#105: Howard Stern’s favorite band Name, seriously
Ira Glass; Salvia Palth; Insane Who Sane; Willem Dafoe Fan Club; The Mary Tyler Whores
Ira Glass
From WBEZ Chicago, it’s…a Chicago post-hardcore band named after the host of This American Life. That’s it, that’s the name: Ira Glass. Not, like, Ira Sass or Chimaera Glass or Ira Glass Houses. There’s a lot of possibility, but nope. Just the name Barry and Shirley Glass bestowed upon their only son back in March 1959.
The decision has a typically banal origin. “I feel like we were shouting out names one time,” guitarist Sunny Betz told The Alternative in 2023. “We could have done a dumb riff on his name, where we spelled it differently or something, but I feel like that’s not the point.”
So what is the point?
“I feel like it does have a political meaning, but I don’t know if I could really articulate it,” added vocalist/guitarist Lise Ivanova. “I grew up with him, having a liberal upraising in a way. He really symbolizes something for me. I don’t know what.”
Maybe in the two years since, Ivanova has settled on the political and/or symbolic meanings of Ira Glass, but the band hasn’t done much press. Their Instagram has a scant three images, and their website must’ve taken minutes to make.
Luckily, they were very chatty with The Alternative’s Elizabeth Piasecki Phelan, who reached out to their namesake for comment. “Even if they picked the name to mock me, I like it. Nice someone cares,” Glass said via email. He needn’t be concerned. “No, no. We respect the man,” Ivanova assured Phelan.
“As a band, in any of our aspects we try not to be gimmicky,” said drummer Landon Kerouac.1 “That’s what we’re kind of worried about. We’re not trying to boost SEO or anything.”
Again, they needn’t be concerned. Naming yourself after a major media figure who’s been active for nearly five decades has the opposite effect of SEO. As the great Leor Galil wrote in the Chicago Reader, “If you’ve got the chutzpah to borrow your unknown posthardcore group’s name from one of public radio’s most famous personalities, you’d better be prepared to get buried in search results.” Exactly. No one’s gonna find this Ira Glass without appending “band” to their search query.
The name Ira Glass is more geared toward IRL optimization. I can picture some aging, liberal tote-bagger happening across an event listing. “Honey, Ira Glass is in town!” they say over their morning açai bowl. “And tickets are super cheap! It’s strange that he’s appearing in the downstairs bar of some place called Subterranean, but that’s Ira! He always keeps us guessing!”
Imagine their surprise when the quartet stoically takes the stage and launches into “Torrid Love Affair With a Family Annihilator.”
As Ivanova repeatedly screeches “His hair / falling all over me,” one of our Glass-heads leans over to the other and says, “Surely Torey Malatia wouldn’t approve of this!”
Salvia Palth
This is one of a handful of monikers used by New Zealand’s Daniel Johann Lines, who found acclaim as Salvia Palth with the 2013 release of melanchole. Lines doesn’t capitalize anything, which tracks with that album title and a name inspired by an iconic poet who famously committed suicide. He’s also released music under his own name and Adore, 1996, which seems like a reference to the Smashing Pumpkins album of the same name (but was released in 1998).
Still, Salvia Palth feels like the best name for Lines’ music, especially for last year’s last chance to see.
“These songs thematically tie in with what people who are still listening to the first album might need to hear: young people who struggle to make meaningful relationships,” Lines said in the accompanying press release. “With melanchole, there’s no real closure, and there’s no real path forward. You’re stuck with this stunted teenage philosophy of vague nihilism that I’m trying to replace with a more constructive philosophy.”
“Well that sounds positive,” you say. “I was expecting a bum-out.”
Oh, you naive soul. The “shattering loss” of Lines’ father in 2020 forms “the emotional crux of the whole album,” he says. “These are platonic love songs decontextualized.”
In the six-plus-minute penultimate track “How Many Will I Make?,” Lines sings, “just walking around my hometown / thinking about your mistakes / how many will i make til i’m perfect?”
Well, that’s better than what Plath wrote about her father, who died when she was 8. One of her most famous poems, the scathing “Daddy,” concludes with this:
There’s a stake in your fat black heart
And the villagers never liked you.
They are dancing and stamping on you.
They always knew it was you.
Daddy, daddy, you bastard, I’m through.
And you thought this wouldn’t be a bum-out!
Insane Who Sane
I can’t find much about this Detroit-based DJ, aside from his real name appears to be Hussein, and he was born in Egypt. His bio says he left his home country to pursue music, first in NYC, then to Detroit to immerse himself in “the birthplace of techno.”
