There's one thing that's far too often overlooked when reviewing, writing, or even talking about music – band names. I am aware that many people mention the worth of a strong band name, but then they quickly dismiss the significance of this feature. Sure, the quality of the music, the complexity of the song structures, the technicality of the instrumentation, and whatever else are pretty important, but the band's name is what's going to be said, and that's how they'll most easily be remembered (because we all know that the stuff that's coming out as "music" nowadays isn't going to last like that classical shit). Certain trends have been pointed out within the "indie" scene; types of animals (e.g. wolves), for one. And terrible band names from relatively good bands are quite often mentioned: Broken Social Scene, Say Hi To Your Mom, Arctic Monkeys, and so on. (P.S. - Some of those bands aren't good in addition to having bad names! Guess which ones!) But there has never been a definitive guide that rates bands simply by their names.
The quirky "indie" bands always have the quirky "indie" names; the cutesy, twee-pop bands always have the cutesy names; the punk bands always have the badass "fuck you" names; the abrasive noise bands always have the shocking, "I hate god/women/babies/nihilism/puppies/pussies/dicks/you" name; the ambient noise bands have the introspective, philosophically ambiguous, yet not so meaningful names; and there's generally a fairly accurate formula (with proper standard deviation, mind you) that can determine to a decent degree what genre a band falls into just by looking at their name.
Now, along comes this dude who decides to go solo and call himself "Skeletons." Not only does he deviate from the band-name norm, but he also has a plural name for his singular project! But wait, there's more! He decides that, instead of perpetually looking for collaborators to aid him in his journey-that-can't-be-classified-simply-by-his-band-name, he will have a true, full-time band. Not a very surprising decision, right? Wrong. In the same vein as original punk-rockers Iggy Pop and Richard Hell, he keeps his name and adds a name for the backing band on top of the original Skeletons! And that is how Skeletons and The Girl-Faced Boys were born. The name is so beautiful and so giddy that people often forget to wonder, what type of music do they play?
Have you ever wanted to tattoo yourself something special where people can't see?:
11.15.2006 – New York, NY – The Cake Shop
11.16.2006 – Baltimore, MD – The Bank
11.17.2006 – Pittsburgh, PA – Brillobox
11.18.2006 – Columbus, OH – Andyman's
11.19.2006 – Champaign, IL – Cowboy Monkey
11.20.2006 – Chicago, IL – The Empty Bottle
11.21.2006 – Madison, WI – Café Montemarte
11.22.2006 – Milwaukee, WI – Stonefly
11.24.2006 – Lansing, MI – Temple Club
11.25.2006 – Cleveland, OH – Beachland Tavern
11.26.2006 – Buffalo, NY – Mohawk