What A Great Name For A Band!

Morning Goods

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Sun, 20 Aug 2006 01:21:00 +0000

I was walking past the Whistlestop shop in waterloo station, a place which does some pretty decent pain aux raisins and chocolate croissants, and saw they had a sign advertising what they called their "wide range of morning goods". At the time it struck me as yet another marketing term to sum up a whole collection stuff in one or two words - like 'white goods' meaning fridges, washing machines and cookers, even though they now come in all sorts of colours.

It also struck me as a great name for a band.

I looked into the term 'morning goods' a bit more and found that, according to the ever-useful Flour Advisory Bureau on their page dedicated to facts about bread in the UK:

Morning goods are so called because whilst bread was traditionally baked in a hot oven during the night, morning goods were baked after bread in the morning when the oven was cooling.

Interesting. I am sure that it has been taken over by marketing types to mean types of food which are traditionally eaten in the morning, whether bakery-related or not, and most of the public must understand it in that way, but there is an official original meaning too. In the future this might mean that when the term is used in ways which include yoghurts and cereals pedants will object and bemoan the fact that teh original meaning has been lost - in much the same way that they now complain that "gay" has lost its original meaning.

And on the subject of 'gay'... it appears that 'morning goods' has a meaning in the gay subculture too, or if it doesn't queerty.com is trying to establish some sort of meaning. It has a regular feature called mornign goods which is nothing more than photos of young men revealing oiled biceps and waxed chests. I think just means that such men would be a good way to start your morning.

Because of that Morning Goods would have to be either a gay or gay-friendly band. Either that or they could find out the other connotations later and just not care - like AC/DC did with their name. Perhaps they would even have chosen the name becasue it sounds a bit like 'morning wood' (which has already been snapped up by a band called Morningwood). I don't know why, but I just see Morning Goods being like the Flaming Lips or the Arcade Fire - doing their own thing and defying a genre label.

Landbank

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Sun, 20 Aug 2006 01:06:00 +0000

Originally a Land Bank was a bank which issued long-term loans on real estate. It does still mean that and there are plenty of Land Banks around, but more recently the term has also come to refer to the holding of parcels of land for future use.

This has hit the news in Britain most often regarding Tescos supermarkets, and is the cause of some controversy. The suggestion is that the large supermarkets are buying up land which could be locations for stores, often without developing them. One accusation is that a supermarket will buy up suitable land near their own stores so that nobody else can open in competition with them.

The whole issue of the morality of large supermarket companies is complex and wide-ranging but one thing is certain - land bank would be a great name for a band!

Landbank would have to be a band in the Radiohead or Coldplay mould, known as much for their opinions on big business, globalisation and poverty as for their music, which would be rock but not heavy.

Pramface

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Sun, 20 Aug 2006 00:51:00 +0000

Pramface is a term either invented by, or made popular by Popbitch, the celebrity gossip site. According to the Urban Dictionary it means:

"A woman who looks so young she ought to be pushing a pram around a council estate in the shittiest part of town."

But that doesn't seem quite right. It always seemed to me to mean a young girl looking old beyond her years, probably through having a child at a young age. Anyway, its a term a bit like "chav" - patronising and a way for the middle classes to denigrate the working classes who they just see as an amorphous mass of council house-dwelling, tracksuit-wearing single mothers.

Despite that, its still a great name for a band.

I think that Pramface would be similar in style to Hard-fi, the Arctic Monkeys, The Ordinary Boys or one of those other back-to-basics new guitar bands. They would be gritty, ironic and young.

Earworm

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Sun, 09 Apr 2006 19:42:00 +0000

I came across the term 'earworm' on this, always fascinating, blog called
Art of noise. In there it describes how earworm (or ohrwurm in the original German) is the word for one of those songs you just can't get out of your head. (See the Wordspy definition here)

I must have missed it when the BBC web sitediscussed this back in 2003. Apparently there is a real earworm too - some sort of bug which eats ears of corn.

I thought it was such an obviously great name for a band that it must have been used already, but I have searched high and low and not found a band called Earworm. I did find Earworm Records, a German festival called Earworm and some songs and albums called Earworm, but no band.

I am still convinced that there is a band called Earworm out there, but I can't find them. The only downside to such a great name is the need to live up to it, so whatever music Earworm play it had better be catchy!

