a Round Hole-January 27, 2018

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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!

Some weeks, it’s a struggle to find five band names I want to write about; other weeks, the riches overflow. This was one of the latter type, with enough outstanding names for a post on Friday alone. I looked through the whole week of listings to be sure I chose the best. My search reaped this generous harvest:

Dismal Thinkings

I read “thinkings” as the intersection of thoughts and feelings, which can certainly take a dismal turn on a gray day in January.

Fossil Youth

Either old before one’s time or preserved in an immature state.

Green Milk from the Planet Orange

Delivered fresh daily by Luke Skywalker.

The Hollerables

When your indoor voice just won’t cut it.

Unbiblical Chords

A typo or mispronunciation turns our first source of nourishment into the devil’s music. I chose this one even before I did a double-take and saw the joke.

Square Pig in a Round Hole-January 20, 2018

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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!

Not quick enough to get tickets to the Seattle Pop Punk Festival before day 1 sold out, I have enjoyed reports from afar. Almost a third of the bands are past Square Pig honorees: Botherations, Date Night with Brian, Dead Bars, The Drolls, and Stuporhero. Meanwhile, these non-festival bands made the cut this week:

Chronological Injustice

Either ageism or being born in the wrong century.

Final Body

Hint: it’s the one we die with.

The Go Aways

Lesser Seattle and the spirit of Emmett Watson live on!

The Mercy Ray

A gently beaming smile, or Tesla’s “Peace Beam” by another name?

Wrong Way at the Roundabout

When traffic gets tangled, don’t get mad; get out and dance. I also like how the alliteration isn’t obvious in the spelling.

Square Pig in a Round Hole-January 13, 2018

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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!

New readers (or even regular readers) of this blog might be wondering why a fantasy novelist is writing about band names. I blame my spouse. He started keeping a music-listening journal way back in 1985 or so. In 2010, he started a blog, Now Music in New Albion, to share his responses to what he was listening to, and suggested that I, at that time an unpublished writer, should start one, too. But about what? The world didn’t need another writing blog, and I didn’t feel like forcing myself to come up with new topics all the time. But every Friday, I would read through the club listings in the newspaper and share the ones that caught my interest. “Why not blog about that?” he said. My assignment to myself: pick five a week and briefly explain why I like them or respond to them in some other way. Square Pig in a Round Hole was born. It seemed completely unrelated to my other writing until September 2013, when I saw a sign for a storage place with a burned-out O. St Rage sounded like a band name to me. Over the next couple of years, I wrote a novel about them. The Gospel According to St Rage was published in 2016 and now I’m writing a sequel. And the blog continues unabated for the foreseeable future. Thanks to all the bands for their continued inspiration. Who made the list this week?

Creature Hole

This is either a cozy image of an animal snuggled down in its den for the winter; or a pit of horrors into which one is thrown by one’s nemesis. (To my delight, I find they were previously honored under an earlier name, Garlic Man and Chikn.)

meek is murder

Change one sound and an animal-rights slogan becomes an equation of non-violence with violence. All in lower case, it even looks meek; the better to take us off guard?

One Above Below None

This one has a tidy structure of binary opposites sandwiched between binary opposites. It implies being on top but not by much.

The Schizophonics

The Quadrophenia idea comes full circle. Music is good for your mental health.

West Hell

Is this the good part of town, or is it that special Hell one hears tell of?

Square Pig in a Round Hole-January 6, 2018

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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!

Happy New Year and an enlightened Epiphany to all! Bands continue to feed me excellent writing prompts, so I expect to be here sharing them for the duration. 2018 begins with these lovelies:

Anime Creek

The tadpoles and crawdads have the biggest eyes!

goawaysun

Maybe not the time of year to be saying this; it’s only started creeping back! Wait till August.

Reader

The writer’s best friend.

Shoe Aquarium

That time it rained so hard, you were pouring fish out of your footwear.

Symptom of the Universe

Diagnosis: you (are) matter. (I didn’t know the song but I love it as a name for a Black Sabbath tribute band.)

Square Pig in a Round Hole-December 31, 2017

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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!

It’s another New Year’s Eve! Although I might not make it all the way to midnight, even I am going out tonight. As we stumble toward the finish line of another year, I want to thank my tens of readers for joining the celebration of band names, and especially thank the bands for continuing to come up with names worth celebrating. In a stressful year like this one, we need all the little joys we can get. Let’s close it out with these gems:

Guardian Alien

I feel better knowing benevolent ETs are looking out for us, don’t you?

Iron Krill

Food of choice for anemic whales.

