Day 2 - The Legacy of Single-Cell Paramecium & Porcupine Tree

One of my all-time favorite television shows is “The West Wing.” In one episode, Donna Moss was talking to Josh Lyman about the bands being lined up to play a Rock the Vote event. She rattled off a list of five to ten names, all of which would have sounded ridiculous out of context, including a fake one just to see if Josh would notice. He called her on it but guessed the wrong one: Donna named her fake band “Single-Cell Paramecium.”

I thought of this episode the other day while listening to one of my favorite bands as I drove to work, because this band also has an arguably ridiculous name. And as so many things to these days, thinking about band names spiraled me back to the revision work I’m currently doing. One of my characters is a grandfather, and not the kind of guy who’d be keeping up with the weekly Top Ten lists on iTunes. It occurred to me I probably have a lot of bands in my music library that he would think were either ridiculous or made up as a part of some prank. I scanned through the library and came up with a list of twenty-five. These names seem completely normal to me because I have albums and songs and musicians that I associate with each of them, to say nothing of any emotional attachment I have to any of their music. But without my personal context, I have to admit some of these names are more than a little out there. And I’d be surprised if more than a few people could honestly say they’ve heard of every band on this list. If you recognize any, just pretend for a moment you've never heard of the band before and try to see the name at face value.

The Airborne Toxic Event
Arcade Fire
Better Than Ezra
Cloud Cult
The Dead Weather
Faith No More
How to Destroy Angels
Imagine Dragons
Japandroids
Jimmy Eat World
Liquid Tension Experiment
The Mars Volta
Mute Math
My Chemical Romance
My Morning Jacket
The Pineapple Thief
Porcupine Tree
Toad the Wet Sprocket
Red Dragon Cartel
Spock’s Beard
Stone Temple Pilots
Toad the Wet Sprocket
Third Eye Blind
Velvet Revolver
30 Seconds to Mars

(For the record, the band I was listening to on the way to work was Porcupine Tree, and they’re great. If anyone is feeling curious and adventurous enough to check them out, I’d recommend their album “Deadwing” as a nice accessible introduction.)