As a moniker, Insane Who Sane recalls the comparatively tranquil days of the Gulf War, back when people loved rhyming Saddam Hussein’s name, as captured in a season 12 episode of The Simpsons.
But if you go looking for Insane Who Sane on Spotify, you’ll discover it only recognizes one insane artist from Detroit. Woop woop!
Willem Dafoe Fan Club
Not to be confused with the 1,900-member-strong Facebook group.
Because Willem Dafoe has become as much a meme as a continually working actor, it’s hard to know where these youngsters from Minnesota fall on the Dafoe Awareness Spectrum. I don’t explain why, but because one of them is the daughter of Low’s Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Parker (RIP), I’m inclined to think they’d be like, “For real, you gotta check out Auto Focus.”
The Mary Tyler Whores
Some bands don’t just telegraph their ostensible edginess, they practically go door-to-door and shout, “CAN YOU BELIEVE HOW OUTRAGEOUS WE ARE?! TRULY YOUR MIND CANNOT PROCESS HOW FEW FUCKS WE GIVE. IT’S ZERO, IN CASE THAT ISN’T CLEAR.”
To wit, the Mary Tyler Whores.2
The interminable, all-caps-in-a-weird-typeface bio on their website does this ad nauseam, proclaiming them “the undisputed batshit-craziest, punchy-punk rock band with a hint of sleaze.” It also claims that theirs is “Howard Stern’s favorite band Name,3 seriously.”
The group formed in Florida around 2000, self-released an EP called Sex Sells & We’re Buyin’ in 2003, then broke up for a long time before reforming in Southern California in 2023. Says the bio with a hint of hyperbole:
“Something about the raw badassery of the music, the snarky lyrics, the hooky anthems, and of course the unrivalled live performance they pro-created together. Shit felt so good, like filthy foul-mouthed, gross hard-core, improper bad taste lustful first-time sex good!”
Mmm-hmm. Their wild-and-crazy bona fides boil down to two things. First, an admittedly crazy-sounding show opening for Iggy Pop in 2001 that involved hamburger meat and someone’s prosthetic leg getting thrown on stage. Second, unremarkable SoCal punk songs about addicts, sex workers, and sex-worker addicts, with titles like “American Sex Fiend” and “White Trash Girl.” It’s the kind of stuff that may outrage the Fox News set, but even they’d probably be like, “Eh, Rancid’s been doing this better for decades. The real problem is Kneecap!”
The Mary Tyler Whores may even be MAGA-adjacent, judging by their affiliation with Trumpy edgelord clothing brand Assholes Live Forever.
That said, vocalist Frankie “Crime” Cassara proclaims “With no discrimination, let your freak flag fly” at the end of that never-ending bio, which announces the upcoming release of their first full-length, As Filthy as We Wanna Be (a nod to their Floridian forebears in 2 Live Crew).4
The band recorded it with Bad Religion’s Greg Hetson in 2023 for release via Golden Robot Records in 2024. Then it was April 2025. Now there’s no date. In May they announced on Instagram they were looking to book a tour, but the only upcoming live date on their site is for an album-release show at a TBA venue in LA sometime in 2025. Don’t hold your breath, everybody.
POST-SCRIPTS
Judging by that Instagram video, the Willem Dafoe apple didn’t fall far from the Low tree. I only know about them from hearing Alan Sparhawk on Kreative Kontrol, Vish Khanna’s excellent podcast. INSPIRATION LURKS EVERYWHERE, PEOPLE.
Also, look out for an interview with Vish here soon.
Speaking of interviews, Coco Kinnon of Winona Fighter will follow shortly.
What’s Golden Robot Records, you ask? It’s an Australian indie label that specializes in baby bands on their way up and legacy acts on their long, slow descent (Vanilla Fudge, Faster Pussycat, Orgy, Filter). “In just ten years, the [label] has released over 1,000 albums, EPs, and singles,” says its bio. “This remarkable output is a reflection of both the label’s passion and its ability to identify and nurture talent across a wide range of musical genres.” Or maybe it reflects a lack of focus?
This isn’t a stage name. Landon’s grandfather was Jack Kerouac’s cousin. I think the legendary beat writer would appreciate the band’s strident cacophony.
Chicago’s Mary Tyler Morphine did it better.
I guess such an accolade requires capitalization?
Google claims 94% of users liked this album. Man, it really has gotten untrustworthy.