This is a web meme that has been around for a while, but seems to be getting more traction lately so it deserves some more pub.  I invite y'all to participate.

Picture yourself sitting at your parents house with your musician friends and deciding to form a band. Why? Because you have the look and as we all know success in music is mainly do to your look. You have your chain wallets, your ironic t-shirts, and your haircuts that straddle androgynous line between 80’s glam and modern emo-rockers. Sure none of your are proficient at your instruments, but that doesn’t matter; you have the “it” factor.

Like every other band that is on the radio, your sound is a mix between 90’s poppy-punk-core (a la Blink 182 and Thrice) and contemporary-over-produced-crap (a la everything that is currently popular). You are destined for success until one of you realizes, “Dude, we need a killer name and an awesome album cover.”

Never fear because the latest and greatest web meme is here. Here is how it works:
1) Go to Wikipedia and click on the “Random article” link. The first article you find that can sound remotely like a band name is now your band name. Feel free to augment the spelling or add a preposition for extra emo-hipster appeal. Also, it would be a good idea to pick a name that is not copywrited or a living persons name.
2) Go to a random page on quotationspage.com and pick a portion or an entire quote for your band’s first album name. If you do it correctly it will sound esoteric and immensely deep.
3) Go to flickr and click on “Explore the last 7 days” and select a random picture.
4) Put all these elements together and you get your new band and it’s first album name and cover.

Please see the examples I put together below (band name first, then album name, then the album cover).

1) Swamp Yankee – Our regards to St. Peter

2) Bit Rot - Computers are lousy actors

3) The Dandy-Walker Syndrome - Successful Technology


Not the greatest of album covers, I know. But hey, I threw them together in a matter of minutes using the methodology explained above and I ain't no graphic designer so they ain't that bad either.

It should be noted that this new web meme is not necessarily a new idea. In Beavis and Butthead's This Book Sucks a similar formula is suggested for forming metal bands in which a person picks a word from column A, then a word from column B, and if one wishes, a word from column C. Creating such metal names as "Flaming Monkey," "Vitriolic Street Pirates," and "Shooting Modern Filth."

Also, there are several other websites that help aspiring musicians easily create their names: bandnamemaker.com, bandnamegenerator, and blamepro.

However, this meme takes it to a whole new level. A hackneyed DIY approach it allows the stupidest and hackiest of musicians to create a band name for themselves. I encourage you to start a crappy band and use this method. Let me know if you make it big...you will owe me money for helping you come up with a band name for your new crappy band.  Can any of y'all do better?