It's a well-known fact that most band names are essentially gobbledygook, but here at Houston Press we're trying hard to find meaning in the oddest monikers.

I live for a band like Dallas' Pissed Grave, honestly. Oh, not because they're especially brilliant or move me musically or anything. I just love music that is chaotic and unredeemable. I like the sound of notes and lyrics scourging each other with razors in some half-remembered ritual of painful salvation. It's like a little microcosm of dystopia for the ears.

Take my favorite track from their demo earlier this year, "Raining Shit." It's throbbing, incomprehensible, loud, and full of a hateful energy that both alludes to punk and metal but is so passionately self-destructive that it actively repulses those genres even as it draws strength from them.

Or maybe you'd like something like "Junky Rat," which makes me wonder what songs Cole Porter would've turned out in the final stages of a terminal meth addiction. What a total screaming rejection of form or boundary, yet delivered with the circular rage of an atomic bomb. I dig it.

But that name...

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It's a well-known fact that most band names are essentially gobbledygook, but here at Rocks Off we're doing out best to make sense of the oddest monikers.

Photos courtesy of Ninjas From Texas

Ninjas From Texas is a metal/hardcore act out of San Antonio. It's the sort of music that makes me sad there are no good Van Damme movies anymore. I can totally see him as an aging underground metal musician who deals out ass-beatings and justice from under a mask all set to Ninjas From Texas' "Bitch We Keep it Real." It's angry, it's juvenile, it smacks of being written in the aftermath of a bitter session of masturbation, but goddammit it has punch.

There's even a kind of brutal poetry in something like "Sex, Drugs, and Mopeds." I mean, sure, the growling and the screaming and the call for immediate gratification is still all over the place, but Neil Munoz's vocals honestly have a Salinger quality to them. There's a beautiful, empty futility to the message that he and the band accomplish well under the soulpunch.

That name, though...

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Hey there, musicians.

I like you guys. I enjoy checking you out, hearing what you're all about. I don't mind the sweaty venues or sticky floors when I venture out of my safe little bubble to see your shows.

I don't even mind the massive bar tab that our little adventures cost me at the end of the night. It's a give-and-take relationship -- a symbiosis of sorts -- and it works for me.

But here's the clincher. As with any good relationship, I want things to work for you, too. However, it can be hard to want to come to your show if you've named yourself something like "Crazy Penis" or "Danger Muffin," or if you've added so much stylization to your name that I can't even figure out what the hell it is supposed to say.

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It's a well-known fact that most band names are gobbledygook, but here at the Houston Press, we're doing our best to find meaning in the oddest monikers.

In general I try to avoid delving into the message in metal bands' names as it always leads some place weird and horrifying. I still twitch when someone mentions Owl Witch. Nonetheless, the little sour kraut in my soul couldn't pass up Versklaven.

I was pleasantly surprised to find out the band was fronted by an old stagemate, Dominique Withoff from Delta Block (MKUltra back when they played Black Math Experiment's CD release in 2007). She's still quite the screamer and abrasive as ever, but I was more impressed with the cool, almost Patti Smith-style spoken-word way she can drop into on songs like "Baptism of Fire." These are amazing moments that come too few for as cool as they are, and show off a smoother side to her vocals that lends a great deal of weight to her lyrics. Good stuff.

But that name...

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One of these men misses his uncle Charles.

Bone Thugs-N-Harmony are back, y'all. Tonight, the legendary Cleveland crew takes over the stage at House of Blues, and there's going to be a lot of singing along. Most fans of rap's golden age have been bumping the Bone since at least the "Crossroads" video came out.

They've been on the scene for 20 years now: If you still can't sing the hook to "1st of Tha Month," that's on you at this point. They're first-ballot hall of famers.

But they're also kind of anonymous as hell. I'd know those harmonies anywhere, but I'm really not sure I could pick Bizzy Bone out of a lineup with three white guys and a lady in it. Could you?

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Dread Zeppelin's Un-Led-Ed, endorsed by Robert Plant himself.

Led Zeppelin: one of the most famous and influential rock and roll bands of all time. The key word in there is influential. How many rock bands in 2013 do you suppose cite Zeppelin as a major influence on their sound? I'd say just about all of them, either directly or indirectly through their influences' being influenced by Zeppelin themselves.

But just as iconic as Zeppelin's sound is its brand. The band's legacy is all tangled up in its fantastical lyricism, its obscure album art and its mysterious symbols. Even the name is so iconic that it has inspired a legion of imitators, from similarly named tribute bands to active recording entities unto themselves who just like the way a certain pun on the name "Led Zeppelin" sounded.

Here are five of these other Zeppelins you may or may not have heard of before.

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Numbers, then known as Babylon

One thing has always bothered me whenever I attend concerts and dance nights at Numbers, and that is, "Why the hell is it called Numbers, anyway?" Now, I know that I have something of a fixation on the meaning of names in the music scene, but I've also had several readers ask me to look into it over the years.

Well, I finally did so, and what I got back was something strange and wonderful to behold. The source of this information wished to remain anonymous so as not to reveal his or her age, but was vouched for by Numbers owner Robert Burtenshaw. I present it to you unedited, except for spelling and grammar in the name of hilarious awesomeness.

"Dad, why is Numbers called Numbers?"

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The Manichean, formerly known as ???

Here at the Houston Press, we make it a point to delve deep into the meanings behind band names on a regular basis. Today we wanted to see how closely you've been paying attention over the years.

Ten great past and current bands that made splashes in the Houston music scene have at times used other names before settling on their most famous monikers. Let's see if you can pick out what other handles they once hung their hats on.

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It's a well-known fact that most band names are essentially gobbledygook, but here at Rocks Off we're trying hard to find meaning in the oddest monikers.

Normally if you hand me a bunch of instrumental music I will respond with some variation on the famous Cave Johnson Lemon Speech except that I will replace the word "lemon" with "instrumental music" so as to keep the slightly weird from becoming the stuff of involuntary committal. It's just not music without someone shouting at me, but man get a load of We Scare Coyotes.

The four-piece shoegaze/math-rock act is like some wonderful jam-band version of Bang Bangz, and covers its lack of lyrics with an absolutely tremendous atmosphere. Aaron Glynn's violin work is especially compelling, and what he lacks in Lindsey Stirling proficiency he more than makes up with the ability to fill the air around the band with notes that pulse like an arm in a blood-pressure cuff. I almost wish I would go mad just so I the Coyotes could provide such a lovely soundtrack.

Plus, they've got a track called "Allonsy," and we must always salute our fellow Doctor Who fans. That name, though...

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It's a well-known fact that most band names are essentially gobbledygook, but here at Rocks Off we're working hard to find meaning in the oddest monikers.

Negative Utopia is only six months old as a band, so I'm not sure exactly what they'll be when they grow up. Their sound has some cowpunk influences with riffs ripped right out of a Morricone soundtrack, but there's a bit of Texas rock to it as well. So far they've not loaded anything online for you to get a feel of save for a recent performance on YouTube. This means I'll have it keep an eye out for further evolution to see if the harsh buzz of amateur recording masks or makes them.

Honestly, though, no one gets into this column because of how they sound. They get on here because I see their name in a concert listing and it drives me into a psychotic rage. Negative Utopia... what the hell does that mean? Is it hell, or is it just the complete prolapse of all hope for a reward at the end of this hard row to hoe? I don't need this existential crap crowding out all the Doctor Who trivia in my head, so I hit the old email to extract the meaning of the name form the band.

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