HOWDY AND HOWS’IT, YA FEATHERLESS FILANGEE’D FOLK.
Man, one of the things that drives me nuts about Heavy Metal is the 8th-grade naming system it tended to utilize. Essentially, you just picked a mineral/gem and any noun (general an animal) and car-crashed the names together.
Oh, you need examples?
STEELWING, ALPHA TIGER, METAL CHURCH, DIAMOND HEAD, ARMORED SAINT, CATS IN BOOTS, ELECTRIC WIZARD, LED ZEPPELIN, HOODED MENACE, IRON DOGS, SKULL FIST, SPEEDWOLF, VELVET VIPER, even freakin’ STEEL PANTHER.
It is quite an easy cliche to veer away from, and yet I don’t see many bands straying from the said norm. We get lots of bands with names that just. . .don’t fucking do anything, for anyone, ever.
EXAMPLES AGAIN?
IMAGINE DRAGONS, THE CHAINSMOKERS, HOOBASTANK, MUMFORD & SONS, BLACK REBEL MOTORCYCLE CLUB, 36 CRAZY FISTS, FIVE FINGER DEATH PUNCH, ELBOW, or NATALIE PORTMAN’S SHAVED HEAD, just to name a few.
IMAGINE DRAGONS as a name has pissed me off since the moment I heard it, like “Hey, Bear! Wanna take a moment and imagine dragons with us?”, “Kay I did it, it took one second.”, “Oh wow, that’s some imagination you’ve got!”, seriously guys? Did it take you one second to come up with that name too? I would even go as far as to say that just living by the simple outline of “Rock N’ Roll Naming” that those guys should have known to name their band something like, oh I dunno, “CHROMATIC DRAGONS” or “SPECTRAL DRAGONS”, hell even “CELESTIAL DRAGONS” is far better in my non-humble opinion. Unlike bands like MUMFORD & SONS, where only one of them is a son of Mumford and they purposefully named themselves as such to promote a false family aesthetic. BLACK REBEL MOTORCYCLE CLUB, where they are literally none of those things. I could go on and on and on and on and on and on, but I won’t. Suffice it to say there are reasons why certain names work and others do not. As much as the music itself is meant to contain the hooks and aspects which make an individual come back over and over, it would be nice to be able to discuss horrible (or even great bands) without having to say sentences like, “Hey man, have you ever heard of Fresh Blueberry Pancake?”.
FRESH BLUEBERRY PANCAKE – HASSLES
A combination of a tiny pressing (only 56 copies were made), and a lack of outward promotion lands this fine piece of vinyl amongst one of the biggest collector pieces for those in the know about early era rock.
SEYMINHOL – LA SEPTIEME CROISADE
As a native English speaker, I have never been able to say this band’s name to another individual without it producing either a laugh or that classic “deer in the headlights” face. Heralded as France actually producing something worthwhile for the metal scene, Seyminhol has in recent years moved away from the heavy and curled it’s baguette grippers more firmly along the melodic, but DAMN was there an era where they wrote Prog Metal that was on bar with huge acts like QUEENSRYCHE.
QUEENSRYCHE – QUEEN OF THE RYCHE
All hail cyber-Lee Aaron! All hail those disgusting highs of Mr. Tate. All hail corny ass fantasy music videos. Everything about this is something you can sell someone on. There are clay-tato monsters, early 90’s laser beams, an evil rock fortress like the one from the movie KRULL.
ZERO DOWNSIDES!
SPOOPY MONDAY NUMBER UNO, INCOMING~
-BEAR.
********************************
You can find Bear smoking bong and playing Magic on instagram.
Be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel and like us on facebook, Instagram, and on Twitter.
You can send us beer money on Patreon