All in a name

The Partial
Those Were Crows
The Left Hand Congress
Norway Street
Observatory Crest
Skin of a Lion
Scaffolding Snap
Between the Crosses
Library Fight
The Warm and The Cold
Be That Fly
These Things Are Good Things
The Cruel Auction
The Mizzling Days
Blame The Dark

And these were only my names.

God, it's hard coming up with name for a band. Let me rephrase that: it's hard choosing the name for a band.

When I tend to start a project I get into it really quickly. I wanted us to get a name so I could start a blog that no one reads and a twitter account that only very random people will follow. And my dreams have come true.

And this list is just the names that have been Googled. I came up with at least double this but they failed the Google test: I.e. type the startlingly original name you have come up with into a popular search engine and add 'band' and/ or 'music' and discover that another indie folk outfit has got there first.



It got so frustrating that I ended up coming up with my own indie folk name generator. Imagine if you will a three part Venn diagram. The classic name in this genre is one part pastoral/ nature, one part quaint, one part oblique. Now concentrate: If all three overlap you reach nirvana (the state of being, rather than the band). If pastoral/ nature and quaint overlap you get vomit inducing, quaint and oblique is pretty standard, oblique and pastoral etc.  is Wickerman territory. Savvy?

So Those Were Crows is probably nirvana, like Fleet Foxes. Library Fight standard, like The Magic Numbers, The Mizzling Days Wickerman like One Direction (Sorry, a different kind of horror). The Sweet Ordeal, I reckon is standard, but after the stress of the whole, er, ordeal, I am happy enough with us not reaching nirvana.

Though sadly for the first time in my life, the name of the band I'm in wasn't thought up by me. It was John. I'd like to say that we fought over naming rights like two alpha males re-enacting the Reed Bates naked wrestle in Women in Love. But I'd be wrong.

Quite frankly from a man who said the name should be generated from the colour of your underwear added to what you last ate The Sweet Ordeal was a master stroke. We could have so easily been called Commando Porridge. But John hated all my names and Andrea appeared to only be able to think up names that sounded like covers bands (Meteoric Metaphoric anyone?). So like a blown apart Venn diagram we never met in the middle, until John had his moment and I gave in knowing that the person who had previously played in Andre Breton's Steam Powered Whippet Band, Nar'f, Underlounge, Malevich (okay, nobody's perfect) was going to cede ground.

Despite later learning that The Sweet Ordeal was the name John gave himself for one disastrous gig, I have really warmed to the name. It may be his sloppy seconds...hey wait...that's the underwear and food thing again isn't it?