It gets comical after a while. Maybe it's always been funny. But finding a name for a new band seems to be harder than one might think. Maybe it's like picking a name for a baby. Except in my band's case, you have to have a consensus of four guys.

There are certain labels the band name cannot be associated with, and right at the top of the list is "emo."

No one knows what emo really means. What I mean by that is it's become catch all in music these days, so there is no meaning (except derogatory) that makes much sense.

Kinda like "grunge" or "alternative" in 1993 after everything was labeled one or the other.

And, as many have mused since that time, how can the most popular music truly be an alternative? It should have an alternative to itself, but then what do you call the alternative to alternative? Par? Even? Status quo?

Emo supposedly comes from some melodic hard core punk from the late 80s. Called emo because the singers were "emotional." Or something like that.

I'm not sure which singers are not "emotional" when they sing. Emotion is what pretty much all music is about. Even the singer from Devo had a little emotion. Which is why this whole emo thing is just as absurd as any other musical label in the past century of music.

So we jettisoned a name that just screamed emo: Snow In Summer. Or Summer Snowstorms or some other variation of those words and the dichotomy of having snow happen when it's supposed to be hot outside theme. We might end up with a song named that, though.

This is almost as maddening as trying to pick between Hillary and Obama. Because it's not about issues or who is a better patriot or politician or whatever, it's about which name are you going to pick.

Hillary's last name brings up bad memories of hummer jokes from the late 90s. Obama's name brings up, well, that guy who masterminded the terrorist attacks at the beginning of the century.

So maybe we need a name that doesn't mean much of anything.

My first toss into the bucket was Light Sweet Crude (the best quality crude oil in the markets), but it didn't make it more than a week. The Truths was around for about the same amount of time (too Christian). All My Girlfriends made me laugh out loud, but it only lasted a day or so.

Paper Sleeves has been kicking around since we started this jamboree a couple of months ago. I didn't like it much at first, but it's growing on me now.

And a mistake reading my handwriting came up with this one: Do The Math. That's the newest suggestion.

After a while, you start thinking anything could be a name.

Advertisements For Myself (a Norman Mailer book) Ugly Talents (a song by a band called Ruth Ruth) Impact Driver (a type of drill) Never On Tuesday (a not so good movie staring the girl from The Hidden as "Tuesday," a lesbian hitchhiking somewhere, but this really wouldn't work since our first gig is on a Tuesday night: June 3rd at Burt's) Coppertop (okay, now I'm just throwing stupid things out...which starts to happen)

Some ask, well, what does the band sound like? It's guitar pop. Pop rock(s). Mostly rocking songs with (hopefully) sweet harmonies about breaking up with every girl you've ever gone out with. Indie pop. That band playing when you show up at the bar downtown, but you were really thirsty and the bartender wasn't paying attention to you so by the time you got a beer, the band had already stopped playing.

I guess it's hard to label yourself. Others seem to be able to label you pretty easily, but then, they don't have to take it personally. I've always felt weird about checking the "Caucasian" box, because that sounds really wrong. Not that "white" is any better, but caucasian always sounds masturbatory.

Why isn't there a "me" box for ethnicity? Do we always have to belong to a group?

But, yes, I'm in a group. A band. And we must have a name or no one will know when the band is playing, because they won't be able to point at a name in a calendar listing or bar ad and say "that's so and so's new band."

"I think they're emo or something."

Matt Worley is looking forward to getting his first free drink with the new band. And, no, the band can't be called Free Drinks.