#81: An absolute shade dupe
Lorelle Meets the Obsolete; Reflective Detectives; CT Hustle and the Muscle; Deep Sea Peach Tree; Bitch Switch
Lorelle Meets the Obsolete
As I mentioned a few issues back, I spent most of 2022-2023 painfully, haltingly learning Spanish. I said it then, and I’ll say it now: People who speak more than one language fluently are basically superhuman. Sure, there are better times—say, not in your 40s—to learn a second language, but it is always daunting, no matter what Duolingo or Babbel tells you.
Take Mexico’s Lorelle Meets the Obsolete. If someone said to me, “Kyle, come up with a band name in Spanish that rhymes. Also, it will need to be a full sentence, using a third-person singular verb and an adjective behaving like a noun. Do it now or your family dies.” That would be the end of the Ryans.
The duo of married couple Lorena Quintanilla and Alberto González formed their psych/shoegaze/indie outfit in Guadalajara more than a decade ago and followed the time-honored tradition of naming their band after an inside joke. As Alberto told something called It’s Psychedelic Baby Magazine:
The name is actually a joke. Lorelle came out from this Seinfeld fictional film called Rochelle, Rochelle. We’re huge fans so I started calling Lorena ‘Lorelle.’ As for my stage name, The Obsolete was taken from a Twilight Zone episode called “The Obsolete Man.”
Oh, I don’t know that one, but it looks enjoyably unsubtle as ever:
Interviews with Lorelle Meets the Obsolete are hard to come by—that one above is from 2013. Their quotes are thoughtful and measured, as are their socials. Where’s the fun in that?
When asked in that interview about the benefits and drawbacks of being a duo, Alberto said, “Above all it’s very comfortable to play with someone you love, admire, and respect as a human being and as a musician.”
Love, admiration, and respect: the trifecta of Band Name Bureau vibe killers.
Reflective Detectives
“Peace is our profession ✨⚡️” reads their Instagram bio, and—boom!—the vibe is back! Because that is the kind of fluffy hokum that powers Band Name Bureau.
Reflective Detectives is the work of LA songwriter Ryan Gabrinetti, who looks like this…
…and whose Spotify bio says his “sound propels and subverts the tropes of modern garage and psych while seasoning it with political musings and social consciousness.”
Speaking of vibe killers, is anyone ever excited by the words “political musings,” especially in regards to music? I mean, besides fans of the Capitol Steps, if such people exist?
Googling Gabrinetti’s name brings up a 26-video list of his YouTube favorites. It hasn’t been updated since the summer of 2021, but you won’t be surprised to see it includes videos by Ginger Baker, Deep Purple, Frank Zappa, and Eric Clapton. The old video from yesteryear YouTube sensation FRED is a curveball, but that’s probably from Gabrinetti’s childhood. At least I hope so?
I can’t find any interviews with him or information about the origins of his band’s name, but I did find a fair amount of related oddities:
A law firm citing Reflective Detectives’ “Leaving Granada” in a wistful post about relocating its office. Turns out Fleming & Curti has been on Tucson’s Granada Avenue since 1994, and now it’s moving somewhere else! No word if any Reflective Detectives songs work for the new address.
A tweet by a New Kid on the Block
The website of writer and “band name aficionado” Karen Eisenbrey, who included Reflective Detectives on the band-name roundup she’s done every week since 2010. Her take: “Taking time to go over all the clues before solving the case. Probably wear foil fedoras. Bonus points for the rhyme!”
An episode of Paula Poundstone’s podcast where Gabrinetti is the “house band,” which I think means they used his music somewhere.
CT Hustle and the Muscle
Speaking of related oddities, all I can find for this group is weird shit. And, in one case, the shit is quite literal.
On Halloween 2022, CT Hustle and the Muscle—which appears to be a sleaze-punk quartet, maybe from NYC—played a show where singer-guitarist CT (?) took off his clothes and appeared to poop on the floor. There’s footage, which I won’t embed because I have some scruples.
