#95: The 3rd annual BNB thanks list
2024, in review
Note: There’s an album cover below that’ll raise some eyebrows.
It’s Thanksgiving eve, a.k.a. Blackout Wednesday or Drinksgiving. Shout out to those power-drinking before their potentially fraught family get-togethers. It seems like a hangover would make those situations worse, but do whatever you need to get through your dad talking about how, actually, Matt Gaetz was an excellent choice to run the Department of Justice.
But let us move on, because it’s time to take stock of what we saw in Band Name Bureau this year. We’re here to celebrate the good of 2024, like…
The dedication of nerds
There’s nothing special about a comedy reference for a band name. I’ve covered many, such as A-A-Ron, Meat Wave, Professor Murder, and too many Simpsons references to include here.
Toad the Wet Sprocket took it to another level, as we learned this summer. Swiping a name from Monty Python isn’t original, but Toad the Wet Sprocket came from a sketch about band names. In it, Eric Idle rattles off some 30 monikers used by a fictitious band.
Yet these four dudes chose the most preposterous among them: Toad the Wet Sprocket. “I was trying to think of a name that would be so silly nobody would ever use it,” Idle said of Toad the Wet Sprocket. “A few years later I was driving along the freeway in LA, and a song came on the radio, and the DJ said, ‘That was by Toad the Wet Sprocket!’ And I nearly drove off the freeway.”
Kurt Vonnegut references are less common than comedy ones, but still plenty nerdy, in part because the celebrated author wrote science fiction. A Vonnegut reference signals that you’re probably a sensitive smartass, a person who—when you get through their dark humor—cares deeply about things. A misery punk, if you will.
That’s how Scottish band Goodbye Blue Monday self-identifies (or, less succinctly, “Scotland-based shit pop punk band with songs about being a sad loser”). They take their name from Vonnegut’s seventh novel, Breakfast of Champions, or Goodbye Blue Monday.
When we met the band in July, I saw a connection between the novel about a man losing his mind and the neuroses powering songs like “I’m a Fucking Coward & My Anxiety is Breaking Me,” “I’m Old & I’m Fat & I Still Hate Myself,” and “Love is a Noose for Two.”
For further insight, I emailed vocalist-guitarist Graham Lough, who told me he discovered Vonnegut in his late 20s.
“It was around that time, my mental state started declining quite significantly (nothing to do with the reading material),” he writes. “I started writing songs about all the ‘experiences’ I was having and decided [to] use a band name so I had a place to dump my self-pitying music. Breakfast Of Champions really resonated and the protagonist’s mental unravelling, pill consumption to avoid insanity et al., was nicely complementary. I certainly did not expect starting a band under the name, much less answering questions about it. I always assumed the only people who would hear anything would be a couple of my mates who would inevitably tell me it was shite.”
Despite choosing a Vonnegut novel for his band name, Graham says the thematic overlap between his music and Vonnegut’s writing is coincidental.
“The biggest influence of Vonnegut in the songwriting is definitely the gallows humor in self-depreciation [sic],” he writes. “The subject matter can be serious and grim, but you can have fun with it and poke fun at yourself. I was writing a new song about the time I tried to hang myself with a belt on my bedroom door and came up with the lyric ‘I was hanging from a doorknob like a Do Not Disturb sign.’ It’s as dark as it gets, but it’s still funny (I think). Vonnegut definitely helped there.”
I’m glad to hear it, and I think Vonnegut would totally understand.
The ingenuity of Belushi Speed Ball
When we met Belushi Speed Ball in April, the Kentucky thrash band had recently released music on cassette tapes formatted for Teddy Ruxpin, the talking teddy bear from the ’80s. That continued the group’s tradition of music on unorthodox media: Singer and founder Vinny Castellano had previously released music on custom-made 8-track tapes, Sega CDs, and Gameboy Advance and Nintendo 64 cartridges. Looking to top himself, Castellano turned to shit.
That’s dog shit encased in epoxy resin, with a button you push to hear “Dookie” through a tiny, tinny speaker. You gotta admire Castellano’s dedication, especially considering how time-intensive it is.
A planned succession of gayness
In BNB #83, we looked at bands that formed in 2004. Among them was Gay for Johnny Depp, a name of its era in more ways than one. That group was partly the brainchild of Joseph Grillo, whose work in that band, I Hate Our Freedom, and Her Head’s on Fire made him a BNB/Year in Band Names three-timer, an unprecedented feat. When we caught up with Grillo in August, he explained how the name Gay for Johnny Depp was the first in a planned succession.
