After many years of languishing in general quiet, my vocal chords finally started to get a workout a few weeks ago. To be fair, they get a decent workout from time to time if I'm at a show singing along in the crowd or stuck in traffic swearing. They got a great workout last night when my rear bike tire went flat on my ride home. Anyone who knows me in the flesh might tell a different tale, since I anger pretty quickly when life throws more than one minor problem at me. It might be a flat bike tire, a broken open garbage, bag or misplaced keys when I'm running late to work.

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_{Hello, my name is Aaron and I'm addicted to rageahol}

My rageaholism aside, my vocal chords used to get a fantastic workout at least twice a week, if not daily, when I played in a band. Playing live music - whether you're talented with an instrument or just good at screaming into a microphone – gives a catharsis inexplainable to non-initiates. Singing in the car or shower, playing a piano you find in a hotel lounge, noodling on a guitar in your bedroom? I wouldn't even compare those to masturbation. They're more like copping a cheap feel on yourself while putting your underwear on in the morning.

But, I'm not here to preach about the cathartic properties of playing live music (re: people watching you do exactly what I said in the previous paragraph). Most people are smart enough to already know them. Making a public spectacle of ones-self wouldn't be all the rage (facebook friend me, watch me on youtube, tweet me, touch me, just pay attention to me!!!) if my generation and its successor didn't realize how great public narcissism feels.

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_{My morning biological imperatives are important enough to broadcast on the internet.}

I'm here today for the same innocuous reasons that make blogs so damned popular – to send something pretty mundane into the ether and demand precious feedback. My vocal chords are getting a weekly workout now thanks to a few incredibly gifted old friends and I getting together and kicking out some jams. It's been a long time since I've grasped a microphone and shouted more than just rhetorical statements and semi-coherent rants on my political views (my radio show doesn't count since I don't actually hold the microphone).

We've been practicing and writing songs for a few weeks with the hopes of playing live a few times over the summer. I hold no rock star aspirations – just a hope to get a chance to take the stage a few times before I resemble the same out of shape former rock stars showcased daily on VH1.

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We're all a little bit rusty in our own ways, my deteriorating vocal chords especially (lesson learned kiddies – don't smoke). We're also equally as rusty in trying to come up with a catchy name that defines who we want to pretend we are on stage without sounding like jackasses. In other words, after over two months we're still trying to come up with a name.

So I put this out to you, dear internet. What's in a name? More specifically, what's in a band name? The other bands I've been in over the years came up with names pretty quickly. We were young, thought we were smart and snappy and even if it sounded idiotic years later (was Shitz N Giggles a bad name?) we just didn't care. But now, we're spending precious brain waves trying to decide what we like and what sounds good. Here's the ones one bandmate and I like so far:

August Spies
Heroes and Martyrs
The Light Fantastic
The Aftermath
Exit Strategy
The Last Hero
Panic Attack
Cast the First Stone
Red Scare
The Haymarket Eight
Black Rose

Now, here's the rest – you get to decide which ones were jokes.

Streetlight Serenade

The Chumps

Holiday Cocktail Lounge

National Public...

Destined for Nothing

Sinister Rouge
Occam's Razor
Skeptics and Believers
Prometheus Rising

Operation: Hobbitporn
Balance of Judgement
Deus Ex Machina
Leaving Babylon
Speculative Fiction
Law of Fives

Grimplemeyer Dungleboots

They Live
Small Gods
Zartan's Revenge
Marco in Alamut
The Merovingian

Thunderbolt Autopsy
Godric's Hollow
Halo of Oligarch
Hope in the Proles

Chainsaw Reaction
Heavy Metal Thunder

If that horrendous list of words doesn't smell like a rotten pool of dead plague rats strung together on a telephone wire, I'm not sure what does. There were about 10 more I cut from publicly calling out to protect the more virgin ears that read my ravings. So, before you mock me (please, feel free – why else would I post this?) tell me, got any suggestions?