Tag: your mother should know

Square Pig in a Round Hole-April 28, 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!

Before I celebrate other bands, I need to share good news from my band, Your Mother Should Know. We released two new tracks this week and we’re pretty pleased with how they turned out. I present for your listening enjoyment “Fish Distributor”:

and “Ruined It (When You Hugged Me Back)”:

I think for the first time in almost 8 years of blogging, all 5 of my picks were playing on the same night. It happened to be last night so it’s too late to go out and hear them this time, but they are all deserving of applause. Watch for these in the future:

Bigfoot Formula

Like super-soldier serum but instead of turning you into Captain America, it turns you into Sasquatch. Better in a lot of ways.

Cold Soda

We had a couple of days this week where this would have been a legitimate choice. Less so today, but summer’s coming!

Head Band

Fashion accessory or boss ensemble of all ensembles? I suspect that would be harder than herding cats.

Sincere Engineer

The rhyme and the earnestness won me over. They look you in the eye and share the good news of thermodynamics and materials.

Teddy Bear Orchestra

The name evokes something that’s maybe TOO cute. Then you find out this is a band of robot teddy bears rocking out. Years ago I invented a robot singing group for a science fiction story, so there was no question of whether to include them.

 

Shameless Self Promotion: In case you didn’t know, I write about a lot more than band names! My young adult wizard fantasy novel Daughter of Magic releases May 22, 2018 from Not a Pipe Publishing and will be available for pre-order soon. As part of the Year of Publishing Women, in 2018 Not a Pipe is publishing nine books by seven women; I’m honored to be one of them.

Square Pig in a Round Hole-March 24, 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!

You know it’s really spring when you have several days of every kind of weather, sometimes all within an hour. Kind of it to be reasonably nice for March for Our Lives, but it still seems like a good weekend for indoor activities, such as going out to hear a band (or maybe a piano recital). These names sprouted up and caught my attention:

Epic Beard Men

Exactly what it says on the label. I appreciate the grandiose description of facial hair. This could be a Blood Bowl team; I’m thinking dwarves.

Mables Marbles

Toy company, children’s book, sculptor’s output, or what Mable is losing? Regardless, it’s fun to say. (I had already chosen this before I discovered that their bass player is none other than Ronnie Rodriguez, who figures prominently in the lyrics of “Tear-Shaped Bruise” by Your Mother Should Know (I play drums) and covered here by Dead Bars.)

Mind Beams

I want this superpower: the ability to project my thoughts without having to find the right words.

Racoma

Of course I will choose one that combines my favorite music genre with the City of Destiny, where I spent my first five adult years. Bonus points for going for the simplest spelling.

Shitty Person

This reminds me of a story my husband tells about being stranded by the side of the road and the sympathetic stranger who stopped to help. He spoke the same two words, “Shit, man,” as greeting, commiseration, and farewell, and is known around our house under his nom de  superhero, ShitMan.

Shameless Self Promotion: In case you didn’t know, I write about a lot more than band names! My young adult wizard fantasy novel Daughter of Magic releases May 22, 2018 from Not a Pipe Publishing. As part of the Year of Publishing Women, in 2018 Not a Pipe is publishing nine books by seven women; I’m honored to be one of them.

Square Pig in a Round Hole-October 21, 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!

Considering how much time I spend thinking about bands and band names, it’s pretty rare for me to leave the house of an evening. (This is what being a middle-aged introvert does to you.) Tonight I’m taking part in an event that, while not strictly musical, is punk-rock in its own way. My brother and band-mate is a few years into a seventeen-year project of performing James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake one chapter at a time, from memory. This evening is a reprise of chapter 2, first presented in 2015. (Chapter 3 will be reprised on November 18 at Gallery 1412, and chapter 4 presented for the first time on December 16 at Chapel Performance Space.) Chapter 2 ends with a song and I’m helping out with the drum part; does that make it a Your Mother Should Know gig? Probably not, but I’ll bet the Wake is full of band names waiting to be harvested. Meanwhile, here’s the cream I skimmed from the club listings:

Golden Toads

Our massive random mix of everything includes a nature CD of frog and toad calls. These tracks tend to punctuate and reset whatever was going on before. Good to see our amphibian friends crossing over to play human venues.

