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 (usually) listed alphabetically. … Continue reading Square Pig in a Round Hole-August 11, 2018
Tag: the gospel according to st rage
Square Pig in a Round Hole-October 14, 2017
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 (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’ve been on vacation this week, and spent part of the time recording two songs by St. Rage, the fictional teenage garage band featured in my debut novel The Gospel According to St Rage. (Thanks to Your Mother Should Know for sitting in for the fictional musicians.) In the book they record and release a 4-song EP, but three other songs are mentioned. We recorded one of them over a year ago: “Something of Mine,” which is about blood donation. Once these last two are finished, all three can finally get out into the world. It seems appropriate that I have an appointment to donate at Bloodworks NW this afternoon.
Blood donation precludes going out and standing up for hours, but I hope these well-named bands all draw appreciative crowds:
Enjoying the typographical play: there is “space” but no space after “after”.
Food; water; mate; safe nesting space; clean windshield to mess up. Have I missed any?
From horror to beauty, the rhyme makes it an almost acceptable way to go.
Sonic and visual echoes built into the name!
Comes across as more spiritual than predator, but someone else still gets eaten. (Also on the bill: Square Pig faves Power Skeleton!)
Square Pig in a Round Hole-June 10, 2017
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 (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 just noticed that it has been one year since I moved the blog to this site. Apparently the move didn’t ruin it, so that’s cause for celebration. Also about a year ago, I was preparing for the publication of my debut novel, The Gospel According to St Rage. A major plot point in the book is the EP the titular teenage garage band is recording for the members’ senior project. I used my real band Your Mother Should Know to realize the songs of the fictional band and released the St Rage EP on Bandcamp to coincide with the novel’s release. At the end of the book is a discount code for the EP. This week, someone finally used the code. St Rage made a whopping $ .74. Is that enough to buy gum?
Meanwhile, the world is full of other bands with other names. Here are a few of them:
Still looking for one honest man? Probably best to stay away from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
Gus Clark and the Least of His Problems
I like this twist on classic X and the Y structure. Everyone has problems, but your band shouldn’t be the biggest one.
Perfect name for a ’90s cover band, which this is. But in Seattle, flannel is almost always a smashing choice.
Most everything is improved by sneakiness and secrecy, but this caught my eye for another reason. Speaking as we were of the ’90s: anyone else remember the Speakeasy internet cafe? Our free-improv group Banned Rehearsal played in their back room in 1996; the building burned in 2001 but the internet business continued. In addition to broadband internet, they also provided web hosting and email. For those such as us who were grandfathered in, they still do.
I’m digging the humorous formality of this reference to the evening’s plans. (Mine: in bed by 10). I’m also excited by the very existence of an all female alternative punk rock band from Eastern Washington, my old stomping grounds.
Square Pig in a Round Hole-April 29, 2017
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 (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 recovering from a chest cold that was bookended by two shows in which I had to sing and drum. I thought I was tired and sore after the first one merely because of staying up late and hauling gear, but now I think darker forces were at work. I wasn’t back to 100% by the second show, but felt better by the end of it, not worse. Anecdotal evidence that singing, or music in general, is good for you. What else is good for health and morale? Why, good band names, of course! Check these out:
I’m a sucker for intentional pretentious nonsense. “Tonight’s special is squab, punched out of the sky at 200 mph, then roasted with a medley of baby vegetables.”
Formerly known as Down. It’s a topsy turvy world.
In my day, people worshiped the porcelain god after a rough night. Clinging to the commode for dear life seems like a more relevant analogy.
You’re going to have to work it out for yourself.
This one gets in mainly because they’re playing at the Rendezvous, which is purported to be haunted. When we played there, I never saw a ghost but two kickdrum feet mysteriously disappeared.
Honorable Mention:
In late 2013, I started writing a short story called “St Rage” that had in its backstory a teen band called Plague of Turtles (first mentioned publicly in this post). In 2015, the story was published as the January release in the Pankhearst Singles Club, then grew into a full-length novel, The Gospel According to St Rage. Plague of Turtles remains in the backstory but the members appear in a reconstituted group called Sack o’ Hamsters, then Legion of Morons, and finally, The Greebles. Yesterday, I was delighted to learn that Plague of Turtles is no longer fictional! It tickles me no end that someone else thought this was a perfect band name.
