This is the second post of the day, which we don’t do very often. As the title says, this is mainly a sappy thank-you post.  Of course it is, because “sappy” is my middle name. Well, it comes right after my other middle names, i.e., “wordy” and “half-assed.”

For many months after we started this blog, no one posted any comments on what we wrote.  Okay, to be honest, for many months no one read what we wrote.  But even after the reading started, our words were greeted by silence.  Figuratively, the sound of crickets.

Not all bad, because I’ve missed the sound of crickets ever since moving to Seattle from Texas years ago. I don’t miss the appearance of crickets, just the sound of them, on warm nights, when you can’t see them. Kind of a dreamy, hypnotic sound. The sound of nature around us, undisturbed.

Where was I?  Oh yeah: No one posted any comments at NCS for a long time.  But now that has changed, and it’s been an exhilarating change for us.  We look forward every day to seeing what readers write, even when someone calls us retarded, and we feel kinda empty on the days when none come.  That’s mainly because the comments are usually better than the posts we write.

Yesterday was a classic example, certainly one of the best comment days ever.  We did a half-baked riff on band names and got a slew of comments that were smart and funny and creative and educational and took the discussion off in unexpected directions, which is part of what’s so much fun about the comments we’re getting.

And did I say the comments are educational?  They’re really educational!  Of course, when, like us, you start in a state of embarrassing ignorance, it may not take much to be educational in our eyes, but still. After the jump, I’ll tell you the things I learned yesterday, and one thing in particular that drew me back to an album I haven’t listened to in a while, and it was just a perfect end to a beautiful Indian summer day in Seattle.

But first: Thank you to the people who commented yesterday — to Dan, and ElvisShotJFK, and Brian, and Andy, and byrd36 — and to everyone else who has taken the time to add something to this site since we started.  And we don’t mean to slight those who simply read and don’t write (which is mainly what I do on other sites).  We are sappily grateful to all of you, too. But if you usually don’t write and are are tempted to write something someday, don’t worry — we won’t bite! (more sappiness, plus some music, after the jump . . .)

As a result of yesterday’s comments, I learned where Arsis got its name (you’ll never guess in a million years if you don’t already know), how to pronounce Sepultura and Naglfar, that a band called Leprous has a song called “Tall Poppy Syndrome”, and that “Death” is also the name of three black R&B musicians in Detroit who moved on to punk after seeing Alice Cooper in concert.

I learned that Gwar can actually write inspired lyrics, what “Between the Buried and Me” really means (or should mean) and where the name came from, that “Testament” wasn’t that band’s first name, that Lamb of God first called themselves “Burn the Priest”, and that there’s a band called Nagelfar, in addition to Naglfar.

Not too fucking shabby for one day’s installment of comments, is it?  And I learned one more thing.

I learned what “Naglfar” means, even if it’s a mouthful to pronounce. According to The Font of All Human Knowledge (via a link provided by byrd36), in Norse mythology it’s “a boat made entirely from the fingernails and toenails of the dead.” “During the events of Ragnarök, Naglfar is foretold to sail to Vígríðr, ferrying hordes that will there battle with the gods.”  Seriously, if that’s not metal, what is?

I gained a whole new appreciation for Naglfar, even if there is a defunct German black-metal band called Nagelfar. But I appreciated them a lot even before knowing, for the first time, what their name meant.

They epitomize the unique contribution of black metal done right — the conjoining of bestiality and beauty, the union of headbanging catharsis and the sublimity (is that a word?) of melody, the fusion of human emotion and technological power. Oh hell, just listen, as I did again last night after reading the comments about the band — and thanks again to all of you for making our efforts here entirely worthwhile.

Naglfar: Breathe Through Me

Who hasn’t heard of Slayer? Even non-metalheads who’ve never heard Slayer’s music have heard of Slayer. (Though most of those people are ministers.) The band created ground-breaking music and have been vastly influential on the development of generations of bands, but they also had the inspiration to pick one of the best metal band names of all time.

That same talent for name selection is recognizable in the other members of the so-called “Big Four”: Metallica, Megadeth, and Anthrax. Wholly apart from the music, those one-word names are fucking metal.

How much does it help to have a badass band name in the microcosm of metal? I’m really not sure. What if the music of the “Big Four” had sucked ass? What if they had appeared on the music scene and then rapidly sunk beneath the waves like dense turds, never to be seen or heard from again, and taking their awesome names down into the depths with them?

