#10: Alumni check-in I

Guitar Wizards of the Future; And I Was Like, What?; Brutal Dildos; Happy Mothers Day, I Can’t Read; I Fucked a Turkey and Got Away With It

Aug 25, 2020

When I announced Band Name Bureau years ago in February, part of the plan was to occasionally look back at bands that came through the Year in Band Names or BNB. I did something similar with aYear in Band Names all-star edition in 2016, where I revisited such legendary alumni as Here Comes Old Vodka Tits, Natalie Portman’s Shaved Head, Cerebral Ballzy, and the Ska Skank Redemption. But I’ve written about so many curios—something like 3,500 according to my spreadsheet—why not take another stroll down Scam Avenue?

Programming note: There’s a NSFW illustration toward the end. You can also file it under “problematic.”

Guitar Wizards of the Future

Originally featured in the YIBN 2012, GWOTF were cited for their song “Straight Up Don’t Give a Fuck,” which also seems to be their overall outlook. The image atop their Bandcamp basically says as much.

Their band bio states “Oakland whiteboy bedroom beats,” but GWOTF’s sound is more varied than that implies (though just as ramshackle). A review for the band’s third studio album, Rattle Snake Festival—which Bandcamp says came out June 9, 1969, or 6-9-69, woooooooooooo— “is like switching the dial onto some bizarro country-western station broadcasting from a bombed-out apocalypse bunker.” So… Ween? Pretty much. GWOTF’s songs often feel like thought experiments, like, “What if I sang a song in a shaky French accent about eating tandoori chicken by a swimming pool?” That would be “Tandoori B.B.Q.” Or “What about a soul song about race relations that uses tighty whities as an allegory for white fragility?” Well check out “Togetherness,” which opens with, “All you whities, don’t be so uptighty / Get your panties out of a bunch.” Perhaps a country song lamenting days gone by, when Human League and Mötley Crüe ruled the Billboard charts? “Cadillac Cars and VCRs.” Or maybe a song about a waffle that’s heavy on ’80s synths and strange samples? Then “A Waffle on a Plate.” Like listening to Wesley Willis, this music may drive you insane with prolonged exposure.

And I Was Like, What?

Originally mentioned in the 2010 edition of the YIBN—ah yes, the year of Puffy Areolas—Portland’s And I Was Like, What? abandoned their name in 2011 for… the Hague. [Crickets.] As discussed with Jimmy Pardo in the BNB bonus #4.1, names taken from regions or cities—even European ones that try war criminals—are a shrug. The Hague is no exception. That said, And I Was Like, What? is unwieldy, even by “Keep Portland Weird” standards. It was also probably too silly for these guys, whose “about” section on their Facebook page is super-crammed.

“See Less,” indeed.

Brutal Dildos

An OG of the Year in Band Names, Brutal Dildos appeared in my first standalone list, filed under Worst Band Names Of ’06 in the A.V. Club’s blog. The following year, they would release their first EP, the hilariously titled Sorry Mom! I know nothing of the members or their moms, but let’s assume one of them is named Mark and has a mom named Jeannie.

Apparently Brutal Dildos released a full-length called Give ’Em Hell in 2009, but little remains of them if you google “brutal dildos band.” That changes drastically when you remove “band” from the search.

Happy Mothers Day, I Can’t Read

One of my favorite names of all time, Happy Mothers Day, I Can’t Read dates back to 2007, and scant evidence of the group’s existence remains. Back then, I undoubtedly encountered them while editing show listings for the local editions of the The A.V. Club. Was it all just a glorious fever dream, where a child—perhaps now an adult—who can no longer bear the shame of their illiteracy, just blurts out “Happy Mother’s Day, I can’t read” during a toast at brunch, mimosa in hand? But Discogs offers some album information as proof of HMDICR’s existence. An image from a 2004 split release with a band called Ova! produces the only HMDICR song titles I can find: “Marak the Merciless,” “Hans Gruber,” “Mason! Mason!,” “The Capture of X-51,” “Beastkiller,” “Sink of Blood,” and “Two-Fisted Demon.” (Ova!’s songs include “The Land Abounds with Game,” “Tittie-Cam (Kelly’s Having a Baby),” and “Kick It, Fuck It.”) HMDICR appears on a 28-track noise compilation called De Nagalm Op De Kopf! that’s streaming on YouTube. There are no time stamps for the songs, and it’s a noise comp, so good luck finding anything. The silver lining? The comp includes band names like Cards On My Cunt, Tumble Cat Poof Poofy Poof, Bloated Ego & the Compliments, Unicorn Hard On (which I could’ve sworn I’ve written about), and Black Tie Rubber Pussy. You just keep on delivering, Happy Mothers Day, I Can’t Read. Bless you.

I Fucked a Turkey and Got Away With It

The name that gave the final Year in Band Names its headline, “British meme rap project” I Fucked a Turkey and Got Away With It shortened their name to I Fucked a Turkey around when that article posted. The duo of Connor Edwards and Anthony Redclift also shortened their description to “meme music duo,” which doesn’t sound any more appealing than “British meme rap project.” Whether the songs are inspired by memes or are supposed to inspire memes is unclear. Either way, knowyourmeme.com has no insights on songs like “I Masturbate so I Don’t Get Ball Cancer” and “If You Make Me Wait for the Pussy and It’s Wack, I’m Stealing Something Out of Your House.” The attempted SEO gaming of “Despacito 2” hasn’t rocketed IFAT to the top of the charts, but they earn 40,269 monthly Spotify plays. Their tribute to cheap ramen noodles, “Ramen King,” has even racked up more than 1 million plays. I can’t speak to Spotify’s analytics, but 40K monthly plays seems astronomical for a pair of trolls called I Fucked a Turkey. And they are definitely trolls, lacing their lyrics with language and taunts clearly aimed to offend. As their Spotify bio benignly puts it, “Birthed within an era of edgy memes and off-colour humour, the duo became no strangers to voicing obscenities over a variety of sounds.” That means IFAT’s goofy fun takes a predictable turn into shitlord territory when you scratch the surface. “Kill Yourself,” IFAT’s second most popular song (441,477 plays) goes after everyone who has a problem their music or lyrics. “Poo poo pee pee, penis and vaginas / Women with dicks and weak men with vaginas / So fucking delicate like mommy’s fine china.” Then they repeatedly drop the gay f-word like they’re in an ’80s teen comedy. That song shows IFAT take themselves at least a little seriously, and the dis track “Mastered and Slaved” makes it clear. Over rapping that could generously be described as stilted, Edwards or Redclift unironically dismisses some rival group as “geeks in a flat” who pad their choruses. (Ouch?) Specifically, at the 20-second mark, one of them says, “But your beat was shit / Let me tell you the sad thing / Your track had length / Because of chorus pad-ding.” I add that hyphen because they take an odd pause in the middle of the word. It makes “Rapping Rove” look like Tupac. IFAT called it quits last year, because even LULZ get boring after a while. As for the name?

Zero followers. More like zero fucks, right, bros?! [Insert Rick & Morty meme here.]

POST-SCRIPTS

Apologies for the delay this month. I’m in the process of moving, because why not move during a heat wave in a pandemic?
Check out this BNB interview over at Riot Fest. I’m semi-coherent.
Hey, Substack lets you embed YouTube videos now. Hooray!
Before I could engage my search for Puffy Areolas’ website, Google leapt in with a bunch of suggestions. Chill out, Mountain View.
Back next week with the regular monthly edition.