What's In A Name?

[dementio13]

I was recently considering a change of identity. No, not some witness protection-style change of name, face and address; but a change of alias related to my musical output. My ’sound’ and working practices are constantly changing, so it seemed like a good idea to build up a new name and listener-base. In the end, I decided against it as I seem to have a decent enough (in my view, at least) number of listeners and plays on Last.fm, and to start all over again would mean I’d have to start at zero.

Likewise for my collaboration with Pixieguts. We’ve considered changing the name from ‘Dementio13 Feat Pixieguts‘ (and the confusion between that name and Pix’s and my own solo outputs) to a more ‘band’-like alias which would reflect our music more concisely.

Anyway, it got me to thinking: does it matter what the name is? Surely its the music which matters.
But then, in music, as in many of the Arts, image and cultural-reference is everything.

I’ve written about this subject in part in the blog ‘Twentieth Century Praxis Audio‘. As part of my reminiscences, I mention the name of my eighties band The Red October Factory:

“Our band got christened sometime in early 1985, ‘The Red October
Factory’. The name seemed perfect, it contained the word ‘Factory’ in
it for starters. But it also alluded to the Eastern Bloc (the real Red
October was a Russian factory that either produced warheads, or
chocolate, I can’t remember!) and all that that entailed. The name was
austere and industrial; everything we aspired to be musically.”

Likewise, I mention elsewhere in the post ‘The 10 Commandments Of Electronica‘:

“Your name will be without emotion or meaning.
An artist’s moniker is all important; it’s a statement of intent to
your listener…or not, in the case of electronica. Preferably your
artist name will be without any meaning to the average listener at all;
it will involve sheer nonsense (a made-up word such as, say, ‘Autechre‘), or the ultimate in geekery (involving the name of a piece of equipment, like ‘Aphex Twin‘), or, even better, it will involve numbers (’Prefuse 73‘).
By doing this, you are saying, “Listen to me, my music is
technological, it does not stir your emotions, in fact, it is cold and
harsh. It does not follow conventions and is difficult to understand.”
It can also be read as meaning, “My music is a puzzle. To me, as much
as it is to you….in fact, I just recorded a sequence of random noises,
fed it through a ring modulator and then got confused…”
You may, of course, use your own name….but only if you have a middle initial to give you extra kudos (Richard H Kirk).”

Pixiguts pointed out to me that the word “Head” has been part of the names of some very respected and successful bands:
Portishead; Radiohead; Severed Heads; Talking Heads….
Likewise with abbreviations:
DMX, DNA, LFO, ELO, and the ultimate in abbreviated aliases:

or ‘Symbol’ (The Artist Formerly Known As Prince)

Numbers also figure in some names to give credibility:

KRS1, Prefuse73, 808 State, Altern8, and some of my unsigned comrades - SK123 and D551 to name but two.

Its a mystery to me…….if you’re a musician, I’d be interested to hear how you came across your name, and why.

[Pixieguts]

Cheers Gus :) Still don't really know if we will do this name change thing but fun to speculate! Privately I've also had votes for 'Tipi Sumo' and 'Enemies Gift'...

[Angus Maiden]

but "Pixel Dement" is the best.

[Angus Maiden]

I like "Genome Suite"

[Pixieguts]

The Peach Tree is a brilliant artist name, glad you kept it!

Here are some of my faves from names we've considered for the D13/Pg duo so far, any others click nice with you guys? :)

Cwtch
Pixel Dement
Pix3l D3m3nt (Baskyl's cool variation)
Tascam Terrorist
Two 24
Enemies Gift
Ode 10
Genome Suite
Tipi Sumo

[dementio13]

Well Angus..I'm sure that one of us would have tagged you and connected you to PP had you changed your name!!!

Thanks for that....I'm in agreement with Last.fm's advice to you. Some of my solo tracks have only a handful of listens, but because I've got so many tracks under the Dementio13 umbrella, taken as a whole, my listener-base has grown.

I was just thinking that, psychologically, it'd be a good thing to make a fresh start; a new musical direction.....but thats probably also linked to the fact that I'm moving house soon, and its the start of a new academic year, etc. Lots of changes....

[Angus Maiden]

The Peach Tree represents the beauty of fragrant fruit ripening in the spring time, but the core of a peach contains deadly poison. As you guys may know I'm into duality a lot and the balance between Light and Dark, of Death and Life, represented by the peach is all what I'm about. You may be interested to know that after I uploaded my album "Fabric" to Last.FM (at which time I had about 10 listeners I think), I didn't touch the site until I released "Psychosis" more than a year later. I had planned to "start afresh" with the moniker Gamoneterik, but then quite mysteriously I received an email from the last.fm staff with tips and suggestions on how to promote my music on the site. One of their tips was: "Ignore the proverb, do put all your eggs in one basket." And so I stuck with The Peach Tree. Don't think I would know you guys if I had have switched to Gamoneterik, because in the time that I was away from Last.FM my music had been slowly gaining momentum. Under Gamoneterik I never would have been connected to Pixies Palace and met all you fine folks.

[dementio13]

Bascule is also a counter-balanced pivot, or seesaw. A bascule bridge has lifting sections which are counter-balanced by weights.
Like a gateway to an aural underworld.........?!

[baskyl]

Pixel Dement!
This is a great name!
To add some more cryptic math to it: what about "PIX3L^^D3M3NT"?

erm, the central question posed in this blogpost I tried to answer in your first "Rumination"-blog, big dement0r:
"The name Baskyl is taken from the novel "Feersum Endjinn" by Iain Banks. There the character's name is spelled Bascule. The function of Bascule/Baskyl is that of a teller, communicator, narrator."
I think this name stands for itself.
In terms of literary criticism:
°It's a telling name, stands for a flat character.°

[dementio13]

I certainly like the description..... of course, I knew what Pixel Dement was before you told me...er....of course! :-/

[Pixieguts]

Pixieguts is a nickname a real life friend gave me and I couldn't resist using it...

Now, having researched various options, it seems the best new possibility we've come up with so far for our duo act might be Pixel Dement. I reckon it fits most of the above criteria. This is what you get on the 1st Google search entry for it...

"The pixel dement 11 includes a P-type silicon substrate 12 having an N+ doped region 13 in contact with a cathode plate 15. The cathode plate 15 comprises ..."

We're in with a bio like that! lmao...

Pixel + Dement gets the same result and has the added advantage of a mathematical symbol in the name ;D