An on-the-scene report from Hellgate NYC looked into it, and apparently the shit wasn’t real—though it sure looked real as CT (?) squatted down and let loose. From the very limited information I can find about this group—a seldom updated Instagram, various show listings, and a smattering of live YouTube videos—CT is a loose cannon. Here he is riding a motorcycle into a bar, for instance.
The strangest result Google returned was a CVS page for Wet n Wild MegaGlo Makeup Stick, which has a stunning 171 pages of customer reviews. I thought maybe CT Hustle was endorsing makeup, but nope, it’s a contextual quirk: “Peach Bums has been getting hype because it is an absolute shade dupe to the Peachgasam shade from CT. Hustle and Glow is a lighter shade of that and Floral Majority is a more matte pinky mauve shade.”
Basically Google was like, “‘CT. Hustle’ is close enough, right?” This is why people say Google has fallen off. The search engine also linked to the verrrrrrry NSFW /gothsluts subreddit because someone suggested CT Hustle and the Muscle as good music for sex. My browser history is bonkers thanks to this newsletter.
Deep Sea Peach Tree
After all of the (fake?) floor-shitting and naked /gothsluts, we find respite in the innocence of Deep Sea Peach Tree. No one’s saying “Do me from behind while blasting Deep Sea Peach Tree!” It’s the Band Name Bureau equivalent of that When Harry Met Sally line, “‘Do it to me Sheldon, you’re an animal Sheldon, ride me big Shel-don.’ Doesn’t work.”
Don’t believe me? The NYC group self-describes as “Sleepy Surf Rock // Aquatic Sleep Rock” and has a song called “Puppy Love”:
I, want to be with my only one
Yes I, want to lay with her in the sun
But she knows she is too good for me
But she knows that we are equally
In love
Adorable! And look at this cute band pic:
It carries over into interviews too. Here’s how frontman Kristof Denis explains the name:
I came up with the name Disco Cream in high school based purely off aesthetic and I started to get sick of it and thought it was childish or something like that. I came up with Deep Sea Peach Tree also in high school but for a song title. I thought it had more depth and meaning. The deep sea has always intrigued me, especially since we know so little about it. There’s gotta be some magic down there.
There’s gotta be some magic down there. If CT Hustle said that, he’d be pointing to his crotch.
Bitch Switch
This is one of those obvious names that should have already existed in rock ’n’ roll history. Yet searching Discogs, Bandcamp, AllMusic, YouTube, and Wikipedia turned up nothing. Is it possible this New York “broadcore” band is the first to claim Bitch Switch? Apparently!
Well, they’re the first to claim it as a band name. Because the other thing that shows up is a book called The Bitch Switch: Knowing How to Turn It On and Off by reality TV villain, erstwhile Trump apologist, and seeming garbage person Omarosa. Amazingly, Publishers Weekly called the book “genuinely insightful,” adding, “Omarosa’s overbearing self-involvement, in this book, becomes a studied strategy in avoiding exploitation.”
Interesting, but no thanks, p-dubs. Omarosa would probably sue the band for copyright infringement if she knew about them.
POST-SCRIPTS
Coming before Christmas: Band Name Bureau’s Midnight Mass (i.e., roundup of Christmas music). And an unsatisfying list of my favorite 2023 albums!
Lorelle Meets the Obsolete’s Seinfeld reference had me imagining someone learning English by watching old episodes, like the drag-racing duo in Better Off Dead did with Wide World of Sports:
If you clicked on that Capitol Steps video, how long did you last? I made it 44 seconds, until the chorus of the “Rockin’ Robin” parody. The Capitol Steps into FRED: This BNB dares you to click on the videos.
Karen Eisenbrey released a book this year called Ego & Endurance that she described as “a hard sci-fi workplace rom-com/survival story.” I wish I had that much of an imagination.
“Disco Cream” sounds like code for drugs. But the only drug-adjacent cream I can think of is CBT lotion.
This is one of your finest installments yet. And I made it to 53 seconds of The Capitol Steps before an involuntary spasm forced me to close the browser tab, because sometimes your body just knows best.