The Happy Days and Brady Bunch references seemed different in my era (I was 19 when the Buddy Holly video came out), in that everyone grew up watching the same syndicated reruns, but you didn't know that everyone all over the country was doing the exact the same thing. Referencing these things felt like a shared secret history of some sort, which seems impossible to have post-internet when even obscure stuff isn't really obscure anymore.
― joygoat, Friday, 30 July 2010 20:49 (thirteen years ago) link
Is this the thread where I confess that I never got that Ducktails (the band) were named after Duck Tales (the TV programme)? Because, you know, ducktails are an actual thing. So much so that the TV programme name is a play on words based on them. Or is this all a massively recursive joke?
― emil.y, Friday, 30 July 2010 20:49 (thirteen years ago) link
"i remember when i had the realization that those Ducktales were such bizarre and surreal Tales of Ducks."
Well they are referencing a bizarre piece of capitalist propaganda featuring pantsless ducks. Then subverting it by changing the spelling of the name to reference a hairstyle that was popular among '50s juvenile delinquents. As if to say "we're not going to fall for your Randian indoctrination. we're going to flip it back around into a symbol of youthful rebellion."
That, or they randomly flipped through an old TV Guide.
― wk, Friday, 30 July 2010 20:50 (thirteen years ago) link
once again the name of the band is ducktails
― cutty, Friday, 30 July 2010 20:51 (thirteen years ago) link
wk - you and i are the same age
― sarahel, Friday, 30 July 2010 20:51 (thirteen years ago) link
So what we are saying is that the process is thus:
ducktails (tails of ducks) -> ducktails (haircut) -> Duck Tales (programme) -> Ducktails (band)?
― emil.y, Friday, 30 July 2010 20:52 (thirteen years ago) link
I mean, what relation does the band name have to the music? Pretty sure there were plenty of bands in the early 90s that were like "lol-Brady Brunch" in a similar vein to what you're describing― sarahel, Friday, July 30, 2010 4:41 PM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink
― sarahel, Friday, July 30, 2010 4:41 PM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink
At least Eve's Plumb or REO Speeddealer made rudimentary attempts at a pun where as Golden Girls is just the word Golden Girls.
― krippendorf's trife (Whiney G. Weingarten), Friday, 30 July 2010 20:52 (thirteen years ago) link
Golden Girls is two words.
― emil.y, Friday, 30 July 2010 20:53 (thirteen years ago) link
emil.y, if you are under 30 if someone says the word "ducktails" to you there is exactly one thing you think of, and don't try to pretend otherwise
― krippendorf's trife (Whiney G. Weingarten), Friday, 30 July 2010 20:53 (thirteen years ago) link
does the phrase "narcissism of small differences" mean anything to you Whiney?
― sarahel, Friday, 30 July 2010 20:53 (thirteen years ago) link
emil.y is british.
― sarahel, Friday, 30 July 2010 20:54 (thirteen years ago) link
even if dude named his band after the tails of ducks, he's like 24 and there's no way it wouldn't have crossed his mind that that everyone his age watched a show called Ducktales, come on
― krippendorf's trife (Whiney G. Weingarten), Friday, 30 July 2010 20:54 (thirteen years ago) link
So the gripe is more that their references aren't obscure enough? ― wk, Friday, July 30, 2010 3:42 PM (9 minutes ago)
i think that's a good point, cuz noize stuff like 0PN which is firmly rooted in nostalgia and is not really considered creatively bankrupt gets a free pass. i guess late 70s, 80s new age mysticism and retro futurism is obscure enough
― ▲▼▲▼▲▼▲▼ (LOLK), Friday, 30 July 2010 20:55 (thirteen years ago) link
I'm under 30 and the first option is the one I assumed they were named after. Old before my time, obviously.
(And although I am British, I did get to see the TV programme. It wasn't very good.)
