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Friday, December 30, 2005

Pimp Cups


Apparently a lady called Debbie from Chicago came up with the idea of pimp cups a while ago. They are basically glasses decorated in a 'bling bling' style, but she now has a reasonable business selling them.

I think they look ugly, but then I think most of the pimp style is ugly. Great name for a band though.

Maybe The Pimp Cups would not be a band as such, but could be a rapper's crew, like Busta Rhymes has the Flipmode Squad.

Monday, December 19, 2005

Verdigris Sash

I recently read a book called The Vesuvius Club by Mark Gatiss. He is one of the members of The League Of Gentlemen, and he also wrote an episode of the new Doctor Who.

Anyway, the book is billed as 'A Lucifer Box novel' so I assume he intends to write more books with the character Lucifer Box. Some of the other characters in the book have even better names - Bella Pok, Mrs. Midsomer Knight, Kitty Backlash for example - and the main character is a portrait painter who is also a government spy/assassin. Basically he is a sort of Edwardian James Bond, but with with more buggery than 007 would have put up with.

Early in the book it turns out that the British man in Italy has been killed, but before he died he sent a cryptic telegram, which just read: VERDIGRIS SASH. MOST URGENT. DETAILS FOLLOW.

Straight away I thought that Verdigris Sash would make a great name for a band. I won't explain what it means, that would just spoil the plot, but it turns out to be a good, slightly camp, ripping yarn which is well worth a read, illustrated by some Aubrey Beardsley-esque pen and ink drawings.

Here is a little taster of the end of chapter two:
Once back out into the humid night, I made my way towards Downing Street. I bade the bobby on duty outside Number Ten a cheery 'goodnight' then let myself into Number Nine.
I know, ostentatious isn't it? But somebody has to live there.

I don't know what sort of music Verdigris Sash would play, but I fancy they would have very English lyrics with a hint of whimsy to them.

Friday, December 16, 2005

Trigger's Broom


There is a memorable scene in the TV show Only Fools And Horses where the character Trigger boasts about using the same broom to sweep the road for 20 years. He says:
Trigger: This old broom's had seventeen new heads and fourteen new handles in its time.
Sid: Well how the hell can it be the same bloody broom then?
Trigger: There's a picture of it. Whaat more proof do you need?
Its actually an adaptation of an old philosophical question I think, but I might be wrong.

Anyway, I was reminded of this when I saw an advert for a concert featuring Dr Feelgood the other day. I have a DVD of Dr Feelgood in concert, filmed a year or so before Lee Brilleaux died. It was OK, but the only person from the original line-up was Lee Brilleaux. And now he is dead, so who is in Dr Feelgood now? Take a four-person band, change every person in the band and what you are left with is actually a different band isn't it?

I wondered how it was they could be called Dr Feelgood and thought it would be more appropriate if they were called Trigger's Broom. Then I thought... hang on... thats a great name for a band.

Its funny how some bands can survive any number of personnel changes and it doesn't seem to matter. Yes is an example, or Deep Purple. Other bands just don't seem right if even one person leaves and is replaced. Would anyone have accepted the Beatles if George Harrison had been replaced with Eric Clapton?

We all know that the Beatles did actually have a different line-up in the beginning, but its the one that was there when they became famous which matters. If, before half of them died, they had done a re-union with Pete Best instead of Ringo it would not have been what everyone wanted.

Obviously this does not apply to classical orchestras. You would not get someone complaining that the London Philharmonic is not the real LPO because none of the original members are in it.

And let's not even start with those legal battles when a band splits into two halves and each half wants to keep the name. (Again, this happened with Yes. It got to the point where only Chris Squire from the original band was left. Meanwhile four people who used to be in the band got back together but could not use the name)

Although Trigger's Broom would be a great name for any band, it should be reserved for a band where the last remaining original member leaves or dies and the survivors should do the decent thing and not keep the original name if they recruit a replacement.

Sunday, December 11, 2005

Long Tail


In October 2004 Chris Anderson wrote an article in Wired called The Long Tail, which is a theory of economics. More specifically its a theory of retail entertainment economics. He now has a blog all about it, and his experience writing a book all about it.

The theory should be of interest to anyone involved in the entertainment business, and anyone who is a consumer of the entertainment business, which more or less means all of us.

To get an idea of what its all about, imagine a graph of the sales of a book (or CD or DVD) over time. There will be an initial huge peak as most sales are when it is first released and promoted. That peak tails off fairly quickly, especially for singles and the graph ends up not quite reaching zero but showing a low level of sales over a long time. That is the long tail of the graph, and the point is that the sales of small numbers of tens of thousands of old products (back catalogue) add up to more than the sales of huge numbers of the few hundred current bestsellers.

In old-fashioned physical shops it is not economically viable to stock all that back catalogue for reasons of shelf space and the fact that the potential customer base can be so dispersed that most items might not find a buyer near any given shop. With Internet sellers they can actually make stocking the old stuff viable. In fact the statistic from yesterday's paper was that Amazon makes half its sales from titles outside its top 130,000.

Its a mind-blowing concept, but not only that, its a great name for a band!

I have tastes which are often outside the current chart, so the idea that Internet stores will be more likely to stock stuff I want can only be good news.

The Long Tail would be a band who are not likely to be high in the charts, and would be making that statement in their name, but they would not consider this to be failure: they recognise that they can still make a living in the long term by expoiting the possibilities of the new Internet economy. However, the band might not have much of a sense of humour - having named themselves after an economic theory.

Sunday, December 04, 2005

Backstreet Dentist



In the Kaiser Chiefs' song Oh My God there is a bit that goes:
Settling down in your early twenties
Sucked more blood than a backstreet dentist
I have no idea what that means, but the term 'backstreet dentist' is quite striking, and probably a great name for a band.

Kaiser Chiefs are full of quirky words or phrases that nobody else would think of using, understandably so in some cases! In fact when their Employment album came out a few critics accused them of being too clever by half and using "6th form lyrics". I can see what they mean, but I quite liked the way they managed to get 'plate tectonics' onto the same song.
But you work in a shirt with your nametag on it
Drifting apart like a plate techtonic
And lets not forget that I Predict A Riot includes the word Leodensian. But who cares? The only lyric of their which annoys me is:
Watching the people get lairy
It's not very pretty I tell thee
Apart from that, its all good-time singalong stuff.

And I imagine that The Backstreet Dentists would be in the same vein. Their biggest problem would be that if they released an album which had any weak tracks at all in it they would be accused of including filler material.

(sorry)