The Song Fight Bulletin Board

First of all my song does not have the same exact name as the old one, and my artist name is not exactly the same as the old one, so that comparison you made is not really fair, although I get your point of course.

Also, lots of bands have the same name. See the list at http://musicbrainz.org/doc/IdenticallyNamedArtists . And, those are all made up band names. Considering Eric B is actually my name, I have a right to use it (at least with an MC in front). It is like actors with the same name, who use a middle initial to differentiate themselves.

MC Eric B wrote:First of all my song does not have the same exact name as the old one, and my artist name is not exactly the same as the old one, so that comparison you made is not really fair, although I get your point of course.

Also, lots of bands have the same name. See the list at http://musicbrainz.org/doc/IdenticallyNamedArtists . And, those are all made up band names. Considering Eric B is actually my name, I have a right to use it (at least with an MC in front). It is like actors with the same name, who use a middle initial to differentiate themselves.

I think it should be self-evident that a name such as "Eric B" fails some basic name uniqueness heuristics, and that anyone choosing such a moniker should expect name collisions, whether with performers past, present or future. If the original "Eric B" wanted some expectation that his identity wouldn't be masked by some subsequent "Eric B" (MC or otherwise), he should have chosen a sufficiently unique name, such as "Eric Blumenthal" etc.

I believe the actor's guild "guarantees" name uniqueness for "complete" names (such as Tom Cruise, but not Tom C.), and when name collisions occur the subsequent actor must disambiguate their name [e.g. Michael J. Fox's middle initial isn't 'J', but was required to have distinct name from other 'Michael Fox's in the guild. Or something like that.]

Similarly, our own MC Eric B should have less expectation that his name wouldn't collide with other Eric B's, past, present or future, and should be willing to accept the consequences when it does. If you don't want people giving you shit about using the same name as some other Eric B, use a more unique name.

Given the number of performers and bands kicking around over the years, its inevitable that true name collisions will happen despite having reasonably unique names. With no mediating organization (such as the screen actor's guild) to regulate names, and the desire to use reasonable common words and phrases, it's going to happen. Usually it sorts itself out based on relative fame, etc. The 60's English psychedelic band "Nirvana" tried to sue the 90's Seattle grunge band "Nirvana" over the name, to no avail. The English band "The Beat" is known in the US as "The English Beat" because of a sufficiently well known US band "The Beat", subsequently called "Paul Collins' Beat". "The Originals" became (briefly) "The New Originals" when they discovered another local band was operating under the name.

You might argue that prepending "MC" to Eric B creates a distinctly unique name (ala the 'J' in Michael J. Fox vs the original Michael Fox), but you'll have to accept the risk that not everyone is going to accept it. No one confuses Michael J. Fox with Michael Fox, but only because nobody's heard of Michael Fox. I suspect that any budding actor named "Tom K. Cruise" would find it prudent to adopt some other stage name.

In any case, in the age of Google and MySpace there is less excuse for adopting a name that is already in use. Before we came up with "The Hand Puppets", we were considering another name [for the record, it was "MC The Beatles"], but Google and MySpace searches indicated that there were already a number of acts with the same or similar names. I'm fairly sure that our name is unique. Difficulty verifying your desired name via Google or MySpace search [e.g. try searching "Eric B"] is a likely sign that the name fails the uniqueness heuristics.

In some sense, MySpace band pages and internet domain names can serve roughly the same (albeit unofficial) function as the screen actor's guild to "reserve" unique names, so there is less excuse for picking a name already in use. But if you really *really* care, legally service-mark your band name and logo.

Steve Hand Puppet

That's a very interesting post. However, I confess to being most fascinated by the word 'disambiguate.' If that's not a real word, it should be. Carry on, thank you.

SteveHandPuppet wrote:I think it should be self-evident that a name such as "Eric B" fails some basic name uniqueness heuristics, and that anyone choosing such a moniker should expect name collisions, whether with performers past, present or future...