― emil.y, Friday, 30 July 2010 20:56 (thirteen years ago) link
yeah, i'm sure all 24 year olds everywhere watched the tv show Ducktales - and now, even in Pakistan, they're riding in cabs that all play the Beatles
― sarahel, Friday, 30 July 2010 20:56 (thirteen years ago) link
i mean, the name oneohtrix point never isn't the obscure reference but the aesthetics otherwise would be xxp
― ▲▼▲▼▲▼▲▼ (LOLK), Friday, 30 July 2010 20:56 (thirteen years ago) link
The Happy Days and Brady Bunch references seemed different in my era (I was 19 when the Buddy Holly video came out), in that everyone grew up watching the same syndicated reruns, but you didn't know that everyone all over the country was doing the exact the same thing. Referencing these things felt like a shared secret history of some sort, which seems impossible to have post-internet when even obscure stuff isn't really obscure anymore.― joygoat, Friday, July 30, 2010 4:49 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink
― joygoat, Friday, July 30, 2010 4:49 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink
This is also true. Sarahel, my basic point re: Reading Rainbow vs. Mogwai is that the 90s were a very different time.
― krippendorf's trife (Whiney G. Weingarten), Friday, 30 July 2010 20:56 (thirteen years ago) link
! how can you tell?
OK, B- for effort. Problem is Golden Girls is a 1000x times better band name than either of those other two.
― wk, Friday, 30 July 2010 20:57 (thirteen years ago) link
you mentioned how old you were in 1994.
― sarahel, Friday, 30 July 2010 20:57 (thirteen years ago) link
emil.y, Ducktails is music by and for internet-savvy, media-saturated twentysomethings, so when I say "everyone" I obviously mean "their intended audience."
― krippendorf's trife (Whiney G. Weingarten), Friday, 30 July 2010 20:58 (thirteen years ago) link
oh whoops - that was joygoat's post - joygoat & i are the same age.
― sarahel, Friday, 30 July 2010 20:58 (thirteen years ago) link
I think that might be more directed to sarahel - I realise that Duck Tales is well known. Hell, I wasn't even trying to say they WEREN'T named after it, just that I was surprised by how everyone else but me KNEW that they were.
― emil.y, Friday, 30 July 2010 20:59 (thirteen years ago) link
xpost to Whiney
― emil.y, Friday, 30 July 2010 21:00 (thirteen years ago) link
OK, I guess this is the problem for me because I don't feel that way at all. I was 17 when that video came out. Never watched the Brady Bunch (thought it was old/dumb/for girls), but I would have assumed that everyone across the country was watching the same stuff anyway. And I do think these new names have a bit of that "shared secret history" to them simply because they are generational signifiers. Some of this stuff I'm only vaguely aware of due to younger relatives, but older people would certainly never get some of the cartoon and video game references.
― wk, Friday, 30 July 2010 21:01 (thirteen years ago) link
and yes, i do think a crucial diff is that the bands used more obscure references. Like they found poetry inside junk culture to exploit ie,
in the chillwave era a decent band name like Dash Rip Rock would just be called The Beverly Hillbillies. Toad The Wet Sprocket would be called Monty Pyyython and Eve's Plumb would be called Brady Bunch
― krippendorf's trife (Whiney G. Weingarten), Friday, 30 July 2010 21:03 (thirteen years ago) link
these new names have a bit of that "shared secret history" to them simply because they are generational signifiers
but if you're on the internet as much as these guys, you start to LOSE the generational signifier because TMNT references start to belong to everybody, all the fucking time, constantly.
I was too old for Pokemons but I know SO MUCH ABOUT THEM just from being on the internet.
― krippendorf's trife (Whiney G. Weingarten), Friday, 30 July 2010 21:05 (thirteen years ago) link
i also think it has a lot to do with the rise of internet and "remix" culture or whatever.. rather than abstract a reference from the object, they'll just opt to simply use the object i.e. photoshops
― ▲▼▲▼▲▼▲▼ (LOLK), Friday, 30 July 2010 21:05 (thirteen years ago) link
like the only true way to do it is to pick more obscure references, so people of your generation can share a joke that isn't being LOL STRAWBERRY SHORTCAKE-d to death on Adult Swim
xxpost didnt see your post whiney but otm
― ▲▼▲▼▲▼▲▼ (LOLK), Friday, 30 July 2010 21:06 (thirteen years ago) link
― krippendorf's trife (Whiney G. Weingarten), Friday, July 30, 2010 4:53 PM (12 minutes ago) Bookmark
sex
― titchyschneiderhouserules (s1ocki), Friday, 30 July 2010 21:06 (thirteen years ago) link
actually whiney your new display name makes me think that "krippendorf's tribe" would be a pretty cool post-anco band time
― titchyschneiderhouserules (s1ocki), Friday, 30 July 2010 21:07 (thirteen years ago) link
i didn't really feel like the Buddy Holly/Eve's Plumb pop cult-referencing band names were part of anything secret or shared with people i had some bond with. i watched the Brady Bunch, but plenty of annoying people that i thought were dumb also did, though i was more dismissive of people that watched "full house." i probably felt closer to the way Whiney feels about these current "creatively bankrupt" bands.
my best friend in college - this was 1995 - bought a record by a band named Grover, because "awww Grover from Sesame Street!" - and they had a song called "Hole in my Eye" that was pretty great.
