Depends

I was almost named Adolf.

At least that's what my mother told me, often, after my parents divorced.  "Your father wanted to name you Adolf, but I wouldn't let him."  I don't know if that's true.  Never asked Dad.  It doesn't really matter.  I have the feeling it was a lie, designed to make me feel grateful.  But all it ever did was make me think my father clueless.

Not even aesthetically pleasing.  Adolf.  Comes out like a hairball.

There's this Scottish band calling themselves "The Twilight Sad" (myspace).  Not as a fake name, for secret shows and shit.  That's their actual name.  And whenever that name's cropped up over the past few months, the band's been so very easy to ignore.  Because they call themselves "The Twilight Sad."  Why didn't their mothers intervene?  Don't their mothers love them?

"Hey, honey, let's check out this ‘Sad' band.  They sound fun!"

Their name sounds mopey, it includes a synonym for "pathetic," it too easily morphs into "The Toilet Said."  At best, their name suggests notions of seasonal (well, temporal) affective disorder.  At worst...

You ever get on the subway and see a small puddle on one of the seats?  And it sloshes back and forth as the train starts and stops, never quite spilling over into the next chair, but coming close enough that you edge away?  You hope that it's something someone spilled - water, you hope someone spilled their bottled water - and of course that's what it must be, because no one would actually pee on a seat on the... subway.  Right?  And you start half-trying to catch the scent (to confirm, or deny) and half-breathing in through your mouth to ignore it (because you don't really want to know).

And while you're locked in passive-aggressive mental combat with this puddle of whoknowswhat, you don't notice that someone is coming over ass-first and is sitting down in it oh my God and they don't get up right away and you have to pretend that you never even noticed it was there while you watch for the moment when they realize that they are sitting in something wet and unexpected and hope they don't get all Why didn't you tell me there was pee on the seat? and you'll have to get all Hey, this is New York, buddy, what, am I supposed to hold your hand and make airplane noises while you eat strained beets? while quietly feeling guilty until you've heard at least half your co-workers laugh about it and even then you stand on the commute home and are extra vigilant so no one sits on a candy wrapper or steps on a discarded copy of The Post.

So that's what this band name makes me think of:  Someone suffering through their day wearing pants soaked with someone else's urine.

The Twilight Sad, The Temporarily Moist, The Terminally Damp.

Maybe it's a literary reference.  Maybe I'm just not as up on my Kipling as I should be.  But even then.  You don't call your band "The Who Moved My Cheese" (Unless you're doing ironic Who covers with rewritten lyrics that dole out insulting management advice.  Or covers of Tommy.).  You go with a more rocking variant.  Like "The Cheese Movers."  Or "The Caerphilly Five."  Or something.

The Damp are seeping through the U.S. now - they played a night at The Knitting Factory a couple weeks ago - which meant another round of write-ups.  I relented, listened to a few tracks a few times over.  They're not awful - two-chord anthem+drone+dreary vocals - but nothing really grabbed me.  They're certainly not good enough to help me get past a name that evokes a stage full of Soiled Diaper.

*

They're bad at titles, all-round.  Here are some songs off their new full-length, Four Weddings and a Funeral:  "That Summer at Home I Had Become the Invisible Boy," "Talking with Fireworks/Here, It Never Snowed," "Don't Bother, There'll Be Another Band the Kids Are Excited About Next Week, and Maybe That One Will Be Interesting."

*

But what I really wanted to talk about was their CD cover art:

...because that reminded me of the impending release of this:

Mostly notable for the confusion it could cause.  Though there have been periodic attempts to revive this franchise by releasing bad sequels, this time they're making an attempt to revive the franchise by releasing a bad(*) remake.  This time, Mikey's not going door-to-door as Kirk.  This time he's going as Denny Crane. 

Denny Crane!  Still undefeated!

*

Unrelated:

Cheese Station C - Twat Patrol (In Color!) (mp3) (buy)

Oh by the way, which one's Polka?  (via the B-Boing)

(*) Let's just assume, shall we?

tags: twilight sad  lousy band names  

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