Computer Magic • The End of Time
I was introduced to someone over the weekend who, it turned out, was a musician. We started off in the usual manner—”What do you play?” “Do you play out much?” “Do you have anything recorded?”—and we eventually came to the part where I ask about the name of the musical entity so that I might follow up at a later point to hear some sweet, sweet tunes. Turns out, he just records under his name.
Which I totally never got. One of the BEST PARTS about playing music, aside from the enjoyment that comes from creating the actual music and getting up on stage and performing it and looking all awesome, is naming your band. Maybe I’m more alone on this than I think. Maybe it’s born of the somewhat easy-to-play-off-of last name and resulting heavy, heavy weight of countless farmer jokes I labored under as a child (“No, I do not live in the dell, stop asking, Richard Lipschitz”). Maybe I’m overly fascinated with the prospect of controlling—to some extent—the perception your audience has of you; of branding and packaging yourself in a deliberate, pre-mediatated way. Or maybe it’s just hella fun to come up with an enormous list of band names, most of which will never be used.