Peckham Rolex

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Mon, 20 Mar 2006 23:07:00 +0000

I saw a headline in the paper about Peckham Rolexes, which was a phrase I had not heard before. I thought it might have something to do with bling but as this story shows, it is more interesting than that.

It turns out that Peckham Rolex is supposedly street slang for those electronic tags used to keep track of criminals. Its a good nickname for them but I can't see it catching on - its too specific to Britain. There will probably be something catchier and more universal which will gain more currency, or if not universal then something US-centric which our wannabe gangstas will happily adopt. Still. Its a great name for a band isn't it?

With a name like Peckham Rolex a band would probably not have aspirations beyong the club circuit, but the name would look good on the posters.

Desire Path

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Wed, 18 Jan 2006 01:29:00 +0000

Desire path, Tilgate
Originally uploaded by Fun-filled Georgie.

Desire path is a term for when planners design a layout, with paved pathways and green areas, but everybody always takes a shortcut across the grass.

The resulting muddy track is called variously the desire path, path of desire, or line of desire and shows where the path should have gone if it was to suit the people who use the space rather than those who designed the layout.

This photo from a photographer who is local to me illustrates the concept well. I like to keep an eye on his photos on Flickr and when I saw this one I immediately thought... what a great name for a band.

Its such a nice generic name, Desire Path. It could easily suit a standard Coldplay/Snow Patrol sort of band but could just as easily be a soul band or folk band.

Redknapp's Trolley Dash

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Mon, 16 Jan 2006 11:14:00 +0000

A headline in the sports section of today's paper read "Redknapp's trolley dash yields nothing but excuses". The gist of the match report was that the Portsmouth manager Harry Redknapp has been on a bit of a spending spree during the transfer window and started this home game against Everton with four new players but still ended up losing 1-0.

Harry Redknapp has a reputation as a bit of an Arthur Daley for his transfer deals, snapping up players cheap or on free transfers who later turn out to be stars of the team. Sometimes his wheeling and dealing fell down a bit (Marco Boogers) but when he was at West Ham his transfer activity was second only to his ability come up with fantastic quotes in post-match interviews.

Being a West Ham supporter I still have a bit of a soft spot for Harry which is why the headline caught my eye, and it was mere nanoseconds later that I thought it would make a great name for a band.

Actually 'Arry's Trolley Dash would be just as good, maybe better, but nevertheless Redknapp's Trolley Dash would still be good for a pub-circuit band.

Pimp Cups

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Fri, 30 Dec 2005 17:35:00 +0000

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.

Verdigris Sash

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Mon, 19 Dec 2005 01:22:00 +0000

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.

Trigger's Broom

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Fri, 16 Dec 2005 01:04:00 +0000

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.

Long Tail

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Sun, 11 Dec 2005 16:45:00 +0000

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.

Backstreet Dentist

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Sun, 04 Dec 2005 01:13:00 +0000

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)

Tart Cards

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Tue, 29 Nov 2005 00:21:00 +0000

You know how London telephone boxes are sometimes full of postcards advertising the services of 'strict schoolteachers', 'young nurses' and 'sexy schoolgirls'? These postcards are, apparently, known as tart cards. Not to be confused with 'card tarts' which is the name given to those who keep taking out new credit cards, then when the low introductory interest rate offers expire, move to another card.

This might seem like a particularly politically incorrect term, but the phrase "tart carding", meaning the act of installing these cards in phone boxes, crops up in official reports from Westminster council and was in today's free London newspaper, Metro. As soon as I read it I thought... what a great name for a band!

Tart carding has been a criminal offence since 2001, but they still appear. The London Assembly is now trying to get all the phone companies to co-ordinate in getting the phone numbers advertised in these cards cut off.

I can remember when making these cards illegal was first discussed. Apparently the loudest protest came from a pensioners' group. The spokesperson said that stopping this advertising of prostitution would cause many of their pensioners to suffer great hardship. It turned out that this was not because all the prostitutes being advertised are OAPs, but because the OAPs had been earning pin money by going round putting the cards up.

I can see how some people would be offended by them, but I think these cards are nopw part of the London landscape. It would be a shame to see them go. It used to be a ritual for schoolchildren visiting the capital, especially from the Continent, to remove cards from the phone boxes and use them as postcards back home to their mates. It became a bit of a cult with European teenagers by all accounts.

