Best American New Band Names

I just got the 2006 edition of The Best American Nonrequired Reading. It's always a great voulme, edited by Dave Eggers and this year featuring an intro by Matt Groening, he of The Simpsons, which I haven't read yet. I had to get it, of course, because the last piece is a commencement address by David Foster Wallace to the graduating class of Kenyon. I'd like to enroll in a college again, provided I could be guaranteed a commencement address by DFW four years hence.

But that's neither here nor there. The first part of the book is good deal more list-y than it's been in the past, including the Best New American Band Names. I'm just a little proud of the Twin Cities since included in this list of perhaps 100 band names are: Birthday Suits, Chooglin', The Deaf, God Damn Doo Wop Band, Kill the Vultures and Tapes 'n' Tapes. That means that roughly, let's call it 7% of the best new band names in America were thought up by people in the Twin Cities. Given the number of bands out there, that's doing all right.

Incidentally, they included a band called New Roman Times, which is fine and all, but it's not as good as Times New Viking.

My recently dalliance with running DOS on my Mac has also led me back to an old DOS term that would make a great band name: Echo Off.

Also, to go back to typefaces, Black Italic would be pretty hot. And Big Caslon, Blackletter and Century Schoolbook.