The Fungineers

Designing and fabricating their own entertainment. Maybe from mushrooms.

Vomitface

It’s a big party night! Have fun, but go easy on the cheap bubbly.

Weep Wave

Cry me a tsunami.

Square Pig in a Round Hole-December 23, 2017

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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!

Christmas, Winter Solstice, and Star Wars all teach the same thing: darkness will not overcome the light. To quote Rose in The Last Jedi, “It’s not always about fighting what you hate; it’s about saving what you love.” Music is always part of that. May we continue to sing out, and to name our bands as well as these:

Age of Fiction

The storytellers will rise at last.

Meanderthals

Just us cave people out for a directionless stroll.

Not Til Tomorrow

Answer to “When can we hang our stockings?” We’ll open presents the day after that.

Splitting Silence

When it’s so quiet, your own thoughts are deafening.

Steel Beans

Structural legumes: no amount of soaking will soften them enough to eat, but they do hold their shape.

Square Pig in a Round Hole-December 16, 2017

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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!

At this dark time of year, the light of creativity is a gift. There was a lot to be found in the club listings this week; these five shone brightest:

Breakneck Love

A thrilling and dangerous romance.

Dr. Hellno and the Yesmen

Classic X and the Y structure in perfect balance.

Hi Crime

It’s a lot less threatening spelled this way.

In Aisle Eight

Cleanup? Meltdown? Fight? Breakneck romance? The setting is provided. Imagine the story.

Necronomidol

For that time of month when you’re dead.

Square Pig in a Round Hole-December 9, 2017

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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!

It’s a cold and sunny day in Seattle, now that the fog has burned off. Enjoy it while you can; it’ll be dark before you know it! And yet hours to go before the music starts. While you wait, consider these fine band names:

Figure It Out

A ready answer to any question that begins “How do I . . .?”

The Oxford Coma

As a grammar/punctuation nerd of long standing, I can’t pass this one up. When the struggle with how to punctuate a series causes the brain to shut down. (Would like to see them on a bill with past honoree Iffy Comma, also playing this week.)

Pretty Gritty

I like the near rhyme of seeming opposites. There is beauty in the unscrubbed. (Would like to see them on a bill with past honoree Grubby Sweetheart, also playing this week.)

Sundressed

It isn’t really the season for sundresses or to be dressed in nothing but sunlight or to eat plain salad on the patio, but I did see someone this morning walking barefoot around Green Lake.

Super Saturated Sugar Strings

A fun science experiment that by happy chance alliterates. It also sounds like a Saturday morning cartoon about a team of candy-colored violinists with uncanny powers.

 

Square Pig in a Round Hole-December 2, 2017

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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!

At last, it is no longer too early for Christmas music and holiday decorations. If you’re already stressing about gifts, don’t. Get everybody music by your favorite local bands or books by your favorite local authors. And if you need a suggestion, I’m not above recommending my own garage-rock fairy tale, The Gospel According to St Rage. Now that’s out of the way, we can get on with the celebration of band names!

BFFs Forever and Ever Amen

An abbreviation turns into a redundancy turns into a prayer. These best friends are emphatically BEST.

Starcrawler

Either the slowest spaceship, or Skywalker’s daycare nickname, before he could walk.

Surf the Pines

A beautiful, impossible dream born of camping in the piney woods where the wind in the trees sounds like the ocean’s roar.

A View of the Earth from the Moon

When you need perspective. (I have a personal fondness for extra-long band names, especially when they reference an image I have loved for most of my life.)

White Shark Cafe

AKA the beach on Amity Island on the 4th of July. (Actually a region of the Pacific, but whatever. Apparently even sharks need a place to hang out and work on their novels.)

Square Pig in a Round Hole-November 25, 2017

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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!

If you’re over your food coma and down from your shopping binge, let’s get back to the business of celebrating bands and their names. There’s still lots of weekend in which to enjoy some live music!

BoobooLaLa

Endearing either as baby talk or backing vocals.

Dark Time Sunshine

At the dark end of the year, remember to treasure those sun breaks.

Hairstorm

Fun and energetic, and maybe a little bit dangerous. I dare you to come up with a more fitting name for an ’80s hair-rock tribute band.

I Wish I Was a Punk Band

I love that the wish is not to be IN a punk band, but to BE a punk band. That would certainly simplify rehearsal scheduling.

Odyssian Monday

Some weeks are like that: you get back to work, take one look at your inbox, and assume it will be ten years before you see your home again. (I can’t find any online presence for a band of this name, so it’s possible this was an error in the club listings and they actually meant Odyssian.)