I can remember one instance of seeing a coach full of Belgian school-trippers driving down Victoria Street several years ago. The kids had obviously been very busy denuding the capital of its tart cards, and they had even taken the time to make sure they got all the blue-tac as well. To pass the time they had put the cards and blue-tac to good use and had plastered all the windows in the back half of the coach with invitations to have a good time with busty Brazilians. As the coach turned the corner I could just make out the figure of a teacher frantically trying to take down all the cards. You could tell he was the teacher: he was the only passenger not giggling uncontrollably.

Anyway, Tart Cards would be, I feel, either a bit camp and arch or else just downright disreputable and as seedy as one of Lee Brilleux's grubby stage suits. They would have a huge wealth of material for album covers, as long as they hurry up and visit all the phone boxes before GLA cleans up the town.

Related links:
April 2005 - Backing Blair tart card competition

Party Bite

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Sat, 19 Nov 2005 21:00:00 +0000

When I was coming out of Sainsbury's today I saw a large banner advertising their 'party bites'. I suppose it is just a phrase they are using to cover finger food, which might otherwise be called 'nibbles'. Why do they bother? Didn't Shakespeare himself write in one of his sonnets "a vol-au-vent by any other name would still taste as nasty."?

In spite of myself I still thought that 'Party Bites' had a ring to it and would be a great name for a band. For me the word party still brings to mind scenes or drunken debauchery rather than people in suits or 'smart casual' standing around and having polite conversation while a stereo plays Joss Stone quietly in the background. So when it is combined with the word bite it gives me a mental image similar to the one above.

In fact I reckon there is a good case for the phrase 'party bite' joining the dictionary alongside 'hickey' and 'lovebite' as a term for a spot of intimate consensual bruising.

I think Party Bite would be something upbeat but not necessarily lightweight pop. It could be an Arctic Monkeys-type band, or something like that.

Interlude - Real great names (2)

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Mon, 24 Oct 2005 17:28:00 +0000

Some more great names I came across which have already been taken.

Slightly Miffed
I found this band years ago, because of their website. To give some idea of how long ago this was, I was trying to find out how to make some mp2 sound clips for a web site of mine. Yes... mp2!

The band make their living doing website design, so their own site is obviously pretty good. Slightly Miffed is such a great English phrase anyway, but they tie it in with the Miffy children's book character. As well as music downloads, screensavers, fonts and a way to order the band's CDs you can even download a Slightly Miffed level for Quake.

Fazed
Fazed are a band from Leicester. A bit mainstream for me, but they seem perfectly competent, and have a fantastic website, designed to look like an amp stack, with some songs for free download.

I only found this because I like a website called Fazed which provides links to all sorts of bizarre and obscure places, where I quite often come across great names for a band.

Permanent Way

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Mon, 24 Oct 2005 17:06:00 +0000

Most normal people would call those things trains run on as railway tracks. Maybe railroad tracks if we were American. Rails at a pinch. But people wo work on the railways take great pleasure in referring to the railway tracks as The Permanent Way, frequently abbreviated to P-Way.

The term was used by the playwright David Hare for his play about railway privatisation. (Boy meets girl, boy privatises girl, girl makes millions of pounds profit but kills 30 passengers when a signal fails. I am guessing here as I didn't see it.)

While this sounds like a great name for a band, it also sounds like it could be some sort of new age religious cult. ("The permanent way to enlightenment! You give us all your worldly goods and we will give you peace of mind and a happy afterlife.")

The name has such an affirmative ring to it that The Permanent Way could be one of those Christian rock groups.

Leatherlips

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Mon, 24 Oct 2005 16:43:00 +0000

It sounds a bit rude, like an uncharitable nickname for a middle-aged slapper, but I actually came across this word as the name of a type of beer on a list of the 100 best beers in the world, along with such tasty-sounding brews as Dragonslayer, Thumbsucker and Fourth Dementia. All of which would make (or have made) great names for bands, but Leatherlips IPA, although falling just outside the top 100, was the name which did it for me.

The beer is brewed by The Tap/Haverhill Brewery Inc in Massachusetts, and comes highly recommended by such critics on the Beer Advocate website as OldFrothingSlosh, 36PoundLoveChild, Whatalesyou and Feloniousmonk. (Now there's a name for a band!)

Aside from being the product of a microbrewery, Leatherlips is also the name of an Indian Chief - Sha-Te-Yah-Ron-Ya (or Sou-Cha-Et-Ess?) of the Wyandotte tribe. Apparently he was called Leatherlips after his reputation for always keeping his promises. He is now best known for supposedly placing a curse from beyond the grave on the US Golf Championships whenever they are played in Ohio - the golf course being built on the site of a Wyandotte burial ground.