James Taylor
James Taylor Quartet
James "J.T." Taylor

not to mention the lesser known

Jim Taylor
Jim Taylor Band

what's in a name anyway?
we all know who mc eric b is here.
we all know who he is not.
it's his name afterall, and he has labeled himself an mc, so why is this an issue?
not every musician can have a completely unique name.
and not every musician needs to know/listen to/or even like every iconic artist in his/her proferred genre.
the fact is that every artist here takes time out of his/her/their life to write, record, and produce about three songs a month. that is not a small amount of work. this is songfight, though, and fighting about the music is, i guess, encouraged, but if you have to start mean-spirited fight about a songfighter's band name, then let me know how you come across so much free time.

About a year ago I decided to stop calling myself Caravan Ray and change to Tex Beaumont because it was my porn-star name (first pet + street I grew up on) - then I discovered this bloke:

http://www.texbeaumont.com/

who I reckon is pretty cool - so I don't want to take his name. Even though my Tex Beaumont has an imaginary backing band called "The Dirty Hearts" - which he doesn't have. Apparently there is a town in Texas called Beaumont. Who knew?

My fallback name (2nd pet + 2nd street lived on) is Sid Denison. Not bad, but not as good as Tex Beaumont. (other names for me generated using that formula would be Chief Stratton, Alfie Fernhill, Roy Toohey or Gary Stevenson)...(or Lucky Paradise - that's not bad either)

You can have mine if you like - Snake Peterson & The Dirty hearts has a certain ring to it ...

<--- Spunky Linden. Also available, if you want to use it.

j$ wrote:You can have mine if you like - Snake Peterson & The Dirty hearts has a certain ring to it ...

Yes - it certainly does! (Though I'm not sure I want to touch anything that has been involved with your certain ring)

Still, even Snake Beaumont & The Dirty Hearts would work. I think just finding a suitable replacement first name for 'Tex' is probably the best answer.

jimtyrrell wrote:<--- Spunky Linden. Also available, if you want to use it.

Snake Petersen and the Spunky Rings


ewwwww

mine would be: max beechwood
yeah.

jimtyrrell wrote:<--- Spunky Linden. Also available, if you want to use it.

You called your first pet 'Spunky'? That would be one confused sausage dog!

<< Teddy Maple Street

Coco Creek.

Though that would go better with a chick. After all, it was a female dog was my first pet. (If you went with the first male pet I ever had, it would be Beau Creek.)

Betty Doris and the dirty hookers ?

jimtyrrell wrote:

SteveHandPuppet wrote:I think it should be self-evident that a name such as "Eric B" fails some basic name uniqueness heuristics, and that anyone choosing such a moniker should expect name collisions, whether with performers past, present or future...

James Taylor
James Taylor Quartet
James "J.T." Taylor

not to mention the lesser known

Jim Taylor
Jim Taylor Band

If I said it once, I've said it a million times: "I reserve the right to not give a shit about James Taylor".

Steve "Tiger Vallejo" Hand Puppet

Paco Del Stinko wrote:That's a very interesting post. However, I confess to being most fascinated by the word 'disambiguate.' If that's not a real word, it should be. Carry on, thank you.

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/disambiguate
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Word_sense_disambiguation
http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/disambiguate
http://disambiguate.com/ [!!!!]
http://www.alphadictionary.com/goodword ... sambiguate [This is my favorite, as it discusses how 'disambiguate' is a genuine orphan negative, meaning that it is a negative form verb (dis- meaning to undo or perform the opposite) without a recognized positive form verb ('ambiguate')]

and so on.

Caravan Ray wrote:About a year ago I decided to stop calling myself Caravan Ray and change to Tex Beaumont because it was my porn-star name (first pet + street I grew up on)

I'm gonna have to check the pet name (it was a long time ago), but I do believe that makes me "Rusty Idle."

Maybe not the best pornstar name... or maybe the best one ever...

Charles (KA)

i usually don't bother posting my own personal crap here, but dammit do i like the song i recorded last night!

http://fvs.blaststream.com/testapp/shar ... easure.mp3

I have a 6-track demo here, if you'd like to download it. I'd love it if you'd like to download it! One of the songs was written for songfight [King Me - now called Your Militant Working Boy].

