rth naming protocols

What’s My (Nick) Name?

Jul 082013

While reading about the surprising success of the 2013 Pittsburgh Pirates, I noticed that the columnist referred to the team with the familiar insider’s nickname of the “Buccos” a few times. That reminded me of how the Montreal Canadiens were sometimes called the “Habs” instead. It’s odd because a team name is a nickname already. Why would you need an insider’s nickname to the nickname?

A band’s name is a nickname too, but sometimes the hippest of the hipsters need to prove their deeper band loyalty by referring to their favorites by their second-level nickname. Are there a lot of these? Ask your friends Whitey and Lumpy for the band nicknames that can only be associated with a single band and must be obviously recognized as that band’s nickname. Easy one: Everyone knows your talking about The Beatles when you say the Fab Four.

Name That Name

Posted by al

Apr 162012

Spoiler Alert: Grumpy Old Man Ahead

Here’s the track listing from the CD accompanying the March 2012 issue of The Word:

Field Music – Start The Day Right
Team Me – Patrick Wolf & Daniel Johns
Phantom Limb – The Pines
Hundreds – Happy Virus
Chuck Prophet – I Felt Like Jesus
Folks – Avalanche
Speech Debelle – X Marks The Spot
Lovecraft – The Beast
Dodgy – What Became Of You
Am & Shawn Lee – Somebody Like You
Band Of Skulls – Wanderluster
Hooray For Earth – Last Minute
Mike Doughty – Na Na Nothing
Alex Highton – I Left The City
O’Hooley & Tidow – The Last Polar Bear

I was 5 tracks into the disc before I knew whether the band name or the song title came first.

What’s happened to band names?!?! I tell you, it’s another facet of EPG’s contention that there’s been no good music since 1983.

It wasn’t always this way. There was a time when band names were recognizably band names AND they were cool. C’mon, will anybody seriously argue that Panic! At The Disco is a cool name?

Types of band names changed over time, they followed trends, but they were recognizable.

I’d like to enlist the collective wit & wisdom of to catalog the eras of band names, create the time line. Can we fill in the time from 1955 to 1983 (or further if you insist there has still been music since then)? You define the time frame, you describe the band name category, you give the examples.

I’ll start it off.

1967-68: Psychedelic names, like Strawberry Alarm Clock, Ultimate Spinach, Electric Prunes…

“Electric Ladyland, table for two? Electric Ladyland?”

Posted by BigSteve

Dec 222011

You may have read this story about a guy who legally changed his name to Led Zeppelin II.

This would not be my choice for a new name, but I respect Led’s decision. Like the author of the article, I was wondering if his son will be named Led Zeppelin III? He says the change made him a better person and improved his quality of life, so more power to him.

We have aliases here at Rock Town Hall, but I can’t recall anyone whose alias is an album title. If you were going to change your real-life name to an album title, which one would you choose?