samanthakayne

'i never did nothing that i had to deny.
that'll be the day...
doublewide...'

i got nothin' of note at the moment - too hormonal really - so enjoy this lovely train of thought from the man himself, mr. eddie spaghetti.


Laptops, van rides, never ending traffic jams. Right now as I type this I'm sitting in the van on our way to New York City from New Haven, Connecticut (where the house was duly rocked), listening to "We're Finished With Finishing School" by The Upper Crust but by the time I finish this paragraph we'll probably be 50 miles down the road and we'll definitely be listening to something else.

I'm a really slow typer. Typist? I dunno. I just got "spell checked." If that keeps happening I'll never finish this letter.

Now Rob Halford is telling us that he believes I'm the Devil's Child and who are we to disagree? Someone (okay, me) has their iPod on shuffle and we're 51 songs into today's drive already and not even halfway there yet. (Traffic ROCKS!) The funny thing is that, after doing so many long drives, I don't even feel it anymore. It's gotten to the point where I actually look forward to the long ones now. We've become total robots in that we now have cell phones, computers, iPods - you name it, we've got one in here. (All that, and a good book still works just fine for passing the time.) Here in the van is one of the few places left where I can actually get something done! (Or at least try, like writing these emails to you good peoples). I've recorded whole demos right here in the backseat (or back bench, I guess). I sleep, read, catch up on phone calls... Oh crap. That reminds me. I have to call my mom back and I better do it right now while Dwight Yoakam sings about being a thousand miles from nowhere. She likes that skinny fella.

Mom's not there. Tag - she's it.

The Five Du-Tones are telling us to bend over and let them see us shake a tail feather. I didn't even know I had this song in this thing. What the hell is a "Du-Tone"? What the hell is a Supersucker?

Band names are stupid. I used to think that you needed the craziest, most eye and ear catching thing you could come up with, but now I think the best ones are the most innocuous. Names that, over time, come to only represent that band. Names with no other connotation after a while. Boring names. The Rolling Stones, Aerosmith, ZZ Top, The Ramones. Sure, these band names seem cool now, but that's just because the bands are cool. They would be boring and un-memorable if the bands sucked. Hell, Tom Petty could've called his band The Profoundly Retarded and I think we'd eventually have forgotten what that phrase actually means. Maybe we would've taken a closer look at Mike Campbell, but it wouldn't have changed how great they are.

A lot of bands today seem to have picked up on this fact. I don't think there's ever been a period in rock music with as many boring band names. I can't imagine the band meeting where the group of dudes are sitting around, tossing out ideas and someone says "Hey, how about Coldplay?" and every one agrees to it, "Yeah, that sounds bloody good, mate!" Or how about all these bands with numbers? Sum 41, Matchbox 20, Blink 182, Maroon 5. What the hell is going on there? (Can I blame U2, an okay but grossly over-rated band?) They obviously knew something that I didn't and that's what I'm talking about. Those band names represent absolutely nothing but that band. I think that we've finally achieved that with our band name to an extent but still, literally speaking, if you didn't know about The Supersuckers and you heard the name mentioned, you might think someone's talking about extremely powerful vacuums or a few very generous members of the world's oldest profession. The Rolling Stones and Aerosmith both have actual meaning besides representing the band as well but who ever thinks of those things first anymore? Arrowsmith? What was that again? Something to do with Lewis and Clark? Rumplestiltskin? I don't remember but I know that Joe Perry is cool.

But I still hate telling the waitress what our band is called. I always tell 'em that we're the Dave Mathews Band because no one knows what they look like and everyone's heard of them. Anything for a free meal at the Cracker Barrel!

Paul Westerberg sounds so sad. "Sixteen Blue" is on now. I love The Replacements and I'm not sure where their band name fits into this whole, kooky theory of mine, but it's a great one. I have a definite love/hate relationship with these "the something plural" names. I generally like 'em - The Hives, The Killers, The Strokes, The HardCorvairs (okay, I made that last one up) but I guess I feel like that scene (which, I acknowledge, we are definitely a part of) is kind of played out right now. Motorhead is a good name too, and it couldn't be more perfect for the way they sound. Van Halen is a crappy name but I loved the band so much as a kid I found myself wishing I were Dutch so I could name a band after myself too. Cheap Trick is a great name but I'm not so wild about AC/DC as a name, which is hard to reconcile as it's kind of perfect in a way too. All the electric imagery and the gay connection make it a good candidate for a name but, once again, if they had been some lame cover band from the suburbs of Phoenix instead of the genre defining, hardest rocking band of all time, I think it would sound dumb.

Naming your band after a place is almost categorically bad - Boston, Kansas, Chicago, Alabama, America - not only are these boring names but boring bands too. I guess the one exception I can think of might be The New York Dolls, which is a cool name AND a cool band with a guy named Johnny Thunders in it - one of the best stage names ever. I like Kiss as a name and as an idea; they looked amazing and they totally re-defined the whole idea of what you could do within the context of a rock band, but I can't stand their music. (With the one exception being "I Was Made For Loving You" - I'm always a sucker for any band's Disco phase: "Turbo Lover" by Judas Priest, "Emotional Rescue" by the Stones, "Heart Of Glass" by Blondie - all classics.)

While naming your band after an animal, rodent or bug is no good, (whether you change the spelling or not, i.e., The Eagles, The Monkees, Ratt, Phish, Gorillaz, The Scorpions, The Frogs, The Tigers Of Pan Tang and yes, even The Beatles - perhaps the single greatest example of what I'm trying to say here. People just don't think about how bad that name is. Ever!), simply calling yourselves The Animals sounds pretty cool. And I guess extinction also makes it cool because T-Rex seems like a great name but, then again, it could just be that I like the band so much that I'm blinded by it.

Long names are cool, like Creedence Clearwater Revival (who I love) or Quicksilver Messenger Service (who I hate) or Zodiac Mindwarp And The Love Reaction (big 'guilty pleasure' although I don't feel the least bit guilty about it) and this band called ...And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead (who I want to love because of the name so I've never listened to them in case they stink. Which I bet they do). I also tend to be a sucker for bands who call themselves Lords or Kings or Gods or Sultans or Princes of something or other. I dig the pretension.

Now "So What" by Miles Davis has come on. This really isn't very good driving music - it's a bit too sleepy - but I feel as though old Miles is telling me something and maybe I oughtta listen up and stop boring you with this band name tangent I've gotten on. I guess I just thought you deserved a little entertainment instead of the usual, "Hey, come look at what WE'RE doing!" (Not that you won't get that again because, rest assured, you will!) I figured, if you're on this list and you like our shows, you might just like a little stream of consciousness rambling. Was I right? I'd sure like to know. Or maybe I wouldn't. I dunno.