“We also had a working understanding that the moment we would receive a cease-and-desist order, we’d have an announcement, like, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, we received the cease-and-desist order. We have now officially changed our name to Gay for Patrick Swayze,’ until we get a cease-and-desist order from Patrick Swayze. That was the whole idea, but apparently [Depp] was flattered. I guess somebody in his press team got it to him and he was just like, ‘That's cool.’”
What could have been!
Queef Jerky helpfully reinforcing preconceptions
As the old Onion T-shirt said, stereotypes are a real time-saver. When I think of YouTube content creators, I think of unbearably hammy comedy, along with whatever MrBeast and his acolytes do. In September, we met Queef Jerky, a group composed of YouTubers Dev Limes and Nick Green. The duo described their sound as “post-music music”:
“It’s the kind of music that will happen after music happens. We make the kind of music that happens when everyone runs out of ideas for modern music as we know it.”
Give them points for some degree of self-awareness, as Queef Jerky’s overprocessed, hip-hop-adjacent sound can charitably be described as “grating.” Even the video thumbnail for their song “We Robbed a Bank” is annoying:
Sister Wife Sex Strike personifying conservative nightmares
Back in February we met folk-punk duo Sister Wife Sex Strike, whose bio packed in an impressive amount of right wing triggers:
Sister Wife Sex Strike is a Seattle-based anarchist folk band comprised of best friends Sister Pigeon and Sister Moth. The band’s name is inspired by real life events: in 2021, Pigeon & Moth were sharing a lover and when they found themselves mutually dissatisfied by his efforts, they went on a sex strike to have their demands met. The band name was derived from this event and an ensuing psilocybin-guided camping trip between the two friends produced their eponymous title track.
Anarchy. Polyamory. Drugs. Folk music. I’m sure they support antifa too. Godless liberalism run amok!
It continues running amok on the band’s most recent EP, Pre-Op, and new album, Sex Change.
And turns out it’s not so godless. Sister Moth (or maybe Pigeon, I’m not 100% sure) comes across as pretty religious in this podcast interview. Moth even references having “atheist parent trauma”!
On the one hand, Moth (or Pigeon?) is Jewish and strongly identifies with historical Jewish anarchists. On the other, Sex Change has a song called “There’s the Call Again” that could be played at the next CPAC. It goes, “Ringing out, there’s the call again / Have no doubt, there’s the call again / Have no fear, there’s the call again / God is here, and he’s calling you.” It even mentions how free you’ll feel in Christ’s arms!
This is either some deeeeeep psy-ops by the religious right, or people are much more nuanced than you may presume. And dammit, it’s a lot harder to make dumb jokes when it’s the latter.
And, finally, some recommendations
We met a lot of bands this year, and a few have made it into my rotation. You already know about the Band Name Bureau playlist, the 19-hour behemoth that collects music by every BNB band on Spotify.
Now I’ve created its curated sibling, Band Name Bureau Recs, reserved for bands I recommend revisiting. This is a work in progress, and I’m starting with bands I encountered in 2024.
Among the songs:
“Peaches Style,” by Shitney Beers. Is it possible to get wistful about Peaches’ raunchy banger “Fuck the Pain Away”? Turns out, yes. This sweet, catchy song couldn’t suit the artist’s name less.
“I’M IN THE MARKET TO PLEASE NO ONE” is aggressively capitalized and appropriately polemic for Winona Fighter. The Nashville punks go hard on attitude and hooks, with Coco Kinnon’s vocals and presence providing the former: “I don’t like to think you’re having fun / I hope you suffer / And boys like you should rot for what they’ve done / Don’t blame your mother.”
“Misery-Punk Ruined My Life,” by Goodbye Blue Monday. I’m a sucker for dour Scots and melodic, shout-along punk.
“Aren’t I the Champion,” by Her Head’s on Fire. Dudes from bands I liked playing in a new band I like: melodic post-hardcore with prominent NYC and DC influences.
“End of an Era,” by Jaws the Shark. I didn’t say much about Olly Bailey’s band in BNB #90 because there was an easy joke to make, and the newsletter was already long enough. The sound surprised me: guitar-heavy, garage- and punk-adjacent, very melodic. The album, Wasteland, is solid.
POST-SCRIPTS
Belushi Speed Ball’s merch game is untouchable. They even made a fedora with safari flaps, inspired by one of my favorite I Think You Should Leave sketches. It’s sold out.
Since being featured in BNB’s guide to festival season in March, Smoking Gives You Big Tits has called it quits. RIP.
Coming soon: BNB’s annual round-up of Christmas music and a chat with OMBIIGIZI.