My Band Name For Today

• Banging Green Women
• The Gimlets
• The Floaters
• Vitreous Opacities
• The Extensive Hyperlinks
• Snap-On Heart

# posted by Mark @ 6:26 AM 0 comments

• Electric Car Collective
• The Smugs
• Knifey
• Crazy Ivan

Almost two years and I haven't named a band "Crazy Ivan" until now? Amazing!

Today's Writers Embellishment comes to us via a fake band named "The Smugs". All five band members died, along with their manager, in a Swiss chalet in the early 70's under mysterious circumstances. Was it a record company cover-up? A drug-fueled mass suicide or a Manson-like nightmare? Or was it something more sinister? Buy the rights to my spec script "Who Killed the Smugs?" to find out!

((Yes, I am fully aware that the first thing a studio will do is change the title))

# posted by Mark @ 9:53 AM 0 comments

• Coma Wife
• Air Potato
• Chubby McButterpants
  

# posted by Mark @ 11:25 PM 0 comments

That Barbie Cake photo is AWOL. I'll see what I can do about that. It should work, but the link is broken. I blame the internet.

Here are some more band names Mellina won't like:

• The Band Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat
• Korsakoff's Syndrome
• Radar Box
• Absolute Radius
• Blame The Internet

# posted by Mark @ 2:28 PM 0 comments

Inductive, reductive, deductive.

Pick one.

Today's band names:

• Mister Poofer
  
• Spunky Gal
  

• The Entities Of The Universe
  

• Suddenly Sushi
  
• Harvest of Foolishness
  

A William F. Buckley-like Digression "On Three Kinds of Logic" (it's not funny)

On the subject of picking one, I haven't decided. Except I recognize that deduction is always safe and induction is always risky. And what many people believe is deductive is actually highly prejudicial induction.

Dawkins makes a good case for hierarchical reductionism. It has its uses as an abstraction. But I resist any system that tries to explain too much with too little. That leads away from the province of logic into the fjords of mere opinion.

Happy Birthday Karen M!

# posted by Mark @ 6:19 AM 0 comments

• Hot Jupiters
• Finger Business
• Two Hand Jenga
  
• Charmion
• Convincingly Dead
• The Mark To Space Ratio*
  

*The "mark/space ratio" is another term for pulse wave modulation (PWM). Now before I lose you, let me tell you why this is a decent band name. My name is Mark, and by day, I work in the aerospace sector in a facility near Cape Canaveral Florida. "Mark To Space", get it? But the term also represents a the percentage of time that a sound wave is up or down. If a sonic wave doesn't vibrate up or down, you can't hear it--it's not really a sound at all.

So, if we modulate a pulse wave, which is a rich and reedy sounding wave, a mark/space ratio of 10:90 means that the pulse wave is UP for 10% of the cycle and DOWN for 90% of it.

Traditional synthesis allows sound designers to modulate the aforementioned pulse waves (which are really square waves of various duration). Although they have their uses, both square and pulse waves are not very interesting, sonically speaking. They have a tendency to sound either thin, hollow or both.

The new system I'm working with allows me to dynamically modulate the width of sawtooth waves. Saw waves are quite sonically powerful waveforms, rich in complex and ear-pleasing harmonics. I can modulate a flute-like triangle wave into a complex sawtooth wave. This opens up new aural possibilities, as I am now trying all my old PWM tricks on sawtooth sounds.

Of course some killjoy will write me that an obscure piece of old hardware like the MoogyARP 500 could do this way back in 1967. --Don't spoil the buzz I'm getting from designing new sounds. I've got a brand new box of matches. I deserve the chance to burn my own fingers.

--Mark

# posted by Mark @ 6:02 AM 0 comments

Hello and greetings from "My Band Name For Today". It's like Fantasy Island, but for band names of bands that don't actually exist. Yet.

I am Mr. Roarke, your host. I am the one who makes band names fun(TM). Welcome to Band Name Island.

• Spend-A-Penny
• Fishwife
• Convincingly Dead
  
  
  
• Charnel House (actually a good name for a publisher)
• Pope Ticket
• Blue Cough Drop
  

# posted by Mark @ 6:38 AM 0 comments

You heard me! Rock is dead! Long live Paper and Scissors!

Band names for you:

• God Hand
• Bladder Pup
• The Easy Spirit Pumps
• Microwave Ants

# posted by Mark @ 6:29 AM 0 comments

Enjoy instant band name satisfaction:

• Deep Blue Sun
• Skitch
• Breakfast Wedding

• Thailand Junta
• Fusion Suitcase
• The Tone Dogs

Also enjoy the date on these blogs bopping around between now and 2010. I have no idea why this is happening.

# posted by Mark @ 7:27 AM 0 comments

• Urinal Thief
  
• Double Bullets
  
• Mark Tree
  
• Young Tongue
  

• Young Tongue -- an intentional (?) mispronunciation of won ton (as in "won ton soup").
• Mark Tree -- A percussion instrument. Often mislabeled a "bell tree" (which is something different). Named after percussionist/inventor Mark Stevens.
  
• Double Bullets -- What you get from a software bug in Space Invaders for the Atari 2600. Hold down the reset switch while powering up and BANG! Double bullets!
• "Urinal Thief" -- A headline from a Reuters "Oddly Enough" news story: "Police hunt pub urinal thief". I hope they make her wash her hands.

# posted by Mark @ 6:26 AM 2 comments

• Nymphomercial

Ouch! That's such a near-perfect neologistic construction that it makes my wisdom teeth ache! Tuesday's trip to the doctor's office for a sinus infection also resulted in a bleedin' diabolical name for a metal band:

• Fecal Occult Blood Syndrome

"Fecal Occult" scares me both in the sense that its graphically ugly and also that its probably already been used as a band name.

Here are some bonus names:

• The Combinatorics
• Funeralized - The James Brown Tribute Band
• Storm King
• Tweakable Zen

# posted by Mark @ 6:51 AM 4 comments

Losing Urine

I was at my doctor for a sinus infection when I noticed this poster on the wall. I can honestly say it was a question that never occurred to me:

My first thought was to question if I'd lost any urine lately. "Honey! Where is that urine I had? Did we put that up in the attic?"

Similarly, I wondered if a Urogynocologist was somehow related to the unpopular UroDisney theme park. Of if they accepted payment only by the Uro, the goofy-looking monetary unit of the Uropean Eunion.

Then I noticed another poster. It said "Men: Are you experiencing decreased testosterone levels?" And I was thinking thank goodness they qualified that question by limiting it to men. After all, this is the home state of former US Attorney General and Cuban Boy deporter Janet Reno.

Now I need to go get me an appointment with a urogynocologist. Maybe she can help me find all that urine.

# posted by Mark @ 2:59 PM 2 comments

Bonne année, mon petit script kiddies. I had pre-written a couple band name posts to publish during the long holiday. Just one thing: I failed to publish them. Here's my chance to slap up these suckers.

• Tropes and Schemes
• Canon of Style
• Second Bonk Theory

• Space Is Magic
• Swap Plot Flop
• Ultimate Ripper

Lots of Holiday experiences and annecdotes. My annual trek to Colorado usually results in another year's worth of materal, as all the childhood traumas come flooding back. Ah, but where would art be without suffering? Cheers!

# posted by Mark @ 6:27 AM 0 comments