That could have happened, because I don’t think picking a great name means your music will be great, and all those great names would have been lost to the world of metal forever. On the other hand, if Slayer had called themselves Behold the Arctopus or Attack! Attack!, would the music have somehow become worse? Would Slayer have become less popular? Picking a sucky name doesn’t necessarily hurt your chances if the music is good.

There just doesn’t seem to be any necessary correspondence between the quality of band names and the quality of the music or success of the band. But it is entertaining to consider the evidence — the ass-kicking bands with ass-kicking names, the ass-kicking bands that have succeeded despite piss-poor names, and the bands whose names are just perplexing.

We’ll kick around some examples after the jump, and then we’ll invite your participation . . .

ASS-KICKING NAMES → ASS-KICKING MUSIC

Aside from “The Big Four”, other bands have picked great one-word names and have also churned out music that matches up nicely with the killer connotations of those names. To list a few that readily come to mind: Death (of course), Carcass, Immolation, Immortal, Venom, Behemoth, Bloodbath, Obituary, Entombed, Exodus, Kataklysm, Enslaved, Dissection, Grave, Unleashed — and more recently, Unearth, Psycroptic, Carnifex, Decapitated, Tombs, Howl, Goatwhore.

And, of course, how could we forget the immortal Blastanus?

All of these are badass names for badass bands, but I’d probably still listen to their music even if they were called Miss May I, which is a really awful name for a band that actually plays decent music. Which brings us to the next category . . .

PISS-POOR NAMES → ASS-KICKING MUSIC

There have certainly been bands who have achieved popularity for their kick-ass music despite having picked off-putting, meaningless, or downright awful names.

Take Melvins, for example. Awesome music, but the band’s name makes me think of a pair of cretinous, in-bred cousins with identical names who drool and break wind at inappropriate times.

Between the Buried and Me: Great band, but if you knew nothing about the music and you heard that name, would you wanna dive right in to their tunes or run away? What kind of name is that anyway? What does it even mean? What is between the buried and you?  Dirt?

Meshuggah? It goes too far to call that an ass-sucking name, but the only reason we don’t laugh at it is because the band’s music made such a heavy mark on the scene and continues to be widely copied. It’s an interesting spelling of the Yiddish word for crazy, but how many metalheads even know that? And for those who do, do you think it’s a metal name?

I don’t have any idea what Scar Symmetry is supposed to mean. I guess being scarred can be metal, but what do symmetrical scars have to do with anything? Same issue with Veil of Maya: it’s a very good band, but the name, at least on its face, is meaningless.

MyChildren MyBride? What about your children and your bride? And can you not afford spaces to separate the words?

And I’m sorry, but as much as I like Norma Jean, in what universe is that a name for a metal band? I suppose it’s better than Bobbie Sue, but still. And Naglfar?  In general, I think it’s best to avoid names that have three consonants in a row. It sounds too much like throat-clearing.

Strapping Young Lad was a brilliant band, but that’s another example of music that succeeded in spite of a truly awkward, non-metal band name. We could go on, but time for the next category . . .

PERPLEXING NAMES

I never really got into the music of Behold the Arctopus, but I remember the name because I can’t imagine the discussion that led to that epiphany, or what kind of intoxicants were in use at the time. Did the name just spring forth fully formed, like Athena from the brow of Zeuss?  (Dude #1: I’ve got it! We should call ourselves “Behold the Arctopus”! All other dudes: Fuckin’ A! Awesome name!)

Or did the words magically come together in collaborative effort, like the magical union of, uh, Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne? (Dude #1: We should call ourselves “Behold the . . .somethingorother.” Wouldn’t that be cool? We just need to figure out the last word. Dude #2: I’ve got it! Arctopus! All other dudes: Fuckin’ A! Awesome name!)

Then there are those bands whose names the fans don’t know how to pronounce and therefore make up their own widely varying pronunciations rather than spend the hours of internet research necessary to nail it down accurately. Like Eluveitie, or Negura Bunget, or Kivimetsan Druidi, or my personal favorite, Drudkh. These are not names that roll off the tongue.

Equally perplexing are all the Latin band names. For example: Disarmonia Mundi, Mors Principium Est, Ne Obliviscaris, Omnium Gatherum, Odem Arcarum. I like all those bands, but are there any schools that still teach Latin? And how many metalheads do you know who are conversant in that great but completely dead language? I can pretty much guarantee that if Slayer had chosen Mors Principium Est as their name, their fans would have been calling them “MPE” in no time at all.

