Band Names
A gratuitous exercise in rhyme and meter
Skip the little introduction if you prefer, but the poem below is no great work of art, so I thought I’d offer an explanatory note.
Spontaneously wresting words or phrases from the context of one’s own utterance by an abrupt parenthetical is perhaps a dying trend among Gen X pedagogues, but I know I am not the only one to do so. One of my colleagues finally began keeping a record of all the impromptu “band names” that passed his lips in the course of his instruction. For my own part, I only remember the ones that recur to me each year while retreading the curriculum. Nevertheless, as one who has been in a few bands1 and attended enough indie concerts to account for significant hearing loss, I retain a stubborn delight in the whimsical tradition.
The poem below contains a handful of classroom originals2 (metrically rather clumsy at points), but I have modified some and added several others to fit the form. Really this little bit of verse is just a fun exercise in preserving some memories and employing a broadly dactylic rhythm. I tacked the last stanza on to provide a hypothetical raison d'être for an otherwise meaningless list. I hope you enjoy it.
Band Names Creepy Victor & the More-than-Sisters, Unfortunate Analogue, Quicker than Slow, Social Piñata, The Inverted Blisters, Claustrophile, Satan Vape, Never Ago. Please Curb the Chirping, Residual E’s, Modal Auxiliary, Confident Guess, Parade of Cripples, Impartial Disease, Derelict Tibia, Credulous Tess. Synonym Sugar (and Little Dog II) Menacing Figure, Retractable Clause, Middleclass Mark & His Magic Kazoo, Carnivorous Autotroph, Freaking the Laws. Handful of Silver, The Riband’s Revenge, Voidable, Lifenstance, Some Foreign Word, Abbey of Tinsel, A Stone Without Henge, Full Laser Hand Grenade, Jude the Absurd. Succulent Loaf, A Reversible Trend, Dubious Strategy, Blank of Thine Eye, Warranted Whimsy, Horatio’s Friend, Oblivion’s Bestie, Perennial Why. Barney the Baritone’s Clumsy Quintet, Drifters with Syphilis, Nothing to Gain, Stop at the Whistling, Gertrude’s Regret Phantom Chrysanthemum, Angsty Disdain. None of these labels can promise success (even the talented fight to survive), but each is available (while supplies last), a marvelous bargain at $9.95!
The best band I was ever in was called “Being With,” which I pulled from a short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald. My first “band” (we had one song) was called “Broken Straitjackets.”
Perhaps you literary sorts can spot some of the allusions and speculate about the discussions whence they originated.
Love it. (I keep a running log of band names in Evernote.) Now, in part 2, you should assign genres to each band.
That's just a thing we do, isn't it? Just something people of a certain age do. :) The shorthand I have with my wife is just, "band name." Comes up in quite a few conversations.
The meter really ties these together in such a playful way, too. Nicely done.