Anyway, thanks! Also, my myspace is here.

king_arthur wrote:

Caravan Ray wrote:About a year ago I decided to stop calling myself Caravan Ray and change to Tex Beaumont because it was my porn-star name (first pet + street I grew up on)

I'm gonna have to check the pet name (it was a long time ago), but I do believe that makes me "Rusty Idle."

Maybe not the best pornstar name... or maybe the best one ever...

Charles (KA)

"Brandy Sugarbush"

sigh.

SteveHandPuppet wrote:

MC Eric B wrote:First of all my song does not have the same exact name as the old one, and my artist name is not exactly the same as the old one, so that comparison you made is not really fair, although I get your point of course.

Also, lots of bands have the same name. See the list at http://musicbrainz.org/doc/IdenticallyNamedArtists . And, those are all made up band names. Considering Eric B is actually my name, I have a right to use it (at least with an MC in front). It is like actors with the same name, who use a middle initial to differentiate themselves.

I think it should be self-evident that a name such as "Eric B" fails some basic name uniqueness heuristics, and that anyone choosing such a moniker should expect name collisions, whether with performers past, present or future. If the original "Eric B" wanted some expectation that his identity wouldn't be masked by some subsequent "Eric B" (MC or otherwise), he should have chosen a sufficiently unique name, such as "Eric Blumenthal" etc.

I believe the actor's guild "guarantees" name uniqueness for "complete" names (such as Tom Cruise, but not Tom C.), and when name collisions occur the subsequent actor must disambiguate their name [e.g. Michael J. Fox's middle initial isn't 'J', but was required to have distinct name from other 'Michael Fox's in the guild. Or something like that.]

Similarly, our own MC Eric B should have less expectation that his name wouldn't collide with other Eric B's, past, present or future, and should be willing to accept the consequences when it does. If you don't want people giving you shit about using the same name as some other Eric B, use a more unique name.

Given the number of performers and bands kicking around over the years, its inevitable that true name collisions will happen despite having reasonably unique names. With no mediating organization (such as the screen actor's guild) to regulate names, and the desire to use reasonable common words and phrases, it's going to happen. Usually it sorts itself out based on relative fame, etc. The 60's English psychedelic band "Nirvana" tried to sue the 90's Seattle grunge band "Nirvana" over the name, to no avail. The English band "The Beat" is known in the US as "The English Beat" because of a sufficiently well known US band "The Beat", subsequently called "Paul Collins' Beat". "The Originals" became (briefly) "The New Originals" when they discovered another local band was operating under the name.

You might argue that prepending "MC" to Eric B creates a distinctly unique name (ala the 'J' in Michael J. Fox vs the original Michael Fox), but you'll have to accept the risk that not everyone is going to accept it. No one confuses Michael J. Fox with Michael Fox, but only because nobody's heard of Michael Fox. I suspect that any budding actor named "Tom K. Cruise" would find it prudent to adopt some other stage name.

In any case, in the age of Google and MySpace there is less excuse for adopting a name that is already in use. Before we came up with "The Hand Puppets", we were considering another name [for the record, it was "MC The Beatles"], but Google and MySpace searches indicated that there were already a number of acts with the same or similar names. I'm fairly sure that our name is unique. Difficulty verifying your desired name via Google or MySpace search [e.g. try searching "Eric B"] is a likely sign that the name fails the uniqueness heuristics.

In some sense, MySpace band pages and internet domain names can serve roughly the same (albeit unofficial) function as the screen actor's guild to "reserve" unique names, so there is less excuse for picking a name already in use. But if you really *really* care, legally service-mark your band name and logo.

Steve Hand Puppet

some internet asshole uses the made-up name "blue lang" for his fucking dungeons and fucking dragons and whatnot characters, and insists on creating fucking logins on popular fucking web sites with said name, usually (i imagine) only minutes or days before i decide to sign up with said site.

needless to say, i want him dead.

and removed from google's database.