Naming stuff is hard. John Lennon used to say that he had a dream in which a man on a flaming pie came down and told him that he should name his band The Beatles, with an “a”.
Paul McCartney said that the guys in the band were big fans of Buddy Holly’s band The Crickets so they decided to name themselves after an insect too, but change the spelling of it so that it would have the musical term “beat” in it. Lennon’s story is probably untrue but, I think, considerably more entertaining.
My cousin had a friend named Dace and my mom liked it enough to give her son that same name. People who have asked me, however, have been regaled with tales of Irish warriors named Dace and/or or the tenets of a paradigm called “Destroy All Change Everything” of which DACE is an acronym.* It is also a popular name for Latvian girls. Or is it?
The drummer of The Who, Keith Moon, may or may not have told his friend Jimmy Page that his new band’s music would go over like a lead zeppelin.
I’ve been given the advice that, if you are proud of something you’ve created, you should put your name on it. I took that advice when I named “Dace’s Rock ‘n’ More Music Academy”. I also wanted to let people know that, while we predominantly teach rock music, we do teach other styles. The “Music Academy” part is meant to sound serious so that people will hopefully realize that we take our place in the community seriously.
There are as many stories like these as there are businesses and bands. So then, how and what are you going to name your band? That’s the eternal question at Rock ‘n’ More. I’ve never been able to give a great answer to that, but I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately and have come up with a couple ideas for you to try.
No. 1: Watch Jeopardy! Ya, the one with Alex Trebek that your grandparents watch every night in hopes that Trebek will grow back his mustache. The categories on this show are a veritable treasure trove of awesome sounding band names. Just think, taking this one idea to heart could net you a band name like “Fade to Bolivian”, “Missing Lyrics”, “Biz ‘B’s”, “19th Century America”, or “Three Syllable Words”. Can you imagine how cool people will think you are when you tell them the name of your band is “Fade To Bolivian”?
No. 2: My son, Eric, came up with this one. The first word of your band name is a type of metal. The second word is a ferocious animal. Iron Cheetah is a cool sounding band name. So is Golden Leopard. How about Steel Python? Feel free to use any of those and then walk with your head held high with the knowledge that your band’s name is hot enough to melt faces!
*Arielle will beat me up if I don’t give her credit for coming up with the acronym.
Dace Anderson is the founder and president of Daces Rock n’ More in Maple Valley. He is also a singer and guitarist in a band called Sealth. Reach him at uofrock@hotmail.com. For more information on the music school log on to www.rocknmore.com.
