Top Ten Worst Band Names From the Warped Tour 2010

When I was in my formative high school days, going to the Warped Tour was a highlight of the summer. Just old enough to drive, we’d pile about 9 bros and skateboards into mom-duke’s Ford Exploder and drive at high speed to Fitchburg or some other pseudo-municipality in middle Massachusetts, blasting Rage Against The Machine and mooning other drivers. Being pre-9/11, security at the event was pathetic/awesome, and instead of buying tickets we usually just wandered the perimeter until we found a fence to hop. Yes, these were the best days of my life.

Anyway, I can’t even remember a single band we saw there, probably because we were too busy smoking pot and ogling chicks but also because we were there to see local hero skater Andy Woodbury compete on one of the shittiest little skate assemblies I’ve ever seen. The point is that the band names were probably totally dumb then too. However, while I know that “all the good names are taken”, the overall level of retardedness for naming your co-opted-counter-cultural marketing tool has gotten way out of hand.

Here follows a list of the Top Ten Worst Band Names From the Vans Warped Tour 2010. Please note that I make no comment on the actual artistic abilities of the bands themselves, but since we all judge books by their covers anyway, it’s probably safe to assume that they all suck as much as their monikers.

Wait, what’s that you say? ALL the band names at Warped Tour are idiotic? Yes, my friend, it’s true. But we aren’t called PopTEN for nothing. This list was hard! In order to cut down the vast number of entries for the esteemed prize of having the lamest band name ever of June 25-August 15, 2010, as well as make this list nationally relevant, I’m only culling from the bands who will be present at the entire tour. Sorry local heroes/losers!

10. Set Your Goals

I do feel like this band name needs an exclamation point, a toothy grin and healthy tan, and a motivational DVD infomercial. I don’t feel like they’re going to rock.

9. Emmure

Sounds like: “Manure”, which would actually be a pretty good band name, if your goal (set it!) is to “bring a combination of heavy issues and heavier music, and even if you don’t know what they’re talking about, you’ll fit right in as long as you can bang your head.” Also sounds like “Demure”, “Murmur”, “Femur”, and similarly non-kick-ass things.

8. AM Taxi

What is even being said here? Is it supposed to be a strong declarative, like “I AM A TAXI!”, but said in Tarzan-ese? But who would ever want to hear a taxi play music (even if the driver was Bengali and Cheeta was a backup dancer)? Or is it like AM radio being played in a taxi, a.k.a. Rush Limbaugh or an evangelical channel (in Spanish, hopefully) with shitty quality in a smelly yellow deathtrap? Umm, option one please?

7. Closure in Moscow

So the mail-order bride thing didn’t work out. Chin up! There’s other fish in the seafood aisle! Man of you to go all the way to Russia to break her the news instead of doing it via text message. Maybe down the road you two can, you know, be friends. WHAT THE FUCK DOES THIS HAVE TO DO WITH ROCKING?

6. Pierce The Veil

I’m gonna wager this band name is NOT referencing the recent ban of the Burqa in public offices in France, nor our ongoing military incursion into middle eastern countries, nor an advertising hack’s concept of selling watches to “untapped markets” using Pierce Brosnan as spokesman. Perhaps by the “veil” it means the “veil of silence” which is what happens when the members of this band tell people who they are: a collective gasp of nothing.

5. Breathe Carolina, Breathe Electric

Twofer! Any band with the word “Breathe” in its name should be put on breathing probation. Indefinitely. As if I needed a reminder to “breathe” when I’m in one of the Carolinas (never, thankfully) or when I’m using something “electric”, like my toaster. It’s like telling me to take a shit when I’m driving (or in a taxi!). I’m old enough to know when to do it!

4. You Me At Six

This sounds like a douchebag pickup line – for old people. Only works if you’re Mel Gibson, dudes. And anyway, who does anything at six besides people who go to sleep at nine? No, wait, it’s the title of a Friends episode! Totally redeeming dudes! I love the part where Ross does something funny! Snore.

3. Artist vs. Poet

What the fuck is this, the celebrity deathmatch of emo? Two pasty depressed goths banging their dicks together? Apparently, this “powerpop duo wields catchy beats and infectious melodies based on their solid songwriting and DIY attitude.” Shoot me in the eyeballs and then the ear holes please.

2. Gardening, Not Architecture

When I think of gardening, I think of weeds, manure (Emmure?), insect infestations and frilly hats. When I think of architecture (which this band most definitely is NOT), I think of blueprints and schematics, feng shui and azimuth angles, flying buttresses and bay windows. When I think of this band name, my head explodes. Also, their music is “fuzzy ethereal dreampop”. Head explosion X2!!!1!one

1. I Can Make A Mess Like Nobody’s Business

Ho. Ly. Shit. This is the worst band name ever. How do they even refer to themselves? As an acronym? ICMAMLNB. Sounds like “ickma’amlenoob”. I bet that gets them all the chicks. Sample conversation:

ICMAMLNB band member (hoping to score): Hey honey, I’m in a band.

Drunk chick: Really? What’s it called?

ICMAMLNB: Ickma’amlenoob.

Drunk chick: I think I just threw up in my mouth a little bit.

ICMAMLNB: Oooh, sexy! I get that a lot. It’s short for “I Can Make A Mess Like-”

Drunk chick falls asleep/passes out.

ICMAMLNB (to self): Score! (Louder): Well it looks like somebody’s had a little too much to drink! (Laughs nervously.) Why don’t I take you back to the tour bus where you can rest?

NOW I GET IT.