Koo Koo Kanga Roo

Irresistible goofiness. And it rhymes!

Moral High Horses

When cliches collide, they both improve.

Superfun Yeah Yeah Rocketship

Unapologetic silliness launches it over the top.

The Wonderfool

Here’s one in the Joycean spirit. The fool can safely mock the monarch. The wonderfool works the miracle of getting the monarch to listen and act.

Square Pig in a Round Hole-October 14, 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!

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:

afterspace

Enjoying the typographical play: there is “space” but no space after “after”.

Bird Concerns

Food; water; mate; safe nesting space; clean windshield to mess up. Have I missed any?

Devoured by Flowers

From horror to beauty, the rhyme makes it an almost acceptable way to go.

ECHO OHs

Sonic and visual echoes built into the name!

Preyer

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-July 22, 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!

Show of hands, who else went to the Eastlake Block Party? Take that, Capitol Hill! (Full disclosure: I played an early show at Victory Lounge with Your Mother Should Know and was home by 9:15 because I can’t do that many late nights or stand as long as I would have needed to catch Dead Bars at midnight, as much fun as I know that would have been. I’m sure there were plenty of younger, hipper people to carry the load.) None of this week’s band-name picks were at either block party, so I’m spreading the love around.

Alice Drinks the Kool Aid

Takes a sudden turn from surreal children’s book to real-life horror via cultish metaphor. I don’t want to imagine what happens to her.

Mhostly Ghostly

Only a little bit spooky. Has fun with rhymes and spelling.

Noonmoon

. . . in June? Darn, a month too late, but I still like it. A midday moon sighting always feels like a gift.

The Seafloor Cinema

Now I’m thinking of going to movies at the Neptune back when it was the repertory house. The aquamarine walls and oceanic decor made it feel like you were underwater.

The Selfimportantanators

This one is too long and nigh unpronounceable, and I respect that.

Square Pig in a Round Hole-July 15, 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!

I’m wrapping up a fairly relaxed vacation that included enough activity–a walk in the woods, a few meals out, a weeknight rock show–to feel different from the usual routine without overdoing it to the point of needing another week off to recover. I’m pushing it by playing a show tonight (details below), but maybe we won’t stay out until 2 am like we did on Thursday. Or at least we won’t have to walk the last two miles home. Lots of other bands have shows coming up, including this week’s honorees:

Alone with Everybody

Poetic expression of that sense of being isolated even in a crowd. It also holds out the possibility of being a snarkily named duo or frontperson/band combo.

Roemen and the Whereabouts

In this example of classic X and the Y structure, I like how the name of the frontperson sounds like roamin’ and the name of the band suggests a general location but not necessarily of what or whom.

Wizard Apprentice

This one scratches my fantasy reader/writer itch. It happens I’m writing a trilogy about a girl becoming a wizard, so I’m especially pleased to find the practitioner behind the name is a woman.

World War Me

That one friend who causes 90% of the drama.

Yeek

An exclamation equal parts startled and disgusted: yikes! eek! ick!

 

Two chances to hear me drum and sing with Your Mother Should Know:

Saturday, July 15 (TONIGHT), 7:45 p.m. at Victory Lounge:

Medvedi/ Lunas/ Arbor Towers/ Your Mother Should Know/ Alone in Dead Bars

$5

Friday, July 21, 8:00 p.m. at Black Lodge, LoFi, and Victory Lounge:

2017 Eastlake Block Party + Razorcake emergency benefit

Support your local music scene and dive bars!

Square Pig in a Round Hole-April 22, 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!

