What's the deal with band names?

As my dad often notes, many of my favorite bands have ridiculous names. When you're me, posing as this really elitist, dour guy all the time, things get tricky when I can't take my bands seriously enough. Looking over my playlist, I find things like Margot and the Nuclear So And So's, I Love You But I've Chosen Darkness, Youthmovie Soundtrack Strategies, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, ...As the Poets Affirm, and Godspeed You! Black Emperor. One could attribute these names to the pretentiousness of post-rock, since half of the bands mentioned above could fall under that label. Or, we could try to explore the issue from a different, less reductive perspective.

Perhaps, it's that these musicians think long band names are inherently comical. Pete Wentz can surely attest to the hilarity of verbose song titles, so maybe the same goes for verbose band names. Anyone hearing the words "Pretty Girls Make Graves" might immediately think, "Wow, that's funny. Really funny. Those guys are CRAZY!" Unfortunately, Pretty Girls Make Graves (RIP) were named after a song by The Smiths and/or a Jack Kerouac line. From what I gather, if there's an immediately obvious meaning or story behind a band name, it's less funny. That's why The Olivia Tremor Control is such a great band name, because I have no idea what it's referring to. That is to say, it's funny. Clearly.

Sometimes a band name is long, because it suggests a certain level of sophistication or intellectual superiority. Perhaps one of the best instances of an utterly ridiculous band name used to this effect is Panic! at the Disco. Not only does Panic at the Disco make little sense on its own, because, quite frankly, disco is dead, but the "Panic!" part takes confusing to a whole new level. Thus, they must be really smart guys. If they weren't, it would just be stupid, which it's not. I think it's a testament to how far we've come as a civilization that such things are tolerated nowadays. Imagine if The Beatles had been The! Beatles. Or, better yet, if Nirvana had been... Okay, that one doesn't really work. Still, I'm sure anarchy would have taken hold a long time ago if that had been the case. By the way, my mom calls them Picnic! at the Disco. At least she gets the exclamation part right.

If a band isn't trying to be funny and isn't going for the sophistication angle, what is the real story behind a long, nonsensical band name? Perhaps, the arrangement of seemingly unrelated words can somehow convey a band's sound in a way that a traditional band name could not. More likely, a long band name, like Death From Above 1979, is merely the result of a long legal struggle or at least the threat of one. Often, band members have a great name all lined up, only to discover it's been taken by a group of teenagers with a Myspace account. Immediately, the band, not wanting to get sued by the lawyer parents of these teenagers, comes up with a unique, if potentially preposterous, name. I know this from experience, as that's one reason why my band is called That's Julian's Birthday (currently on indefinite hiatus). The other reason is because it was founded on Julian's birthday.

So, just remember, the next time you're rocking out to ...And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead, be grateful that The Beatles hadn't thrown the entire universe out of whack. Your very existence depended on it.

Also, make sure you don't get sued by James Murphy.

Next up: !!!, a band who transcend the arbitrary social convention of letters