What’s in a (Band) Name?
For about the past five years, I’ve kept a list of prospective band names on my phone. Something will come up in a conversation and I’ll think to myself, “damn, that would be a sick band name.” I’ll add it to the list and here we are with a list of band names that’s some 130ish names long.
The very first band name to make the list was Squeaky Fridge Grease after a conversation about the refrigerator in my sister-in-law’s apartment. Although plenty of people have disagreed with me, I maintain that the absolute best band name on the list (and arguably the best band name of all time) is Fins for Flash Floods. Trust that if I were to start a band tomorrow, of any genre, that’s what it would be called. F4FF Forever!
Last March, I took 64 band names and put them into a March-Madness style tournament. I made a bracket and assigned each band into one of four genres: Punk, Ska, Metal, and Folk. Each genre corresponded to the various conferences in the NCAA March Madness bracket equivalent. By the end of the month we found ourselves with a Final Four of Toddler Chain Gang (punk), Slug Farm (folk), Karate in the Food Court (metal), and Suckerpunch Kickflip (ska). Toddler Chain Gang narrowly beat Karate in the Food Court for the championship and was crowned the best band name on my list for last year. Toddler Chain Gang maintains an impressive fanbase, despite having produced no music or media of any sort, ever.
This year, I’ve got 64 new prospective band names. No repeats from last year or any other previous competitions. Each band name has its own origin story and all have been vetted by my wife to make sure that they aren’t already spoken for, trademarked, or copyrighted by existing musical acts. Indeed and with confidence, I’m very pleased to present to you 64 unique and original band names for this year’s band name tournament.
The format of the tournament will largely follow that of the NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship Tournament. The 64 band names will be divided into the same four genres as last year. Within each genre, teams will be seeded 1 through 16. Seeds will be determined by my mother who, politely, doesn’t know much about any of these genres. In the initial round, teams will be paired in a traditional seeding format (e.g. 1 vs 16, 2 vs 15, etc.) with single elimination head-to-head matchups determined by popular vote.
The rounds of voting will coincide with the rounds of basketball for the NCAA Men’s March Madness tournament, because the dates are already decided and that’s easy enough for me to follow. The voting (and related nonsense) will take place via the Instagram account @BandNameBattle.
Though the tournament doesn’t begin for nearly two months, momentum is building. Early frontrunners include names like Banana Stampede, When Snails Attack, and Mariachi Emergency. Analysts have suggested that if Tropical Opossums makes it out of the first round, it could have a straight shot to the Punk Genre finale, but nothing’s guaranteed while bands like Queso Manifesto and Birthday Jail remain in the fight.
Anything can happen. Nothing’s up for grabs. It’s all in the name.
