#77: The loudest on the water
#77: The loudest on the water
Male Tears; Common Spit; Piss Kitti; Titsweat; Wet Sounds
Male Tears
Gather ’round, readers, because it’s time to play HA-HA or UH-OH! The Band Name Bureau game show where we try to decipher whether an artist is doing a bit or playing it straight. Let’s meet today’s subject, LA duo Male Tears! [AUDIENCE APPLAUSE]
OK, everybody, here’s your first clue: the cover of their 2023 album, KRYPT:
Tripping any irony alarms, folks? Well consider this second clue: the song “sad boy, paint my nails”—lower case, obvs—which features these lyrics:
Tomorrow I will learn to cry
Tomorrow I will learn to cry, like you
Tomorrow I will learn to cry, for you
Tomorrow I will ask of you
Sad boy, paint my nails
[Audience ooohs knowingly.] Think you have the answer yet? Don’t decide too quickly! Here’s your third clue: The group’s latest song, “in this house,” is inspired by the low-budget horror hit Skinamarink!
[Audience murmurs.] What do you think, everyone? Let’s wrap it up with one final clue: the video for “Slay,” in which a santoku knife from someone’s kitchen gets as much screen time vocalist James Edward!
OK, everyone, it’s the time to vote!
The answer: UH-OH! Yup, Male Tears isn’t joking and, at least in this interview, they’re deadly serious:
Q: Let’s take off asking you about the origins and music background of Male Tears and what did you try to express by the band name?
James: I wanted to call the band something that sounded pretty and pathetic at the same time. I thought the name, Male Tears, would allude to something most of the world deems absolutely worthless.
Thanks for playing, everyone! Please enjoy your parting gifts of a one month’s supply of Rice-A-Roni and a Magnavox video cassette recorder!
Common Spit
This “Bristol based Instrumental 2 Piece with riffs a plenty” recently announced that their upcoming shows in October are their last. Better to go out on top, with a band logo like this…
…an EP called Puns with a cover like this…
…featuring songs like “Britney’s Pears” (not a pun, but ok), “Huge Grant” (fine), “Phil or No Phil” (?), and “Mustard Mitt” (??). Does the word “puns” mean something different in Bristol?
Sadly, Common Spit is ending without explaining their name in a way that I can track down. Sometimes, you have to let Hugh Grant shooting red lasers out of his eyeballs at ships while holding pears with Britney Spears’ face on them speak for itself, you know?
Piss Kitti
Staying over in England, but traveling (checks notes) up the M5 to Liverpool, we find Piss Kitti, who are not to be confused with Mrs. Piss, featured way back in BNB #5. (Such a memorable logo.)
Over on Facebook, Piss Kitti identify as “a Liverpool-based punk band, born out of the desire for inclusivity for everyone,” but their moniker is born out of more mundane bodily issues. As singer Esme Davine explained in a 2018 interview, “My wife’s nickname for me is Kitti, which turned into Piss Kitti when she realised I always need a wee and piss in the street all the time.”
A constant need to urinate—so much that there isn’t time to make it to a bathroom—sounds like a medical issue Esme should get checked out (though the NHS is having all sorts of problems these days). Guitarist Dominic Price dresses the name up a bit conceptually by adding, “To me, it just means something both disgusting and attractive.”
OK, but there’s another problem, which drummer Danny Melia explains: “For me, the ultimate aim [of Piss Kitti] is to speak more pronounced because every time I tell someone the name of the band they think I’m saying ‘biscuity.’”
I imagine it goes like this:
Person Danny Met at a Party: “So what’s your band called?”
Danny: “Piss Kitti.”
Person: “Biscuity? How cute!”
Then Danny silently debates, once again, whether to correct them. (This happens every time someone calls me “Ryan.”) Why burst the adorability bubble with piss? But then the person makes a dumb joke, and Danny can’t bite his tongue.
Person: “Are you tasty and flakey, like that beloved English cookie brand? We Brits know it, so I don’t need to look up its name for our purposes here.”
Danny: “No. No we’re not. Our name is PISS. KITTI. PISS. P-I-S-S. Fuck’s sake!”
Hey, you don’t get into Piss Kitti to make friends and…be inclusive…of everyone. Well, shit.
Titsweat
The thing about calling yourself Titsweat is, you’d feel confident that the Bandcamp URL is available. But imagine finally settling on that name for your “rowdy three piece garage glam band from Eugene, Oregon,” only to learn some inactive Orlando band beat you to the URL by a decade! What do you do? You pluralize, obviously: titsweats.bandcamp.com. Because when you have this logo, other names just won’t do.
Of course, the name began as a joke, “a description of the sort of sweat that the trio experienced when practicing in a hot room,” according to a 2022 write-up in Eugene Weekly. The story was tied to the group’s appearance at that year’s Eugene PorchFest, a booking that came as a surprise to bassist-singer Gracie Schatz. “I felt like they wouldn’t want a band named Titsweat on their list,” she said.
Schatz isn’t wrong. Looking at the 2023 lineup for the quirky event, I see a whole lotta beige: Vineyard Collective. Bees in a Bottle. Universe Parade. Boxcar Figaro (ugh). One group self-describes as a “groove trio.” Another says their music is “driving and edgy, yet deeply contemplative.” There’s nothing even close to bodily fluids, so I’m guessing Titsweat stuck out like a puffy areola.
Wet Sounds
Speaking of URLs, the first step any band should take in their Naming Journey is a simple web search. Say you want to name your band Wet Sounds, and you haven’t told any friends because they’d surely advise against it.
Google will tell you in .38 seconds that Wet Sounds is “the leader in high performance audio for marine, powersports, and lifestyle.” You’ll learn that, unless people append “band” to their “wet sounds” search, they’re only gonna get results for how to “Be the LOUDEST on the water,” not a “new collective of musicians exploring American surf guitar and exotica.”
And “Fish Tacos,” though evocative, has nothing on Kid Rock’s “All Summer Long” for a day of downing White Claws at Party Cove! Everyone’s ears will ring from the Wet Sounds Sinister-SDX4 amplifier and REV 12 HD speakers!
Man, the Wet Sounds logo—for the company, not the band—even looks like a shitty tribal tattoo:
POST-SCRIPTS
BNB #76 featured LA “surrealist myth-wave” outfit A Horse a Spoon a Bucket. I couldn’t find the origin of their name, so I reached out to frontman John Sanchez, who told me: “We get asked in every interview where the band name comes from, haha. It’s a reference to Monty Python…when the BBC first asked them to make a show, ‘A Horse A Spoon A Basin’ was one of the potential names they tossed around. Owl Stretching Time was another, which would also make for a good band name.” I hereby return my Comedy Nerd card for not knowing this.
LOLz:
Here’s the thing: If Male Tears were doing a bit, it would feel over the top, but somehow it’s just right for playing it straight. In gothy dark wave, truth is stranger than irony.
Band Name Bureau: Something most of the world deems absolutely worthless.