2007

Story of the Ghosts: Naming Your Band

Our Thursday run-in buddies are back for more…so here are Rupert & Stan from the Ghosts of Wayne Fontes sports blog with an important primer for you.

Congratulations, slacker, you finally formed a band. After weeks of scanning classifieds to find a drummer on Craigslist and Music Mates, the lineup is complete, the repertoire is stocked with a couple sets worth of kickass tunes, and everyone is itching to start playing gigs. Congratulations, you’ve completed the easiest part.

Rockband


Now for the hard part: coming up with the name. Creating – and more importantly, agreeing upon — a good band name is no easy feat. The name must achieve a delicate balance between humor, wit, and distinct uniqueness. Like any good brand, the name has to permeate people’s brains and last in their memories. It’s gotta be something that strikes a cord, like Passive Rape for a triangle/drums duo.

Ultimately, creating the band name is a big decision, because if things go well, this moniker will be larger than the individuals in the band. In fact, the name should last for years, maybe even decades, and potentially outlive all the band members. Thus, we aim to help you in this difficult task set ahead of you. So read on after the jump, where we have concocted a failsafe three-step process for the naming of a band…

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Warren Haynes’ 19th Annual Christmas Jam

Photos by David Oppenheimer of Warren Haynes' 19th Annual Christmas Jam, held December 15th, 2007 at @ The Asheville Civic Center in Asheville, NC. Performers included Jackson Browne, Peter Frampton, Bruce Hornsby, Gov't Mule, G Love, Stockholm Syndrome and Grace Potter & The Nocturnals. Special Guests include Mike Barnes, Mike Farris, Audley Freed, Col Bruce Hampton, Kevn Kinney & Greg Morrow.

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MP3 Boot Camp: Zappa Sues ‘Em All

Frank Zappa bootlegs will become much harder to come by in 2008 thanks to Gail Zappa and the Zappa Family Trust. The ZFT spent the holiday season sending out cease

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Paris Luna: City Lights

A superficial reaction to Paris Luna's City Lights might be to dismiss it as light folk rock. While it does have a few nods to bands best left forgotten like America, there is more behind it.

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Wednesday Intermezzo: Freaks Ball VIII

Each year the taste makers of a Yahoo! group named NYC-Freaks come together to throw a party featuring some of their favorite “just about to break” bands. Freaks Ball VIII

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‘Let My Love Open the Door’ or How I Know When a Movie Is Nearly Over

Pete Townshend is revered as one of rock’s greatest guitarists, songwriters, and showmen, noted for his signature windmill-style guitar strumming and smashing his instrument on stage. But however celebrated Pete and his band have become over the years, Mr. Townshend is responsible for writing and recording one of the most trite and overexposed songs in the history of pop music: “Let My Love Open the Door.”

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The Saddest Christmas Song Was Sung By Someone Who Never Heard The Smiths

We hope everyone’s enjoying a happy holiday…but HT Grinch Chuck Myers does not. He’s kinda hoping someone falls down and sprains an ankle today. I seen ’em.

I’m not a fan of Christmas. Sure, I like the pretty lights and the attractive women in Santa outfits, but seeing yard after yard filled with glowing plastic manger scenes doesn’t fill my heart with joy. Hell, I’m not even a Christian and I find plastic mangers to be somewhat blasphemous. Maybe I can find an inflatable Lao Tzu to stick in my front yard.

Grinch


Anyway. Given my tendencies towards Scroogely behavior, I like to spend the holidays surrounded by depressing music. “Fairy Tale of New York” doesn’t usually make it onto my mix CDs, because it’s just too darned happy. Yeah, I can conjure up some bitter sadness if I think of poor Kirsty MacColl getting mowed down by an asshole in a boat as she saved her son, but that’s not really specific to Christmas.

No, the songs that bring a smile to my withered lips are far bleaker than anything a drunk Pogue can conjure. “Lonely Christmas Eve” by Ben Folds is a step in the right direction, but the music isn’t very sulk-worthy. Folds’ ditty about a lubed-up Santa getting stuck in the chimney (“Bizarre Christmas Incident”) puts the “ahhhh” in my Bahhhh Humbug, but he really gets it right on “Brick,” a timeless carol about a yuletide abortion.

Mew’s Christmas rape story, “She Came Home for Christmas,” is a mainstay, even if it is overwrought and schmaltzy. Tom Waits’ “Christmas Card from a Hooker in Minneapolis” could be titled “Christmas Carol from the Crack Addict Hookers Who Work the Corner By My House,” and Meryn Cadell’s “Cat Carol” still makes me misty-eyed even though the neighborhood stray is living in my basement and pissing on the childhood memories I have stored down there.

These are all great songs to play as I sit in a dark room with a plate of nachos and a worn-out copy of “It’s a Wonderful Life” that plays soundlessly on my vintage VCR. But last year, I discovered* what might be the saddest Christmas song of all. It’s a song that you may have heard, a little tune called “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.”

No, I’m not shitting you. This is some bleak stuff. Read on to find out why…

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