Band Names Rule in a Changing World of Music

The 100-plus bands that performed at the Big Turn Music Festival last winter included many with strange names. At least they were to me. And I recognized none of them. Not one.

Here’s a short list: My Grandma’s Cardigan, Northern Shoveler, Deathless Dogs, Liquor Beats Winter, Loons in the Attic, A Constant Cough, Land at Last, Blood Banks, The Nunnery.

I certainly didn’t hear 100 bands during the festival but the ones I did hear sounded good to me. I just don’t follow music trends anymore because there’s too much of it and I got all I needed in the 60s and 70s during my impressionable years. Many of the band names from back then are also strange if you think about them: The Beach Boys, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Who, Led Zepplin, Pink Floyd, The Doors, Steppenwolf, Credence Clearwater Revival. A band’s name doesn’t tell you anything about their performance skills. I should know. I was in a group in junior high called The Process. We lasted about a year. But a cool band name can go a long way to hide poor performance.

The music of my youth wasn’t better than today. It was just a different time. Crackly AM radio was the main source for listening to the latest music, although “static-free” FM was coming along. Radio is where we learned what to buy. When someone mentioned that Steppenwolf had a new song, you would tune in. There’s that band name thing again.

One thing was certain back then – music was a lot more precious, costing $.99 for a 45 RPM record that had two songs. In 1968 dollars, that $1 would now be $7.25. I don’t know of anyone today who is willing to pay $7.25 for two songs, only one of which is worth listening to (and sounds worse the more times it is played). I don’t even remember what an album cost back then since I bought so few. Many bought albums just for the one song on it they liked.

Tape was advancing from reel-to-reel to 4-track to 8-track to cassette. Tapes cost money, too. You could record songs to tape, but it was a lot of work. CDs were a great improvement on tape. But the internet changed everything and Napster made those unaffordable songs available for free. Astonishing, but totally illegal, of course.

Then the iPod changed everything, allowing you to copy your favorite songs to it (via iTunes) from anyone’s CDs. This was also illegal but everyone did it. But now that you can just buy the songs you want off the internet relatively cheaply, there aren’t even very many CDs around anymore.

Internet music services allow you to effectively create your own radio stations and this has led to the creation of internet radios. They are a physical box, not unlike the radios we grew up with. But on them,  WCCO AM is static-free. And the sound is so good, you may not even recognize the announcers.

You can choose from hundreds of “stations” from around the world. Some are just internet versions of over-the-air stations. You can also listen to the services that cost, such as SiriusXM. Others offer both free and pay services such as iHeartRadio and Pandora. I have three internet radios around my house, wirelessly connected to my local network. I can control them from my iPad. I also have an Amazon Echo, allowing me ask Alexa to play a specific song or music by a specific band (service fees may apply).

You can even watch and listen to some bands play their favorite tunes on YouTube. Some of the oldies are actual videos of the bands when they appeared on TV a long time ago. You can also get a laugh out of watching and listening to a spinning 45 play one of your old favorites.

To me, all the music listening options might be too much of a good thing. I actually get more enjoyment out of configuring these devices than actually listening to music on them. But that’s just me. I didn’t grow up wearing earphones all day and I’m not starting now. But a common theme with all music is the band name. It doesn’t matter what the current technology is if you have a recognizable band name.

When it comes to music, what I really enjoy is creating my own songs and I do that on my arranger keyboard, putting to good use my vast piano playing skills attained over five years of low-effort lessons. And I’m having a blast. The keyboard basically lets me be a one-man band, accompaniment included.

My buddy Chuck and I even recorded a couple instrumental albums some years ago. He played guitar, I played the arranger. Our twosome band was called Jammage (The Wannabees was taken). With his modeling amp, Chuck could make about any sound a guitar ever made. Along with my 76-key digital wonder, we sounded much better than we had a right to. And we still weren’t very good. But we had fun. Ain’t technology great? We should have posted our best songs on YouTube.

More recently I’ve just been trying some new songs on my own. And I can invent names for the bands that created them.

How about The Youbetcha Polka by the Uffdahs?