Some band names are perplexing because they seem to be a mismatch with the music. Apocalyptica is a good example. I heard the name before I heard the music, and what I expected wasn’t what I got.  I do like Apocalyptica’s music quite a bit, but it’s not nearly as brutal as that name would suggest.

I’m sure I’m overlooking lots of other examples of bands in each category — so please feel free to add to the lists in the comments. And even better, if you can name bands with badass names whose music is mediocre or worse, we’re all ears.

Maybe some day we’ll talk about bands who changed their names, like Phladelphia’s Rumpelstiltskin Grinder did just the other day. Their old name seemed perfectly fine to me, though it did have a lot of syllables, but they’re now calling themselves The Devil. And I thought that name was taken.

P.S. That very eye-catching photo of Slayer’s Kerry King at the top of our post is a shot by Jacqueline Cheng from a collection of photos she took for MetalSucks of Slayer, Megadeth and Testament on their American Carnage run when it stopped in New Jersey on August 12th.  More of her excellent photos from that show can be found here.

I don’t watch much TV, but when I do I can’t escape those fucking direct-to-consumer drug commercials.

I really don’t get it. Big pharmaceutical companies are spending more than $4 billion annually promoting products to people who can’t buy them. You need a fucking prescription to buy this shit! And who writes prescriptions? Doctors do! And surely doctors don’t decide what to prescribe based on TV ads. Do they? Please tell me they don’t!

So the theory is that advertising will cause people who have medical problems (or think they do) to ask their doctors for the drugs they see advertised on TV, and that will cause doctors to prescribe more of the advertised drugs. It must work, because if it didn’t, Big Pharma wouldn’t continue spending so much fucking money on those ass-sucking ads. And that’s pretty scary.

What’s particularly insane is that the advertising has been successful despite the fact that the ads spend more time warning you about all the disgusting side effects of the products than they do explaining the supposed benefits. Shit, even if I were tempted to believe the puffery that the drug companies spout about their wares, I wouldn’t touch ‘em with a ten-foot pole after hearing the litany of warnings — but that obviously isn’t holding most people back.

The whole phenomenon just seems twisted and grotesque. But I’ve thought of one way to entertain myself when I’m stuck watching one of those ads: I imagine the drug names are the names of extreme metal bands, and I think about what kind of music they play — and what kind of side-effect warnings would appear on the CDs. Here are a few examples (after the jump . . .):

LIPITOR

This old-school Norwegian black metal band churns out vicious, stripped down, pummeling music — and listening to it will allow you to live forever even if you stuff yourself on a daily basis with fatty fried food and pizza! (We need to mention that on rare occasions, listeners have been known to piss blood and to vomit until their rectums come out their mouths.  Enjoy!)

CIALIS

The music of this Dutch melodic death metal band will penetrate every orifice with non-stop hammering riffage and howls of melodic ecstasy. Hey dudes, this music will cause your pants to tent up like a circus big top! If this doesn’t give you wood, then you might as well schedule that sex change operation you’ve been putting off. (But enjoy it while you can, because repeat listening may cause your dicks to fall off. No guts, no glory!)

NASONEX

Technical death metal from Montreal! Man, listening to this shit will make you feel like you snorted a gram of pure meth! You’ll feel like the top of your head is about to shoot off into the stratosphere — but without the runny nose! (Warning: listening to Nasonex may cause your eyeballs to pop out followed by gouts of mucus-infused blood. Do not listen to Nasonex while driving — or while sitting, standing, or lying down.)

CYMBALTA

Feeling suicidally depressed, or just anxious about life in general and your own dismal insignificance? Check out this folk metal band from the Pyrenees! Mixing traditional instruments like the txistu, accordian, and tambourine with double-bass and chugging guitars, this band will lift you out of the dumps and make you insufferably cheerful.

(Some people who listen to Cymbalta experience explosive diarrhea accompanied by mind-numbing hallucinations — but that only happens to 1 in 10 listeners.  Don’t be a fucking wimp — roll the dice!)

ABILIFY

This deathcore band from Cleveland will scramble your brain chemicals and snap you out of that bipolar state you’re in with crushing breakdowns, dissonant riffs, and off-the-hook blast beats!

(Listening to Abilify may cause heart failure, sudden death, uncontrolled muscle movements, blindness, problems speaking, permanent amnesia, dangerous overheating and dehydration, bowel stoppage, and facial boils. Shit, if that’s not metal, we don’t know what is!)

********

Feel like playing this game yourselves? If so, leave a comment with your ideas. If not, have a nice fucking day anyway.