Square Pig in a Round Hole-April 15, 2017
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 (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!
Thank you, Seattle weather, for turning nice just in time for the Tax March, Black Lives Matter March, and Easter weekend! We’ll try not to forget this when the rain returns sooner rather than later. In addition to a basket of five splendid band names, my Easter gift to anyone reading this is a an original story. Official release is tomorrow, but go ahead and enjoy it now. Meanwhile, those band names:
The dapper and businesslike look for the beach.
When you move in together to save on expenses, but neither of you has any money to begin with.
Toddlers are the original punks. Makes me think of my favorite Jonathan Richman song, “Not Yet Three.”
A tiny poem for moments like Holy Saturday, when the world holds its breath.
Introverts’ escape hatch.
Coming Soon:
On Tuesday, April 18, Your Mother Should Know is on a bill at the Sunset with Mud on My Bra and Strange Like Us. I’ll be playing drums and singing, including three songs I wrote for my novel The Gospel According to St Rage.
Square Pig in a Round Hole-August 20, 2016
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!
As usua
l there were many engaging band names in the newspaper and I managed to pick five. The one show I know I’m going to (because I’m in it) was not in the club listings, but rather in the Books section. On Wednesday, August 24, I will read from my novel THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST RAGE and perform acoustic arrangements of songs from the book with Your Mother Should Know, Seattle’s only St. Rage cover band. The show starts at 7:30 p.m. at the Common Good Cafe at University Temple United Methodist Church. But enough shameless self-promotion! What about those five band names?
If you’re playing acoustic punk rock, I imagine you might feel like an exile from both communities. Which is as punk as it gets. (And wow, I feel right at home with this, having played in an acoustic living-room band in the past and getting ready to play acoustic arrangements of garage-rock songs in a few days. It’s a very friendly exile.)
Classy and sweet with a sting. Or an upscale paint color AKA “yellow.”
What comes after the failure of Plan Z.
Hard to remember during our brief, glorious summer, but the joke about Seattleites is we don’t tan, we rust. Our God rains.
I picked this one because I like how it sounds like surf punk while evoking an image of a Fransican friar hanging ten. The reality is even better: “A Surf band that plays the music of Thelonious Monk, as well as referencing some iconic bass lines that “mash-up” with Monk’s famously obtuse melodies.”
Square Pig in a Round Hole-August 13, 2016
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!
To everyone who was wondering when summer would come: here it is. I don’t want to hear anyone complaining about the heat. If you’re sweaty, find a bar, grab a cold one, start a mosh pit and all be sweaty together. If you’re not sure who to see, choosing by band name is a time-honored method. A few suggestions:
I like this from a sound perspective: the two nouns have all the same vowels and most of the same vowel sounds, lending this a nice, flowing assonance. But there’s more! In the YA novel The Gospel According to St. Rage (by Karen Eisenbrey – who’s that?) the titular teenage garage band ends up practicing under the auspices of an after-school chamber music club. Bandleader Barbara quips, “A garage is a chamber.” Apparently it is also a dojo.
This could be a horror situation, but I read it as a comment on affordable housing. How much could you get a month for the closet under the stairs?
I enjoy band names that are body part, with or without an adjective. I like this one because teeth (sharp or not) absent a predator are not much of a threat unless you step on them. But put them in a working jaw, and watch out! (When my brother asked me earlier in the week if I’d ever blogged about The Sharp Teeth, I didn’t know I would come up one short because one of my picks was a past honoree. Glad to have a sub ready to enter the game on short notice!)
This one gives off a great sci-fi cartoon vibe, and also goes well with The Sharp Teeth. You’re safe until the helmet comes off.
Is this a St. Rage tribute band?! Yeah, probably not. Maybe they should book a show together, though. I like the pairing of the holy and the destructive.
Karen Eisenbrey 