Leatherlips would be a slighly scary band, in a Marilyn Manson kind of way I think.

Birdstrike

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Sat, 08 Oct 2005 13:08:00 +0000

Birdstrike is the term for when a bird hits an aeroplane, although given the relative speeds its usually the other way round. The birds don't usually (ever?) survive such collisions, but the planes don't escape unscathed either.

Apparently birdstrike results in $600 million of damage each year just to US civil and military aviation! This, along with more information you could ever want about birdstrike can be found at www.birdstrike.org.

As someone who lives a few miles from one of the busiest airports in the world, and who used to sit on the airport's consultative committee I am reasonably well aware of the problem, so its no surprise that the word came out in a conversation the other day. And as soon as I had said the word I though... what a great name for a band!

Its a violent phenomenon so Birdstrike are not going to be a laid-back, lounge or trance band. They are going to have guitars turned up to eleven and play stuff fast. They won't be a heavy metal band though, otherwise they would be called Birdstryke, Birdstreich, or Bïrdstrïke.

Snout Baron

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Wed, 05 Oct 2005 18:16:00 +0000

Snout Baron is a term which will be immediately familiar to viewers of Porridge, which starred Ronnie Barker who died yesterday, but strangely it was not any of the Barker obituaries or tributes which threw this term up at me today, but this headline in today's Guardian.

'Snout' is, amongst other things, English slang, originally for tobacco but also used for a cigarette. In prison where tobacco, by its scarcity, is a form of currency someone who controls the market, and thereby has a lot of power amongst the prisoners is often called a 'snout baron'.

The most famous example of a snout baron is 'genial' Harry Grout in Porridge, played by Peter Vaughan. (Trivia time: although he was one of the most memorable characters from Porridge, he actually only appeared in 3 episodes)

Using the term to describe Kenneth Clarke, who famously has a sideline working for British American Tobacco is just inspired. Doin that in the week he is out trying to impress the Tory party in an attempt to become their leader is downright cruel.

But what a great name for a band!

The Snout Barons sounds even better than The Soup Dragons (another name influenced by British TV). It would suit a band with a down-the-pub sort of image. A band a bit like The Ordinary Boys perhaps.

Four Candles

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Wed, 05 Oct 2005 11:04:00 +0000

In tribute to the great Ronnie Barker who died yesterday, this great name for a band is taken from his most famous comedy sketch. (See the full script or an illustrated summary) Its a classic sketch, but unusual in the way the best line comes right at the beginning, almost like starting with the punchline.

The Four Candles is also a piece of spiritual writing, a short parable which crops up on dozens (hundreds?) of Christian web sites, but also in other places like The Sikh Philosophy Network.

Because of that, The Four Candles could be one of those Christian rock groups, but I think I would much rather see a band inspired by The Two Ronnies instead. And if they became hugely popular they could get involved in expensive litigation with a tribute band called The Fork Handles

Mad Pride

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Thu, 29 Sep 2005 18:08:00 +0000

Last night I was having some drinks with some new friends and one of them, who works for a mental health charity mentioned an organisation called Mad Pride.

It sounds like the sort of organisation which could polarise opinion. On one hand there will be those who say it is derogatory towards sufferers of mental health problems and will set back mental health care by years, and on the other hand there will be those who say it empowers those with mental health problems. And on the other, other hand there will be those who say... what a great name for a band!

Actually, the idea is a time-tested one and possibly a logical next step on from gay pride and black pride. In both those cases there are people who took words which were previously used as terms of abuse like 'queer' and 'nigger'and tried to reclaim them, with differing rates of success.

For years we have had mental health professionals saying that we should avoid words like 'mad', 'crazy' or 'mental' (on its own). How do they feel if the very patients with mental health conditions decide to go ahead and call themselves mad? It probably drives them crazy.

I think its safe to say that Mad Pride would not be one of those po-faced bands who all dress in black and look like they are sucking a lemon.

Grief Bacon

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Tue, 27 Sep 2005 17:10:00 +0000

Another one from the Meaning of Tingo book, and its another German word - kummerspeck - which is the word to describe "the excess weight gained from emotion-related overeating." As opposed to excess weight gained from overeating for any other reason I suppose, but how can you tell? Are Germans able to look at a plump person and tell instantly whether the extra pounds are from emotion-related overeating or just from plain greed-related overeating?