(Editor’s Note: As far as we know, there aren’t any actual metal bands that have these names. If by sheer chance there are, listen up: WE’RE NOT REALLY TALKING ABOUT YOU!)

Every now and then we’ve told you about a word or phrase we’ve stumbled upon that has nothing to do with metal, but sounds exactly like it oughta be the name of an extreme metal band. We’ve stuck those posts under the category of “Band Name Fodder.” Now we’ve stumbled across something new: words and phrases that have nothing to do with metal but sound like they could be the names of brutal songs.

You know the kind of song titles we’re talking about — the kind that at first blush (and sometimes second and third blushes) make no sense, but just sound really evil, uncompromising, and vicious.  Songs like:

“Carrion Sculpted Entity” (Cannibal Corpse), “Megacosm of the Aquaphobics” (Cephalic Carnage), “Postmortal Coprophagia” (Devourment), “Prosthetic Erection” (Annotations of An Autopsy), “Diaboloical Submergence of Rebirth” (Goatwhore), “Intestinal Putrefaction” (Abominable Putridity), “Pestiferous Subterfuge” (Aborted), “Gestation of Malevolence” (Abysmal Torment), “Cyclopian Scape” (High On Fire), “Ceremonian Disembowelment” (Impetuous Ritual), “Gestated Human Slurry” (Infected Disarray), “Damnation Pentastrike” (Lightning Swords of Death), “Into the Qliphot of Golachab” (Malfeitor), “Fermented Offal Discharge” (Necrophagist), “Postmortem Dissection” (The Pathology), “Cataclysmic Purification” (Suffocation), “Contemporary Perception Narcotics” (Trigger the Bloodshed), “Cranial Media Parasite” (Magrudergrind). And so on.

Well, just in case the well runs dry for bands like these (or they lose their thesaurus), we’ve found a gold mine of source material. (see what we’ve discovered after the jump . . .)

NCS Co-Author Alexis is a college grunt and is taking a class this quarter that required her to dissect a shark and memorize all the pieces of its cartilage (which is basically what sharks have instead of skeletons).

Now as real-world creatures go, sharks are pretty fucking metal to begin with. Some of them, like the great whites, are “apex predators,” which means they’re at the top of the aquatic food chain with no predators of their own. They are “cold-blooded.” They need to remain in constant motion to breathe, and will sink if they stop. They’ll eat just about anything, and — to cut to the chase — they scare the living shit out of most of us human fleshbags.

The names of shark cartilage that Alexis had to memorize are definitely metal, and would provide excellent song name fodder. For example:

Superficial Ophthalmic Foramina
Palatopterygoquadratic Cartilage
Ischiopubic Bar
Common Coracoarcual
Basibranchial Cartilage
Buccal Cavity
Duodenum
Hyomandibular Cartilage
Mesorectum

I tried to convince Alexis there was actually some fucking reason why she should have to memorize the names of shark cartilage. Of course, I was talking outta my ass, but turns out I was right, don’t you agree?

Actually, some of this shark cartilage shit would make good band name fodder, too. In my mind, I can hear a band named Mesorectum pumping out some brutal death metal. Can’t you?

I’ve taken some shit for the photo of the slit-throat turkey I used in our posts on both Thanksgiving and Christmas Day. So this time, I picked the handsome specimens above. Still metal, and still alive (at least temporarily).

I’ve been thinking about turkey because, having finished Christmas Day dinner, my body is now about 75% turkey and I’m in a tryptophan-induced coma. I got into a debate with one of my NCS Co-Authors about whether the common wisdom is correct that turkey contains high doses of tryptophan and causes drowsiness when consumed in mass quantities. IntoTheDarkness insisted that was B.S. I insisted it was true. To resolve the dispute, I consulted The Font of All Human Knowledge. Turns out the answer is sort-of yes and sort-of no.  I know you’re dying to find out the facts. Details after the jump.

Turns out that tryptophan is an essential amino acid that must be obtained through what you eat. It’s a biochemical precursor to some important compounds, including serotonin (a mood regulator, among other things). Also turns out that tryptophan is present in most protein-based food, and is particularly plentiful in chocolate, peanuts, red meat, fish, and poultry. And the kicker is that while turkey does contain high levels of tryptophan, the amount is comparable to what’s found in most other meats.

BUT, the phenomenon of postprandial Thanksgiving and Christmas sedation (getting sleepy as fuck after you chow down on a big holiday feed) isn’t a figment of our imaginations. It’s real, and the turkey does play a part, but only a part.

