Wyld Stallyns

A band name is a tricky thing I know. First off you need something that hasn’t been taken yet. The best one word band names were taken a couple decades ago. Slayer, Bitch, Overkill, Motorhead, and many more. A band with imagination however can still come up with something cool. Look at Goatwhore! That has to be one of the best band names in history and they have only been around since 1997!

So what makes a great band name? Look for another top ten list coming very soon to this blog! Until then here are the Top Ten Worst Band Names EVER! In case you think I made any of these horrid names up, I have linked to the websites of each and every one of them. Enjoy?

1. Iwrestledabearonce
Ok, I have no issue with the gay connection. Rob Halford is gay and one of the coolest people I have ever had the pleasure to interview. But that is more like a sentence than a band name. Try and chant their name for a few seconds and then try and chant Slayer and see which one roles off the tongue better.

2. Scary Kids Scaring Kids
Why not just be Scary Kids? This name is just plain retarded. It shows zero imagination and that is something a band might need people to believe they actually have.

3. Horse the Band
Ok, so the band name Horse was already taken? Why not something like “Horse Rider” or Horse Trainer” or “Horse Lover”? Now that last one I might be able to believe.

4. I Set My Friends On Fire
Really? Now this could be used as a cd title and no one would have said anything. Sure it’s about as stupid as it gets but it sounds like a cd title. Not a band name.

5. Attack Attack!
Ok, so if a band name you want has already been taken, just repeat it until you can claim it as yours? If this band was talented at all they could have come up with a better name.

6. The Devil Wears Prada
Now I interviewed this band a few weeks ago and even they regret the name. While many may get the message of anti-materialism, most will just think they named themselves after a stupid chick flick.

7. The Number Twelve Looks Like You
I understand that this is a name taken from the title of an episode of the The Twilight Zone. But it is still lame as hell. This is another one that might pass off as a really weak cd title. As a band name it just smells like yesterdays diapers.

8. Circle Takes the Square
Seriously? They named themselves after a cliche from a game show my grandma used to watch? A band name should make a statement and this band obviously wants you to know they both suck and blow.

9. See You Next Tuesday
Yes I know that this is a reference to C U Next Tuesday. Which spells out the word you never call a female unless you really want to piss her off. Most of the bands on this list have a band name that would make a worthless cd title, this band name would have made a great cd title. It’s just a bad band name.

10. Starring Janet Leigh
Have we run out of ideas this bad? Really? Do I even have to say why this band name screams a lack of the same imagination that is required to make good music?

About halfway through the 80′s we had this thing we called Crossover. For you young whippersnappers that would be the classic thrash sound mixed with the old school punk sound. It was one of the coolest things to ever hit my young ears. I never got into the whole punk vs metal thing to be honest. If it was good heavy music, I liked it. Sure I am mostly a metalhead, but anything good and heavy is still good. This mixed two of my favorite styles together. Now let’s fast forward about ten years to 1995. Crossover evolved into something called Metalcore. Imagine the watered down thrash of today mixed with the flat and monotone hardcore punk of today and you get the extremely bland cousin of Crossover. Think I’m the only one who thinks this so called innovation is a big steaming pile of crap? LordBling, ruinedmachines, & NeilH73, all pretty much agree with me. Ruinedmachines even went so far as to say “To me, metalcore is more focused on sculpted hair and guys wearing girl’s jeans than the music itself. crossover has more balls! When I think of metalcore I think of all of the bands nowadays that sound exactly the same.” I should mention that metalross thought that “crossover is an early name for Thrash (DRI), whereas metalcore, is hardcore punk that has adopted slayer riffs & Death metal vox”, but since Thrash came out well before Crossover I’m not sure how this could be true. But my point is that when Crossover ‘progressed’ into Metalcore it was not a move forward. The record companies shoved it down people’s throats, but most saw it for what it was rather quickly…a step backwards.

