All Illustrations by Jack Anderson
First impressions are important, especially when you’re a band vying for attention among thousands of other talented artists. Would anyone have actually listened to Coldplay if they kept their original name, Starfish? Or Radiohead if they were still called On A Friday? Maybe, but personally I would be a little embarrassed if my band was named after an invertebrate that eats out of the same orifice that’s involved with other, uh, bodily functions. Anyways, here in Austin we know we have some of the best musicians in the world, but what about band names? Well here’s a few that immediately caught our attention.
Ringo Deathstarr
The celebrity-pun band name may be getting a little tired. There’s Gnarles Barkley, Joanna Gruesome, the Dandy Warhols, but Ringo Deathstarr is a step above the rest. If the Beatle was an intergalactic weapon of mass destruction I like to imagine he wouldn’t use a laser beam, but a concentrated broadcast of “Octopus’s Garden” to obliterate all the rebel scum.
Sailor Poon
For those who grew up with Cartoon Network’s Toonami programming, Sailor Moon was an after school staple. For years, I maintained the lie to my friends that my family ate dinner at 5pm so I could clandestinely watch the show without their judgement. Nonetheless, Austin’s Sailor Poon transfigure the adolescent source of their name into a wonderfully vulgar riot grrrl style punk rock. Imagine Bikini Kill with lyrics written by Charles Bukowski.
Sailor Poon – “Misogynist” (VHS music video) from Youth Racket on Vimeo.
The Jesus Lizard
Austin’s noisey post-hardcore group was supposedly named after the basilisk, the unusually bipedal lizard famous for its ability to run on water, but isn’t it more fun to imagine the gospel is actually the story of a reptile teaching mankind how to be good to one another?