Monday, November 24, 2008

Black Lips and other bands: continuing my education

For my birthday, my sister made me this CD of punk music, thus furthering my education considerably. It came in a bright yellow envelope that said in large letters "CD TREAT GET READY". I wasn't ready, but I have to admit I really enjoyed it. I got into my car after going to a meeting at church on Wednesday and it was very satisfying to have some violent guitar chords greet me. I was driving on the highway, looking (I think) my usual demure self while inside the car I was listening to songs with names such as "Puker Corpse" by the band Eat Skull.

The thing that's really sad is that these are probably hugely popular and well-known bands and I am completely ignorant. I just looked up "Black Lips" on Google and found their Wikipedia article. They've been featured in Rolling Stone, Spin and the NY Times, for Pete's sake.

They even have a blog. I loved this particular entry from June 3 (they don't have a lot of entries so it's not like a plowed through piles of text to get to it):

After our show with the Raconteurs in New York I decided to go to see my friend DJ. My friend happens to be homo sexual, and he was DJing at a gay bar. After a drink or two I decided to go outside and have a cigarette. After a couple of puffs I felt a strange sensation on my leg, then I heard somebody scream "faggot". I looked down and my legs and shoes were covered in egg goo, and there were a dozen or so more hanging in the air above my head. I have been called a faggot many times, but I think this was my first official "hate crime" little did those dudes know that they didn't even get a gay man. I dig chicks.

Don't you love it?

At any rate, realizing that there are huge numbers of people in the world who know ALL ABOUT the Black Lips and other contemporary punk bands, and that these people will think this lacuna in my knowledge practically inexplicable, I offer this little quiz knowing that some of you will laugh.

Below are the names of the bands on the CD my sister sent me and the names of some bands I just made up. Can you tell which is which? Answers are in the comments.

Black Lips
The Gories
Asinine
Eat Skull
Swell Maps
Black Flag
Tooker and the Blow Torches
The Hospitals
Bad Dog
Cut the Mustard
Sic Alps
Times New Viking
The Monks
The Slips
Pumice

I have to admit, I think one of the fun things in life is thinking up the names of rock bands. Don't you?

2 comments:

LKT said...

OK, the real bands are:

Black Lips (natch)
The Gories
Eat Skull (also mentioned in the text, so that was a gimme)
Swell Maps
Black Flag
The Hospitals
Sic Alps (I personally think Ibid would be a great band name)
Times New Viking
The Monks
Pumice

I made up the following:
Asinine (which is as its name suggests)
Tooker and the Blow Torches (which apparently breaks some rule for naming punk rock bands. I personally love the "[name] and the [noun]" band name construction.)
Bad Dog (I don't think that would come out well over the PA system)
Cut the Mustard
The Slips (which is the one I think would most easily pass for real in this list)

I'm assuming that none of these actually ARE the names of bands, but I didn't check.

Lorin said...

Laura, I found the book for you, from McSweeneys, "All Known Metal Bands." It's exactly what it sounds like, a list of the names of over fifty thousand metal bands. Enjoy!

http://store.mcsweeneys.net/index.cfm/fuseaction/catalog.detail/object_id/87cd22d0-805e-4abd-8cf7-4856c55c6737/AllKnownMetalBands.cfm