2007-07-31
The Longest band Name in band name List History
- The Scrubbing Bubbles
- Reluctant Pimp
- Kentucky Puggle
- 30 Percent Bad, 40 Percent Mediocre and 30 Percent Really, Really Good
- Chisel Point
That long band name is based on a reviewer comment that even for a legendarily great musical artist, any given album is 30 percent bad, 40 percent mediocre and 30 percent really, really good.
"Poignant Nuggets of Urban Longing" from a couple days ago was supposed to be "Poetic Nuggets of Urban Longing", but I committed it to memory incorrectly when the name first occurred to me. I'd better be careful or I will reveal the incredible mnemonic technique of my Amazing Memory System ™ without getting your four easy payments of $79.95 first!
"Chisel Point" is, of course, from a dry erase marker. What were you thinking?
2007-07-27
- The Beige Fog
- Bloodsucking Angels
- Poignant Nuggets of Urban Longing
- Panty Man
- John Merrick's Remains
2007-07-25
- A New Kind of List
- Lunch Gun
- The Birth Coaches
- Failure Pile
- Malaise
New Feature Coming Soon!
Five years in the making:
Fistfight in Heaven©!
2007-07-22
What I'm Pitching Hollywood Today
It's a Hermit Crab, a hedgehog and a parakeet that travel the world to teach kids about weights and measures. Each televised half-hour contains three 7-minute vignettes about the metric system, distances in time and space, the monetary units of many lands, historical currency, Ancient coinage and numismatism, converting between units and the history of weighs and measures.
And along the way they learn an important lesson about racism or something.
"The Avoirdu-Pets"(tm) Nothing else quite measures up!
2007-07-20
Avoirdupois
- The Scissor Jacks
- The Decaying Orbiters
- Stella Octangula
- "Avoirdupois" or "Aveir de Peis"
- Attention Span Theater ©
- 3'33" University ©
- Toefection
Attention Span Theater © is my new side project. I present discrete info nuggets in under seven and a half minutes. 3'33" University © is for people who don't have the mental focus for the whole thing.
2007-07-18
Sh! The Octopus
- Diminishing Triangle
- Bad Mookie
- Refrigerator Midgets
- Chubby Rain
- Sh! The Octopus
"Chubby Rain" is up there for my friend Kyle. Gotcha Suckka!
Some of you may doubt the existence of something as unlikely as "Sh! The Octopus". I assure you it is quite real. The Internet told me so.
"Drunk For Hire" auteur and frequent collaborator Paxton Hare has started posting his quite excellent photography in a daily blog. Check it out at http://www.paxtonhare.com/ and subscribe to his RSS feed. I plan on making it a permalink.
While you are there, be sure and read the info/comments link at the bottom of each image, and check out the other photos in the Archive. It is a heap of horizontal scrolling goodness.
And remember: To cure dropsy, write the word "Abracadabra" as a diminishing
triangle on parchment paper. Wear the parchment around your neck for
nine days. Finally, throw the paper backwards over your shoulder into a
stream that flows eastwards.You won't find that Rx in convicted felon and billionaire fraud Kevin Trudeau's "Natural Cures" book (as far as I know), but its as scientifically effective as anything he can come up with.
"Dropsy" goes on my list of words that don't mean what I think they mean.
2007-07-13
She Blinded Me With Dolby
Sound of the 80's
Several days ago I wrote about the sound of the 80's being the Yamaha DX7 synthesizer. In the intervening time I realized that the *real* sound of the 80's is Dolby-B encoded music played back on non-Dolby equipment. Cassette tapes were de rigueur in the 80's, and 99% of prerecorded tapes had Dolby noise reduction.
But did the tape deck in your mom's Plymouth have Dolby? What about the Radio Shack all-in-one stereo in the living room? Your cheap Walkman knock-off? Your sisters ghetto blaster (*there's* a term I haven't heard in years!).Dolby B encoding had its own distinct sound. The high end hiss of companded tape noise added a little sparkle to otherwise dull cassettes. You got so accustomed to the effect that you almost missed it when it was gone.
When I finally used a tape deck that actually had Dolby NR, it was anticlimactic. You could switch on Dolby B and a percentage of the tape hiss would go away. But so was the high end sparkle. Dolby B encoding was the poor man's Aural Exciter. Yes, I said it. Aural exciter.
Now before all the jokes get going in your head, listen to this audio feature (you'll have to click the play button twice to use it depending on the security settings of your browser).
Paul McCarney used the more expensive Aphex Aural Exciter on the Tug of War album ("Ebony and Ivory"). "Trouble at Madame Dong's" was an audio ad on the B-side of a Keyboard Magazine "SoundPage". In the mid-80's Keyboard included an Eva-Tone flexidisc in each issue. EvaTone is still in business. I drove by their office in Clearwater Florida just last week.
Exiters and enhancers are alive and well in modern audio production, albeit generally as software and not hardware. BBE and the SRS WoW effect are two examples often found in consumer-level equipment. Although some audiophiles will try to warp the space-time continuum to tell you that BBE is not an exciter...that's exactly what it is.
So as I see it, you can use an exciter like everyone else, but if you want to be really different, encode your CDs and MP3s with Dolby B Noise Reduction.Or if you want to be really obscure, use JVC's compatible ANRS system
2007-07-11
I'm not the only Blog that provides Fake Band Names...
Today's fake Band names:
- Defective Wheelchair Redneck
- Epoxy Creep
- Family Haircut Massacre
- Pants Garland
- The Octopodes
"Epoxy Creep" is blamed for the Boston Big Dig Cave in. Nice to know their tunnel is held up by glue.
The "Defective Wheelchair Redneck" is a guy I saw at a local convenience store that kept speedily crashing into displays.
"Pants Garland", like all good and lovely things, comes from email spam.
Is "octopode" a repeat? I don't remember.
2007-07-09
My Mermaid Murmurs Murder
- Mermaid Murmurs Murder
- Dominant Tentacle
- Uriel's Machine
- Eschatological Theater
- Portable Soup
Turns out "Wire Mom" is a real band. Good luck, guys. Better luck than "Radar Secret Service", at least.
"Eschatological" goes on the list of words that don't mean what I think they do, along with "pyorrhea", "niggardly" and "witch hazel".
2007-07-08
Back from Vacation....
- The Zack Morris Time-Out Moment
- Fake Ghost Gambit
- Hysterical Rictus
- Split Utensil
- Wire Mother*
*If I haven't named a band "Wire Mother" in the three-plus years this band name list has existed, I don't deserve the right to blog.
