(no subject)
Okay, maybe it's just the fiftysomething hours of sleepless LAN inside me speaking, but I have a question. What's With The Fucking Boring Band Names Lately?
Making my usual rounds of blogs and news and sometimes actual content the other day, and I came across a reference to Architecture in Helsinki. Not, you know, the shape and style of buildings in Helsinki, capital of Finland, but an Australian band-ensemble-type-of-thing.
Architecture in Helsinki.
Yeah. I wanna throw the horns for some more of that neo-classical building shit. That shit's hot.
Let me stack this up for you, the way I see it: way back (you know, before the Internets), with all the bands shooting heroin between their fingers and eating meat and generally living it up, we got good band names. Band names that made you want to rock. Band names that you could put on a t-shirt and give your parents dialysis with. The Kinks. Led Zeppelin. Thin Lizzy. AC/DC. Black Sabbath. Guns 'n Roses. Pink Floyd (okay, maybe not Pink Floyd). And the Buzzcocks.
Shit, man. "Buzzcocks". You put that on a t-shirt now and people will look at you funny. I'm tempted, man, I'm seriously tempted.
To go way back, even further back, take the late '70s and early '80s, when the original New Age music hit. Music store shelves brought the yawn. I find it difficult to imagine two teens in that twilit era that would go, "Hey, man, that concert last night totally rocked the fuckin' house, eh? I scored some sweet shit that night." "Which concert?" "Emerson, Lake, and Palmer."
There was Emerson, Lake, and Palmer; there was YES!; Wham!; Genesis; Supertramp; A Flock of Seagulls. I'm not even going to get into the spate of horrible place-name bands -- okay, yes, I am. Anyone remember Asia? Chicago? Kansas? Boston? Japan? What's that? You've all paid your therapists very, very highly to purge that pain from your heads? Good, good to see. But you're gonna want to go and hide your heads, now, because some of these new bands have names to make floral wallpaper look hard-rockin'.
Architecture in Helsinki. Angels and Airwaves. Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. Polyphonic Spree. ("So, you mean, like, sound?") Modest Mouse. Arctic Monkeys. Snow Patrol. Social Code. International Noise Conspiracy.
30 Seconds To Mars.
And there's only one way to stem the tide, people. Only one way to stop the horrible band names from growing in your CD shelf like so many weeds. Show up at your local music scene -- concerts, record stores, wherever. Bring heroin. Bring steak. Bring Full Metal Jacket. And strap those skinny vegans down, shove all this into their veins until their skin has colour and their eyes gleam like Mick Jagger's used to.
I'm a horrible bastard, I know. But think of the children.
Making my usual rounds of blogs and news and sometimes actual content the other day, and I came across a reference to Architecture in Helsinki. Not, you know, the shape and style of buildings in Helsinki, capital of Finland, but an Australian band-ensemble-type-of-thing.
Architecture in Helsinki.
Yeah. I wanna throw the horns for some more of that neo-classical building shit. That shit's hot.
Let me stack this up for you, the way I see it: way back (you know, before the Internets), with all the bands shooting heroin between their fingers and eating meat and generally living it up, we got good band names. Band names that made you want to rock. Band names that you could put on a t-shirt and give your parents dialysis with. The Kinks. Led Zeppelin. Thin Lizzy. AC/DC. Black Sabbath. Guns 'n Roses. Pink Floyd (okay, maybe not Pink Floyd). And the Buzzcocks.
Shit, man. "Buzzcocks". You put that on a t-shirt now and people will look at you funny. I'm tempted, man, I'm seriously tempted.
To go way back, even further back, take the late '70s and early '80s, when the original New Age music hit. Music store shelves brought the yawn. I find it difficult to imagine two teens in that twilit era that would go, "Hey, man, that concert last night totally rocked the fuckin' house, eh? I scored some sweet shit that night." "Which concert?" "Emerson, Lake, and Palmer."
There was Emerson, Lake, and Palmer; there was YES!; Wham!; Genesis; Supertramp; A Flock of Seagulls. I'm not even going to get into the spate of horrible place-name bands -- okay, yes, I am. Anyone remember Asia? Chicago? Kansas? Boston? Japan? What's that? You've all paid your therapists very, very highly to purge that pain from your heads? Good, good to see. But you're gonna want to go and hide your heads, now, because some of these new bands have names to make floral wallpaper look hard-rockin'.
Architecture in Helsinki. Angels and Airwaves. Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. Polyphonic Spree. ("So, you mean, like, sound?") Modest Mouse. Arctic Monkeys. Snow Patrol. Social Code. International Noise Conspiracy.
30 Seconds To Mars.
And there's only one way to stem the tide, people. Only one way to stop the horrible band names from growing in your CD shelf like so many weeds. Show up at your local music scene -- concerts, record stores, wherever. Bring heroin. Bring steak. Bring Full Metal Jacket. And strap those skinny vegans down, shove all this into their veins until their skin has colour and their eyes gleam like Mick Jagger's used to.
I'm a horrible bastard, I know. But think of the children.