What’s My Name?: The Moths! Metamorphosis

Feb

What’s My Name?: The Moths! Metamorphosis

Categories: Me My Head and The Moths

As a band, it must be one of the most irritating things to find out that another band already got to your name. It’s difficult enough finding a name that is both creative and original, and once you think you have a brilliant one, you don’t want to have to change it. In the case of London-based band, The Moths!, they’ve been operating for a couple of years now with their excited insect moniker. A week ago, they began sending out bulletins via MySpace telling friends of the band to visit a new profile under the name Me My Head – there was no explanation, just an exhortation to trust them and add Me My Head as a friend. I initially thought it was a teaser campaign for a side project, so I ignored them. Then today there are more bulletins entitled The Moths Metamorphosis and The Moths Migrate – I take a look and they finally reveal that they had to change their name due to another band having it already.

I’ve been following The Moths! for nearly a year now since I first became aware of them via music blogs – their glammy, new wave sound and bubbly melodies attracted me to them. They’ve only released singles thus far, some as free downloads, some on vinyl, but nonetheless, they had built up a substantial amount of work as The Moths!. I also had the opportunity to see them live when they opened for Good Shoes at Clwb Ifor Bach in Cardiff last summer. They were really the main reason I went to that show (I had heard the odd Good Shoes song by that point, but wasn’t particularly excited by them) and they were the highlight of the gig for me. Although the audience seemed pretty indifferent to The Moths!, while they went ballistic for Good Shoes, I realized that the audience type was probably the problem – The Moths! are the eyeliner-wearing, pointy shoe-wearing flamboyant type while the crowd was more into hypermasculine moshing and throwing pints of lager around. I was the only one singing along with The Moths! to the song Wild Birds…and I was from Canada.

If I were The Moths!, who had won an unsigned band competition last year, I would be really disappointed that I had to find a new name, and with it, a new identity. It’s almost like starting at ground-zero again – any coverage and hype they got in the last couple of years needs to be recovered under a new name. Unfortunately, their new name, Me My Head, just doesn’t resonate with me, and right now, it seems like an unwieldy, boring name.

The “real” Moths

I’ve taken a look at the original The Moths, apparently another London-based band in operation since 1982. Their Web site doesn’t seem to elaborate on what type of music they actually play, but I have a feeling it’s not bright, shiny new-wave synthpop. There have been numerous name issues in the past, including the ridiculous problems several UK bands have had when trying to release material in the US. Suede and The Charlatans come to mind – because some obscure American bands already had their band names, they became known as The London Suede and The Charlatans UK in North America. Ridiculous and annoying in my mind. Yes, it may irk you that your little crappy, obscure psychedelic-jazz-fusion-lounge-singing band, which will likely never get famous, had its name before some successful act from another country stole it and actually earned loads of fame and recognition with it. However, it starts to get a bit petty for the band on the other end, who will never have the same fan base as the original band and will never lead to any major confusion over who’s who. For whom is it easier to change their name? I rest my case.

I reckon the lesson in all this is to research your band’s name extensively before you choose it and to think as originally as humanly possible. It’s going to take awhile before I associate The Moths! music with Me My Head’s music (strange that, how a band’s name is so intrinsic), but I’ve already added Me My Head as a friend on MySpace (www.myspace.com/memyhead), and I can only hope that their original 5000 friends follow.

Wild Birds – The Moths!

Watch the Sun – Me My Head

4 Responses to “What’s My Name?: The Moths! Metamorphosis”

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1 Happyfacesmiles
January 20, 2009 at 6:28 pm

:( I love the Moths…I’ve been trying to get a hold of some of their old music lately and failing miserably…I’ve been hooked ever since I heard “Tell me” and I’ve been to their myspace, Me My Head, and was disappointed to find that they’re old songs like “Tell Me” and “Games” were nowhere to be found…do you know anywhere I could possibly find and hopefully download their older music?

Reply
2 condemnedtorocknroll
March 29, 2009 at 1:13 am

Happyfacesmiles,

I only just noticed this comment as I was tracking back some older comments – if you’re still there, and haven’t found those older Moths songs, let me know, and I’ll email them to you.

