Suck Suck Suck

Ya know, there are worse things in the world than naming your band something annoying—things like killing people, or donning a diaper and chasing some astronaut cross-country, or, I dunno, literally getting away with murder, only to years later bust into some Las Vegas hotel room with a bunch of guns and try to get all your little trinkets back.

But if you want to read about that stuff, grab yourself a Time magazine in the waiting room of your local clinic (you know what I'm talking about, Mr. Itchy McCrotchy). We're here to bitch about things unimportant. Like the bands !!! and Do Make Say Think, both of whom will be on local stages this week. !!!, according to the band, should be pronounced "chk chk chk" or with any other sound repeated thrice. And Do Make Say Think? Well, um, tongue-twister much? Can you just call yourself Do May Say Think, because that's what we all end up saying anyway? Or better yet, call yourselves The Pretentious Post-Rockers.

Anyway, our therapist recently told us to try to find something productive in all our seething rage, so we're turning it into the following list of tips for new bands hoping to come up with the world's best band name. Follow our advice, and you're guaranteed to come up with the best tag since The Beatles. Unless you're a post-rock band; then you can call yourself whatever you want, because no one really cares.

General Rules

1. No puns allowed.

Let's get something straight here: Puns should be relegated to chess club meetings, punch lines for jokes on candy wrappers and 1950s standup routines. It's freakin' rock 'n' roll, not Mr. Dorkus' Comedy Hour.

2. Lispy stuff sucks.

We like Stephin Merritt's many side projects, we really do. But calling your band the 6ths and calling the 6ths' album Wasp's Nests, so that one must identify it as "the 6ths' Wasp's Nests" is just plain mean.

3. Ixnay on the Irtyday.

It can be pretty funny to make up band names that sound like the concoctions of a giggling fifth-grade boy. Hey, music fans are as immature as they come, and we'll get a laugh out of saying, "Have you heard the latest from Grandma's Pussy?" the first 50 times. But once the novelty has worn off, you're left with nothing but joyless filth.

4. No band names that sound like a single person's name.

Seriously, why bother?

5. Anything with the word "whiskey" in it is guaranteed to blow.

You do this and you're destined to the Tuesday night opening slot at Checker's Pool Hall and Sunday night blues jams.

Grammar/Punctuation

1. Use your umlauts sparingly.

Thïs döës nöt löök cööl.

2. Try not to name your band with an adjective and a noun.

You know, like "The Galloping Roosters," or something. It just sounds so...your dad's generation, and it's a no-no. Unless of course you're calling your band "The Adjective Nouns," which would turn that no-no into po-mo.

3. Using a Z instead of an S is only acceptable in certain situations.

Corollary 1: Do not capitalize said Z unless it is the first letter in the word.

Corollary 2: Do not reverse said Z so that it is backward, especially if it comes at the end of a word. But really, never.

4. Only Prince may use a symbol instead of a word.

Only Prince.

5. If your band name can be identified by an acronym consisting of its first letters, a la QOTSA (Queens of the Stone Age), it's too long.