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 nightlife listings for abundant source material!

(Until live music returns, I am curating retrospective posts from past material. Dates indicate when the band was originally featured.)

SQUARE PIG IN A ROUND HOLE PANDEMIC EDITION #75

This is the second week with a theme of gardens, farms, and soil. Once again, I feature six bands instead of the usual five. Our backyard landscaping project is developing nicely but like any work in progress, will need a lot of work before it is a finished thing of beauty. Fortunately, people who know what they are doing are in charge of the work.

As ever, wash your hands, wear your mask again, get your vaccine if you haven’t already, and if you are able, please buy these bands’ music and merch while we wait for a better day.

Lilac
(September 23, 2016) So, you know how most people who say they want to write actually mean they want to have written? I want to have gardened. I love having beautiful or edible plants on my property, but I’m terrible at getting things established. My biggest successes have been a couple of lilac bushes. One established with almost no effort on my part, while the other took ten years to start blooming. But now I’m rewarded every spring with my favorite fragrant flowers for no work. So.

Slugs
(February 2, 2019) Local flavor at its localest (but don’t taste them), humble denizens of every Northwest garden and forest, rasping away at the greenery. Listen closely.

Soundgarden
(May 20, 2017) The intensely local nature of the name is hidden from the rest of the world while it perfectly describes the scene here: fertile ground for weird new music of all genres.

This Soil is Diseased
(January 26, 2013) Yow! I suspect this comes directly off a sign somewhere, a perfect metal name: complete sentence with notes of death and corruption.

Trebled Morels
(June 29, 2019) Even one morel is a miracle, but three? Heaven. (These came from our yard [in 2014]: doubly trebled!)

Woodshed
(May 21, 2016) I grew up in a house with an actual woodshed: we stored stovewood and garden tools out there, and it also had a workbench for fixing things. Although we were a musical family, I don’t think anyone ever went out there to practice an instrument, but my older brother (age 5 when we moved into that house) had heard enough about woodsheds to worry that he’d get more spankings. Fortunately, it wasn’t that sort of woodshed, either.

 

Two last things before you go:

1. I am admin for 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.
2. 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 first ten issues and subscribe here for future issues. The July 2021 issue includes an excerpt from Barbara and the Rage Brigade. (Or just follow the blog for your weekly dose of band names.)