― sarahel, Friday, 30 July 2010 21:08 (thirteen years ago) link
I grew up in the middle of nowhere and never traveled much so my concept of mass culture wasn't really all that mass, nor were things like the Brady Bunch really all that popular when I was ten years old - the show had been off the air for ten years and there wasn't yet movie remakes or off broadway ironic musicals about it.
Seeing references to junk culture like this in popular music felt different, because it was much harder (especially in small towns) to seek out and find other people who were into the same things that you were. You didn't know they existed or that there were so many of them, when now you can find a huge group of people devoted to stuff that was crazy obscure 15 years ago.
― joygoat, Friday, 30 July 2010 21:09 (thirteen years ago) link
Well, that's perhaps an interesting larger point about people trying to stay younger and clued in for longer and the internet making that easy. I mean I'm 33 and have a kid, why the hell have I even heard of any of these bands or even care?
The generational divide used to sometimes mean that older people were actively hostile to the way the kids dressed or whatever. Now we just want to copy them so we can be cool dads and stay "relevant." So maybe the only way for them to really get to us is to name their band Reading Rainbow or some shit and we get all mad and "back in my day..."
― wk, Friday, 30 July 2010 21:12 (thirteen years ago) link
that the 90s were a very different time.
when all the poets studied rows of verse and ladies rolled their eyes, presumably
― Master of the Manly Ballad (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 30 July 2010 21:13 (thirteen years ago) link
lol Shakey! Whiney wishes he were on a great big clipper ship going from this land into that (never mind the risk of scurvy)
― sarahel, Friday, 30 July 2010 21:15 (thirteen years ago) link
See, I still have a problem with this because they're all pretty terrible band names. I don't think any of those three examples are decent and your made up ones are pretty much an across the board improvement.
― wk, Friday, 30 July 2010 21:16 (thirteen years ago) link
rows of verse
rosy verse surely? ducktails/ducktales
what if they were called Thee Bevverly Hillbillies? would that be an improvement?
― sarahel, Friday, 30 July 2010 21:18 (thirteen years ago) link
nah even the made up ones are bad. but the original ones are worse, yr right about that
― Master of the Manly Ballad (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 30 July 2010 21:18 (thirteen years ago) link
at this point, bands should just resort to a numbering system
dude have you heard 5887933176? MINDBLOWING
― Master of the Manly Ballad (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 30 July 2010 21:19 (thirteen years ago) link
btw alternate version of that lyric = rules of verse?
Lou's pronunciation of that line is very weird
― Master of the Manly Ballad (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 30 July 2010 21:20 (thirteen years ago) link
Beverly Kills Billy
― wk, Friday, 30 July 2010 21:21 (thirteen years ago) link
not matter how many words you use, it all adds up to these band names are hilarious
― ice cr?m, Friday, 30 July 2010 21:22 (thirteen years ago) link
So I think in the end we can all agree that the problem with kids these days is that they're not using enough puns in their band names?
― wk, Friday, 30 July 2010 21:23 (thirteen years ago) link
at least make a rudimentary attempt at a punning
― ice cr?m, Friday, 30 July 2010 21:25 (thirteen years ago) link
like Rudimentary Punni?
― sarahel, Friday, 30 July 2010 21:25 (thirteen years ago) link
'old man yells at chillcloud'
― ice cr?m, Friday, 30 July 2010 21:27 (thirteen years ago) link
Full Blouse, whose album cover would be John Stamos' head superimposed on a Guess Jeans add photo?
― grandavis, Friday, 30 July 2010 21:28 (thirteen years ago) link
seems like there's gotta just be a band called Stamos out there, right?
― tylerw, Friday, 30 July 2010 21:29 (thirteen years ago) link