Meet dan le sac Vs Scroobius Pip. I have it on good authority that "Thou Shalt Always Kill" is HUGE in the UK right now. Of course, a song about not trying to be popular becomes popular itself and you've got an Ourobouros of sorts. They say pop will eat itself. And so it does.
I've been reconsidering some of my pseudonyms lately. And wondering how far pseudonymity will take you when you would prefer that your efforts were all related, connected and coherent.
The primary moniker I use for producing music, Instigator, has proven too ubiquitous. I adopted it eight years ago and am the oldest listing for artists named "Instigator", for the record. The bigger point is that I think I've outgrown it. I argue with myself about whether Instigator was supposed to do anything but get my solo production efforts underway. Things have been instigated well enough (the ambitious "Used Materials" album, and the fruitful Noise Throng label). It's time for the name, like the creative product itself, to move beyond the beginning-stage mentality.
This is what I did with INSTILLE, a name derived from the portmanteau of Instigator and Distille.
But getting my musical monikers in order inevitably leaves me reconsidering my PYLBUG moniker, too. A misspelling of pillbug, inspired by a dream about an abundance of insects and pills as interchangeable objects, it's been my handle for extra-curricular productions since 1995. Sometimes, however, I find myself wary of the connotations "pylbug" brings.
I am not, for the record, a pill-head any more than I am an insect aficionado. [Though I'm definitely much closer to the latter.] The reasoning by which I arrived at "pylbug" doesn't always hold up now, nearly 13 years later. Many of my extra-curricular efforts now seem inspired by different things, and this makes me feel like they should go by a different name. I'm considering a revised strategy to naming my projects; a refined point-of-view. Something like that.
All of that is for me to figure out. But, here's the question for my readers: where does your pseudonym come from, and did you plan any longevity into it? Maybe this question is more for bands, bloggers, content producers in general... people with a product that needs a brand name, if you will. What thought, if any, did you put into the act of picking your favorite pseudonym?
That is, if you can reveal the secrets behind your screen names.
MIT Adverlab today has a post called How To Kill Google. It cites The Reluctant Blogger's very interesting "doomsday" scenario in which "Microsoft could crush Google in one easy step".
Nothing against Google (this post is on Google-owned Blogger after all), but I grow weary of seeing more and more space in my browser filled with text ads.
In the days since Reluctant Blogger's first post, he's received a lot of feedback and summarized it in this "Microsoft vs. Google" post.
Kurt Vonnegut died at age 84.
His "profound pessimism" and sharp wit were inspirational to me.
PICT0274
Originally uploaded by silverfuture.
A fitting 77th post* for me. A friend at VICE just reminded me about the Boredoms' 77 Drum performance. It's happening on July 7th (7/7/07) in NYC.
Maybe Eye will see you there.
* If you count, you'll end up with fewer than 77. A few posts haven't been published yet, but Blogger assures me this is post 77.
