A little while ago, I was pointed to Jim Munger's blog, which is full of ranting about various topics. Not quite to the standards of alt.peeves, back in the day, but some of it is entertaining.
It also includes several mentions of his band, Better Than Abstinence. There seemed to be something wrong with the audio on the inevitable MySpace page, so I can't say whether they're any good, but if nothing else, it's a good name for a band.
Which, of course, is a nice, low-impact follow-up to yesterday's post about naming in science and art. Coming up with names for nonexistent bands is a common pastime among fans of pop music, and there's at least one blog devoted to the topic.
So, what makes a good band name?
Ideally, it should be fairly short, and memorable. Unlikely-sounding combinations of words are usually good. Kate and I once saw a carving at the Met that was labelled "antithetical squid," and I've always thought that Antithetical Squid would be a great name for a prog-rock band. I'm not alone in this reaction.
Good physics-based band names might be things like The Ultraviolet Catastrophe, or Luminiferous Aether (those would work for album titles, too, possibly for records by Antithetical Squid). Looking at my office bookshelf, "The Quantum Challenge" could almost work, too.
As a general rule, phrases of the form "The {Adjective} {Plural Noun}" tend to sound like band names. Actually, you could do worse than "The Adjective Nouns" (a smartass alternative band, along the lines of Ben Folds Five).
Of course, you can get too clever for your own good. As a general rule, punctuation is bad, particularly when it makes no sense. It's hard to find a review of Panic! at the Disco's first album that doesn't contain a snarky comment about the exclamation mark. And I refuse to have anything to do with the band !!! (pronounced "chick chick chick," apparently), because giving your band a name that can't be pronounced easily is too clever by half.
The quality of the band name has little to do with the ultimate success of a band, though. The Rolling Stones and U2 are both great bands with really good band names, but "The Hold Steady" and "The Beatles" are both really weak names for terrific bands. "The Beatles" in particular, is walking a dangerous line by using a cute misspelling of an ordinary word. Fortunately for them, they were unbelievably brilliant as a band, which makes up for a lot.
So, what's your favorite name for a band that doesn't exist?
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Strategic Rust -- a metal band of course :)
I like Commuting Operators as a band name---the first album cover would be the band, dressed suavely, riding the subway (or in some other way commuting).
I always wanted to get some faculty together and form a heavy metal band named Pedagogica
My imaginary band in high school was Nuns With Guns. @Nick, love the name Pedagogica.
I think you've inspired a new post! In the meantime, here's a few:
The Metric Tensors
Fermat's Last Phoneme
Navier Stoking
can't go wrong with a couple of misplaced ümlauts...
This one was inspired by a particularly grueling two months at work one year:
Standard Insanity
The Monster Raving Loonies would be a good name. Too bad a fringe UK political party--founded by a rock musician, no less--has already taken it.
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot sounds like another promising choice, and an obvious one at that. I'm afraid to Google it, though, because the sites that come up are too likely to be NSFW.
I like "The Adjective Nouns" as suggested in the original post, as well as "The Metric Tensors" suggested by SSD @#5.
First band I was in (I played Theremin) was "Korsakov's syndrome" -- one of the spellings of Korsakoff's syndrome (Korsakoff's psychosis, amnesic-confabulatory syndrome; a brain disorder.
My brother's group (he played bass and wrote the lyrics) that opened for Kiss and The New York Dolls was The Planets.
So, in me immediate family, one name from biomedical, one from Astronomy.
Just brainstorming here ... how about "The Hypothetical Band"?
In high school, I took a course called "Aquatic Biology." it was the only specialized bio class we had, don't aks me why, and was known as a cakewalk. Anyway, my buddy and I would spend the class period just going through the textbook looking for highlighted terms that would make good band names. The ones I recall now are "Winter Stagnation" and "Predacious Diving Beetles." Unrelated to that, at one point some friends and I considered putting together a band called "Scamper."
In undergrad physics lab, my classmates and I thought that The Franck-Hertz Experiment would be a good name for a band.
My labmates and I always thought "Radioactive Razorblades" would make a good band name (as well as a nasty disposal hazard)
My wife has always liked "Girl Scout Cookies" as a band name. I mean, who doesn't like Girl Scout Cookies? Of course, the band would have to be all male.
Triangle fuck
Guitar Hand
My Secret Gay Life
Electric Sex with Satan!
Depressed Math Teacher
Under-funded Science lab
Sky-net Lap dance
I got a spam email once with the subject line "Geosynchronous Mastodon", which is maybe my favorite nonexistent band name.
!!! is actually a pretty good band, though I agree the name is rather twee.
Adiabatic Demagnetization - they play really cool jazz.
The Clausius-Clapeyron Experience
Protactinium Poisoning
Tesla's Revenge
i remember thinking that The Ultraviolet Catastrophe would be a good band name.
there was a band called Dumpster Juice that played in my area in the mid 90's. i never saw them, but a friend of mine enjoyed them.
4 non abelians?
My officemate and I have a list of phrases that we use in the lab that would be good bandnames.
So far my favorites are "Exploding Op-Amps" and "Transmurine Comparison"
Heh. A friend of mine from grad school named his intramural softball team The Ultraviolet Catastrophe.
I don't think I've ever heard of a better band name than Geosynchronous Mastodon. It's amazing.