My Band Name For Today

• Dead Spy Probe
• Safety Shoes
• Active Jack
• The Magmatics

• Pine Candle
• The Code of Hammurabi
• Restaurant Mode
• The Spoils of Technology
• Song Island

(Drum) Machines That Always Halt
Those lucky enough to know me are well aware of my disdain for drum loops. Give me a live drummer*. In the absence of live drums, I've amassed a collection of drum recordings that I've REX-ified to allow me to use them at different tempi. Before REX I used MIDI performances of real drummers, and I can program a mean SR16 drum machine in a pinch. Audio loops are so 1990's.

So Mister Music Man, explain this (links to external music track completed with the use of drum loops). In my defense, I was a mad tracker in the late 80's early 90's, so in a way, all of that stuff was loop-based. Plus the SEQ-SONG structure of the Ensoniq ESQ-1 sequencer was classically loop-based. But the frustration of working with MOD loops on a tracker was enough to prove to me the limitations of audio loops.

I bought the first version of ACID and used it for remixing, but I would often fly in the main drum track much later. By the time ACID added decent midi support, we already had SONAR, and SONAR has supported REX for a couple years already, so why use loops?

Two reasons, in this case. Reason 1: The loop the song is constructed around is interesting, but it is impossible to extract the drums/rhythm part from the harmonic content. Reason 2: I am lazy.

See, I've always complained that loop-based musicians were lazy paint-by-the-numbers remixers, and not real musicians.

And now I have joined them.

*As long as I don't have to mic the drums--placing mics for drum kits is a science that can't be learned in one lifetime.

Enjoy some loop-free band names. Now that I think about it, loops *are* implicit in some of them.

• Turing Tar Pit
• Jarface
• Greenspun's Tenth

• Wasilla Wasabe
• Tadpole Pipeline
• The Ratchet Straps

• Sapir–Whorf Hypothesis
• Foam Trip
• Mister Moony

The ratings dropped off last week. Some have recommended that I switch the blog over to naming alternative grindhouse exploitation movies. Titles like "I Spit on Your Blood" or "I Eat Your Lunch".

Whatever pays the bills. Your band name of the day:

• Budget Steve
  
• I was A Teenage Strangler
  
• Lazy Sidewalk
  
• Couch
  
• The Jim Caviezel Experience
  

Band Name of the Day--A bargin at any price!

• The Baby Factory
• Sorraia Mustang Studbook
• Corner-X
  
• Alcoholic Coma
• Ball Soup
• Schimatrix

• Walking Eye
• Rootkit
• The Modern Weebles
• I am Jack's STD
• Annihilatrix

Speaking of Annihilatrix, Frisky Dingo is one of the best things going right now. Ironically, it got it's name because of a legal dispute with the band Whisky Tango.

Contrary to the title of this post, your computer has not automatically downloaded software that monitors your shopping habits as you have read this post. And I do not receive $5 USD for each month it remains active on your computer.

Thank you very much.

--Mark

• Prophecy Twist
• Comedy Rabbit
• Coal-Stoked Firebox
• Assertive Assembly of Asset Assesment Assignees, Associated*
• Nutplate Connectors
• Strapping Laptop
  
  *for you fans of assonance

I'm reacting to the news that String Cheese Incident is breaking up.

Not because it's such a surprise... Doubtless like the rest of you, I was surprised to learn that the band still existed as such.

It's like when the Sally Jesse daytime talk show was cancelled; Producers say they were moved to pull the show when they discovered that it was still on the air.

I'm sure String Cheese band members yanked the plug on the band similarly.

News Flash: The Prog Band Child will be breaking up any day now as soon as the whereabouts lead singer is discovered (she disappeared like Judge Crater into the drug fueled haze of 1970's Great Britain).

Today's blog provides no new phony band names, but it does provide you with a lot of stuff to look up in wikipedia. And if you are familiar with all the references made today, you win the Band Name For Today Cultural Relevancy Prize.

It's election day in America, and the most terrifying words in the English language are, "I'm from the government and I'm here to help."

• Festus Appreciation Society
• Drywater Accent
• Comedy Bag
• The Killer Shrews
• Bedweatin' Gangstas

• Fortress of Fools
• Rodeo Secretary
• A Piece of Mister Mike
• Wasilla
• Button Bangle Billy

The ratings are back and they show we get a lot of Saturday visitors. Here is a special list of Saturday band names for you people who have nothing better to do with your weekend.

• Slooty-Sloot
• Chocolate Hostage
• Vamdui

• The Predecessor Version
• Proper Hand Model
• Dong-A Ilbo*

* A newspaper in South Korea. This name is priceless as far as I am concerned. Of course Iran has a news service called "Jam-E-Jam" (or similar), which has appeared here as a previous band name.

We don't need no stinking Band Names.

• Pan Law
• Country Pie (meat makes the crust!)
• Shoes of Pain

• ThunderBunny
• Decibels of Full Scale
• Boiled Dinner