This week, after a hiatus of 2 years and 3 months, my drums got to leave the studio and appear on stage at the Sunset Tavern when Your Mother Should Know shared a bill with Square Pig honorees Mud on My Bra! and Strange Like Us. The first show we’ve gotten as a direct result of this blog! The next day, my whole body ached from hauling gear and standing up most of the evening with a crowd of maybe 20 people. My only regret is that more people didn’t get to hear these fun and inventive bands, but I know how it is on a Tuesday night. And there’s always another show, some including these creatively named ensembles:

Count by Color

This appeals to my number-form synesthesia and begins to balance all those color-by-number books in my distant past.

Nation Underdog

A happy accident of spelling recasts our divided republic into the scrappy, lovable longshot.

Snake Suspenderz

Complicated by the lack of shoulders, solved by the lack of pants.

Subtle Triumph

Cool and confident enough to win without yelling.

Your City Sleeps

How you know you’re not from New York.

Coming Soon:

On Thursday, April 27, Your Mother Should Know opens an all-acoustic bill at Victory Lounge, with Not Dead, Sarah Pasillas, Alone in Dead Bars, and Sun Dummy. I’ll be playing small percussion and singing, including three songs I wrote for my novel The Gospel According to St Rage.

Facebook Event

Square Pig in a Round Hole-April 15, 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!

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:

3-Piece Bikini

The dapper and businesslike look for the beach.

Broke in Stereo

When you move in together to save on expenses, but neither of you has any money to begin with.

Cranky Babies

Toddlers are the original punks. Makes me think of my favorite Jonathan Richman song, “Not Yet Three.”

A Heart in the Stillness

A tiny poem for moments like Holy Saturday, when the world holds its breath.

Trapdoor Social

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.

Facebook Event

Square Pig in a Round Hole-March 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!

So much to celebrate: the official arrival of spring, the temporary break in the rain, the maybe-permanent survival of the ACA, the moderately triumphant return of Your Mother Should Know to the stage after two-plus years away . . . and as ever, a generous selection of creative, amusing, inspiring band names:

Dead Meadow

Why you stay on the trail when hiking in subalpine terrain. And it rhymes!

Happy Heartbreak

Seems like an oxymoron, but it’s true: we love sad songs and tragedies. (I’m especially sad that the realities of life will prevent me from staying to hear them Monday night.)

Headstone Brigade

Implies the dead are active and on the march! (Coincidentally, I’m currently reading a novel called Dancing with the Dead by Charles Freedom Long, a sci-fi thriller that includes armies of souls of the dead (human and alien) that can be called upon to aid the living.)

Moose Blood

Aibell and Moose

Our friends moved with their cat to Alaska. She recently saw her first moose and was captivated. Through aspirational spelling, she is thinking bloody, predatory thoughts.

The Smallest Bear with the Biggest Paws

This sounds like an adorable children’s book; much better than The Big Mean Man with the Tiny Hands.

Your Mother Should Know opens at the Victory Lounge on Monday, March 27 in a stripped-down, highly portable configuration: two voices, assorted hand percussion,and one guitar with amp and a few pedals. Also on the bill: Happy Heartbreak, HuskyBoys, and Nijlpaard.

Facebook Event

Square Pig in a Round Hole-March 4, 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!

Though there are tons of well-named bands this week, I won’t be going out tonight; I managed to catch my first cold in close to a year. I don’t feel great, but I’ve had worse, so I’m pretending I’m well.

This weeks picks:

Lonesome Home

A melancholy paradox. Also note how the words end with the same three letters but different sounds.

Strange Like Us

“Strange” implies rarity while “us” implies group identity. You don’t have to be popular to belong. (In a happy turn of events, Strange Like Us will join Square Pig faves Mud on My Bra! and my own band Your Mother Should Know for a show in April at the Sunset. Watch for details!)

Uneasy Chairs

A seat that isn’t merely uncomfortable; it’s worried.

The Velveteen Rabbit Hole

I picked this for the children’s book references before I knew it was a Velvet Underground cover band. Now I like it twice as much.

Villain of the Story

Authors love to write them. Actors love to play them. Musicians love to be them, I guess?