When we pig out on turkey at Thanksgiving and Christmas, we’re also eating a lot of other food packed with carbohydrates. The carbs trigger the release of insulin. The insulin stimulates the uptake of certain amino acids — but not tryptophan — into the muscles. That increases the proportion of tryptophan in the bloodstream, compared to what’s left of the other amino acids after insulin has its effect. That leads to an uptake of tryptophan across the blood-brain barrier and into the central nervous system. Inside the central nervous system, tryptophan is converted into serotonin. The serotonin is converted into melotonin. And you know what melotonin does, don’t you? It makes you feel fucking sleepy!

There you have it. In a nutshell, there is such a thing as a tryptophan-induced coma, but it’s not the turkey alone that gobsmacks you into dozy oblivion. It’s the turkey plus all the carbo-loading. Aren’t you glad you asked?

P.S.  There are a couple of good band names in all this erudition: Tryptophan Coma and Postprandial Sedation. And based on some quick Googling, it looks like both names are still available.

Researchers have shown that people aren’t good judges of their own performance and often tend to overrate their own abilities.  Some people think they’re way better than they are, and their own sense of self-importance just oozes from every pore.  You can probably think of people like that in an instant – whether it’s someone you personally know or a celebrity you know about.  Take Dave Mustaine for example. But people can misjudge their abilities in the opposite way too.

A few days ago I was talking with someone who told me about imposter syndrome.  It’s not exactly a recognized psychological disorder, but it’s something that researchers have studied and written about.  It can be defined as a persistent feeling that you’re really not as good as other people think you are, that whatever success you’ve achieved isn’t really deserved, and that other people have just been deceived about you.  Those feelings are accompanied by a fear that your lack of competence or talent will be found out and that you’ll be revealed as a fake and a fraud.

It’s more than low self-esteem.  People with low self-esteem might actually be unsuccessful people.  People with imposter feelings actually have achieved some success, but aren’t able to recognize and value their own achievement.  And perversely, with each new success, the fear of being “found out” increases.   I’m guessing there are people in some successful metal bands out there that suffer from those fears and who can’t enjoy their deserved success as a result.  Poor bastards.

Apparently, imposter feelings drive some people to work harder to postpone the day when they fear other people will realize they’re really not that good.  Some people are openly self-deprecating – though that may be more of a social strategy (getting points from appearing humble) than true imposter syndrome.

And then of course, some people who are convinced they don’t really deserve their successes are absolutely right.  They really aren’t as good as most people seem to think they are, and they really do have reason to fear (even if they don’t) that someday everyone will wake up and see them for the frauds they are.

I don’t know if this last class of people are really suffering from imposter syndrome.  It’s more like they should be suffering from imposter syndrome.  They’ve achieved some success, but whether they realize it or not, they really are imposters and the time really will come when the public realizes their success was due to luck or good timing or some other bullshit instead of true talent.  In the world of metal, I’m thinking of bands like Attack! Attack! and Brokencyde and Atreyu and others (too numerous to name).

BAND NAME FODDER

In case you were wondering, there’s already a band called Imposter Syndrome.  They’re based in New York City.  On their MySpace page, the band describes its music as “turbulent yet melodic rock.”  The words “edgy,” “soaring,” and “aggressive” also appear.  I’m gonna take a wild guess and say this isn’t metal.  I guess I could listen to a song or two to find out.  On second thought, no.

Earlier this year, the brilliant journalist Matt Taibbi wrote an article for Rolling Stone called “Inside the Great American Bubble Machine.”  It was all about how Wall Street investment bank Goldman Sachs has been the driving force behind every major stock market bubble since the Great Depression, including the one that led to the market collapse from which our economy is still trying to recover.  The opening paragraph of that story has stuck in my head ever since:

The first thing you need to know about Goldman Sachs is that it’s everywhere. The world’s most powerful investment bank is a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money.

Regardless of what you think about Taibbi’s thesis, you gotta admit that’s a pretty great opening blast.  As journalistic lead paragraphs go, it’s definitely metal.  In fact, there are some great potential band names in there, don’t you think?  Vampire Squid, The Face of Humanity, Relentless Jamming, Blood Funnel, Smells Like Money.

Oops.  Looks like two of those names (IMO the best ones) are already taken!  There actually appear to be bands already out there called Vampire Squid and Blood Funnel.  And they claim to be metal bands.  Don’t know if they’re worth a shit, but they’ve got good names.

Fortunately, based on a quick Google search, the other Taibbi names still seem to be available.