Bubblegum Octopus: A Name That Sticks

UPDATE (2:41 p.m.): The show has been moved to Houston House of Creeps, 2710 Carrolton, and Cop Warmth and Saviour Group have been added to the bill.

Tommy Bruce

​Mark Morden, the sole member of Bubblegum Octopus, describes the project as, "Bubblegum Octopus is a frantic, progressive hybrid of bouncy, cutesy pico-pico and synth-pop, grinding and noise freakouts, punk, video game influenced electronics, touches of dance music, and IDM/breakcore style percussion mutilation."

Rocks Off describes the project as "two Ataris tag-teaming Lene Lovich while the Cookie Monster skypes it."

Regardless, we're instantly drawn to any band who uses the word "other" to genrecize themselves, and we are disappointed by the semi-Residents vibe we get from Morden's music. It's not comfortable, but neither is any truly exciting ride.

That name, though... Bubblegum Octopus? What the hell does that mean?

What does tree sap mixed with beetle shells - look it up - have to do with the head of Great Cthulhu? Using the new iPhone app to sound like the killer from Scream, we harassed Morden at his studio demanding an answer.

"I often hallucinate sea creatures in my room when I'm behind enough on my sleep," says Morden. "On the first night of composing music for this project I was two days of sleeplessness and I began to see a small, pink, gummy octopus bounce up and down in time to the music.

"Because of the color and the fact that one of the synth presets I was working with was called 'Bubblegum Brass' I was just struck with the name after I realized it wasn't suitable for my project at the time, c@. It helps that I like both bubblegum and octopi."

"That's psuedo-Latin, you know?" we told him in our normal voice having already grown bored with the Scream one. "The correct term is octopuses."

All the while we listened to Morden talk about hallucinating, we perused his music. We utterly refuse to believe anyone is dancing to it, though we'll not rule out the possibility that someone has fought a giant disembodied set of hands while it poured from their iPod. "God's Pink Laser" is about as awesome as you would imagine God's pink laser would be in real life.