And would it be wrong for a politically-correct, good European to suggest that if Eskimos can have dozens of words for snow, since it dominates their lives and environment, that the Germans should have ultra-specific nuances for obesity? Being a bit of a porker myself I should leave that subject well alone I think!

The word kummerspeck translates literally as grief bacon, and that was what struck me as a great name for a band.

Grief Bacon would be rock rather than dance, folk or pop I think. Guitar-based anyway. For some reason I get a mental impression of them being punky ska revivalists but maybe that is just a subconscious association with the word (and band) Rancid.

(I suppose I could have used a photo of John Prescott instead of Nicholas Soames but that would have been too obvious.)

Drachenfutter

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Tue, 27 Sep 2005 16:49:00 +0000

Today I found this fascinating site via this article on the BBC website.

It is all about language, and those words in foreign languages which describe something very specific for which no exact equivalent word exists in English. Schadenfreud is a well-known example - the only way we can describe the feeling pleasure at someone else's misfortune is to either say "the feeling of pleasure at someone else's misfortune" or just appropriate the German word and have done with it.

The website is basically a plug for a book called The Meaning of Tingo by Adam Jacot de Boinod on the same subject. (Only six quid on Amazon. Got to be worth a look!)

One of the words is the German word drachenfutter, which roughly translates to 'dragon-fodder' and describes "the peace offerings made by guilty husbands to their wives." Its a great concept to have a special word for, and a great name for a band.

Dragon-Fodder would be an equally good name, but I think Drachenfutter would be even better, if adopted by an old-fashioned heavy metal band. They just love teutonic-sounding names like Queensryche, and even in otherwise non-Germanic names they can't resist throwing in an umlaut! (Blue Öyster Cult and Motörhead anyone?)

So they would probably end up as Drachenfütter I suppose.

Flying Mobulas

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Tue, 20 Sep 2005 17:59:00 +0000

The Mobula Mobular, less formally known as the Devil Fish, is part of the Eagle and Manta Rays family of fish. Manta rays are better known but devil fish have a much cooler common name and official name.

Thanks to Pootergeek I found this page from photographer Michael Albert. Its an interesting story with some brilliant photos. Personally I did not know that rays could jump, let alone jump two metres out of the water. (Gonna need a bigger boat!)

See! The internet is good for more than just porn and gambling, there's educational stuff out there too.

While Devil Fish would undoubtably make a good name for a band, it was the title of this story which grabbed my attention - The flying Mobulas of the Sea of Cortez. What a great name for a band!

The whole title would be a bit unwieldy for all but the most defiantly uncommercial, so The Flying Mobulas would be the name used by a good-time, rowdy rock band with tinges of reggae, latino and arabic influences - a British version of Manu Chao's Radio Bemba Sound System is what I have in mind.

Talk Like A Pirate

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Mon, 19 Sep 2005 23:36:00 +0000

A topical choice for a change. Today was the world-famous Talk Like A Pirate Day. To my mind it is at least as valid as Father's Day or Secretary's Day and it is surely only a matter of time before Hallmark start producing Happy 'talk like a pirate day' cards.

Someone at work came across this a couple of years ago and we try to mark the event by at least throwing a few Aaaaarr's around when we get in the office.

There is now quite a thriving pirate sub-culture on the Internet, which started well before the Pirates of the Caribbean film. Just look at the links listed on the Talk Like A Pirate website for a start.

Apparently my pirate name is Filthy Bryant Dagger and if you go to this site you can translate any website you like into pirate-speak, to six different degrees of piracy.

The very word 'pirate' conjures up some strong connections for music. First of all there are the original pirate radio stations like Radio London and Radio Caroline, and the later land-based pirate stations which even now blast out tunes from the tops of tower blocks in inner cities, then there is the whole music piracy ethic which started with making bootleg copies on a C90, and evolved through CD-burners to the whole Napster thing and other peer-to-peer programs. And no study of the music/pirate clash would be complete without considering Johnny Kidd and the Pirates (Shakin' All Over!) or Adam and the Ants and their pirate-chic stage outfits. For all these reasons its a great name for a band!

So Talk Like A Pirate would be, I reckon, an urban band, one of those grimy UK Garage sort of bands which has a symbiotic relationship with their local pirate station. And they would be one of the few bands to have a whole day named after them (assuming that someone has used at least one of these names:- Good Friday, Mother's Day, Halloween, etc.)