Lastly, I want to talk about something called OpenID. Yes, I am sneaking in a tech lesson again. Deal with it! OpenID is the hot buzz word in tech right now, but I am taking a stand against it. For those that do not know what OpenID is, let me explain it as simple as possible. OpenID is a service that let’s you store all your passwords into one service to log into all your online accounts. So instead of trying to remember a million passwords you just remember your OpenID password and OpenID does the rest for you. Sounds pretty awesome, right? Well, not really.

People that defend OpenID seem to have only one defense. They claim that “Well, people usually just use one password for everything anyways, so why not use OpenID?” So OpenID is a good thing because people are lazy about security? Call me crazy but I think that’s insane! Psogle even calls it a “security hole”. How about we continue to tech them how to have safe passwords instead? Or maybe we should just get rid of the hassle of locks on our doors and windows so we can have the convenience of not needing to carry around so many damn keys?

There has always been a debate over convenience or security. Or should I say that there has always been a debate over what is the perfect balance between the two. You could make things so secure that not even the user can get in, or we can make things so convenient that we get all our personal info hacked with no problem. There is a common sense solution in there somewhere.

How about you think of 3 passwords. Use one for things you don’t really care about at all. The second one you use for things like email or accounts you kind of care about. The third you use for a very select group of online accounts you want to be very protected (bank). All three passwords should be a funny sentence with ten characters in it. For example “Mark’s Blog Post Today Was Extremely long Today For Some Reason” or “That Guy Mark Carras Needs To Shut His Trap Sometimes” Or maybe even “Yes Mark We Get The Point. Now Shut Your Pie Hole!” Take the first letter of each word and you have a password that is more safe then 99% of what most people use. If you want you can make it even more secure by tossing in some numbers in the middle. The extra paranoid can even alter the case, but then you will need OpenID to keep track and the problem starts all over again.

Why is OpenID so bad? Because if a hacker only needs to remember one password to get into your OpenID, it makes his job too easy. OpenID is a hackers best friend. So why do services like TwitterFeed force you to use it? Because some geeks are so distracted by new shinny toys that they forget about the security holes said shinny toys might create. We as an internet community need to also force services like TwiterFeed to stop forcing users to use security holes like OpenID. It’s not progress. It’s a step backwards. Just like Metalcore.

Remember a few years back when Ozzfest had their Battle Of The Bands “reality show”? Some may not know this, but there was a little controversy that plagued the contest. Many say that is the reason the contest was not made into an annual part of the tour. The representative of the wining band was Ozzfest alumni! The contest was promoted as something to find new talent. Why do I mention this? Well, this guy has become the perfect example of why you shouldn’t just jump from trend to trend. Marc Serrano’s first band Unloco was a Korn & Coal Chamber style Nu-Metal band. Unloco played Ozzfest in 2003. They were playing a style that (at the time) looked like it was so big that it was never going to go away. Of course we all know this style suffered a backlash of hatred and disrespect shortly after. So Marc Serrano started a Metalcore band. That was the new style everyone was jumping on. His new band A Dozen Furies broke up about 6 months after they finished their tour with Ozzfest. From second rate Mallcore to third rate Metalcore. Marc Serrano spent so much time jumping from trend to trend that he never was able to get even halfway decent at any of them. This is why he failed!

Young musicians want to be Rockstars. They want to be “cool”. Their impatience is what guarantees they are neither. In 2005, Time named author Malcolm Gladwell as one of its 100 most influential people. In his latest book “Outliers” he mentions the “10,000-Hour Rule” many times. Basically saying that anybody can become and expert at anything if they put 10,000 hours into mastering it. How do you become a master at playing a specific style if you keep jumping from trend to trend? To make sure you can get your ten thousand hours in, pick a style you are passionate about and stick with it. However, if you are passionate about a style that is becoming (or already is) the next big trend, pick something else. By the time you master any new trend it will be too late. Pick something that has not been the hot trend in at least a couple decades. Either that or do something totally new and different. The best way to be the king of something is to be the only one doing it. If you master it after investing ten thousand hours you will be able to give it that extra something that only the greats have. You might be able to give it a fresh new spin that no one ever thought of. The trick however is to put in the time. So go buy a copy of Malcolm Gladwell’s book “Outliers”, stop being impatient, and above all stop being lazy! Now get to work.