Reply
3 walsgrave
May 1, 2009 at 9:00 am

I was at that Cardiff Good Shoes gig as well. The Moths were definitely the highlight of the evening – it was incredible that there was so little response from the audience!

Fantastic band, though, although I just can’t seem to appreciate the Me My Head songs quite as much with a different singer.

Anyway, pleased to hear I wasn’t the only one who was impressed by The Moths’ set!

Reply
- 4 condemnedtorocknroll
  May 1, 2009 at 11:12 am
  
  I checked back in with Me My Head recently and wasn’t impressed for the same reason of different singer. It’s a shame.
  
  Reply

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The only certain thing that is left about me

There is no part of my body that has not been used

Pity or pain, to show displeasure's shame

Everyone I've loved or hated always seems to leave

So I turned myself to face me

But I've never caught a glimpse

Of how the others must see the faker

I'm much too fast to take that test

A dreaded sunny day

So let's go where we're happy

And I meet you at the cemetry gates

Oh, Keats and Yeats are on your side

A dreaded sunny day

So let's go where we're wanted

And I meet you at the cemetry gates

Keats and Yeats are on your side

But you lose 'cause weird lover Wilde is on mine

When they kick at your front door

How you gonna come?

With your hands on your head

Or on the trigger of your gun

Charles Windsor, who's at the door

At such an hour, who's at the door

In the back of an old green Cortina

You're on your way to the guillotine

Here the rabble comes

The kind you hoped were dead

They've come to chop, to chop off your head

Then you came with your breezeblocks

Smashing up my face like a bus-stop

You think you're giving

But you're taking my life away

Won't someone give me more fun?

(and the skin flies all around us)

We kiss in his room to a popular tune

Oh, real drowners

Don't walk away

In silence

See the danger

Always danger

Endless talking

Life rebuilding

Don't walk away

Walk in silence

Don't turn away in silence

Your confusion

My illusion

Worn like a mask of self-hate

Confronts and then dies

Don't walk away

You don't want to hurt me

But see how deep the bullet lies

Unaware I'm tearing you asunder

Oh there is thunder in our hearts

Is there so much hate for the ones we love

Tell me we both matter don't we

I don't know whether

To over or under estimate you

Whether to over or under estimate you

For when I come over

You then put me under

Personal taste is a matter of gender

I wake at dusk to go alone without a light

To the unknown

I want this night inside of me

I want to feel

I want this speeding

I want that speeding

You'll never live like common people

You'll never do what common people do

You'll never fail like common people

You'll never watch your life slide out of view

And dance and drink and screw

Because there's nothing else to do

All I have is words, words that don't obtain

And I feel I'm a stain on your horizon

So I stay away - it's easier that way

And there won't be no-one I need to rely on

Is it him, is it me

Or is there something only I can see

How did I get here, why do we blow around like straw dogs on the breeze

I'm a special one, what they used to say

But I've to stay on, finish levels-A

You don't need exams when you've read John Gray

And nobody ever comes alive

And the journalists clamour round glamour like flies

And boys who should know better grin and get high

With fat men who once met the MC5

And no one discusses what they don't understand

And no one does anything to harm the brand

And this gift is an illusion, this isn't hard

Absolutely anyone can play the fucking guitar

JAMC Darklands

And we tried so hard

And we looked so good

And we lived our lives in black

Plucked her eyebrows on the way

Shaved her leg and then he was a she

She says, hey babe,

Take a walk on the wild side

Said, hey honey, take a walk on the wild side

Hide on the promenade

Etch a postcard:

How I dearly wish I was not here

In the seaside town...that they forgot to bomb

Come, come, come - nuclear bomb

Back when we were kids

We would always know when to stop

And now all the good kids are messing up

Nobody has gained or accomplished anything

Prices have risen since the government fell

Casualties increase as the enemy shell

The climate's unhealthy, flies and rats thrive

And sooner or later the end will arrive

This is your correspondent, running out of tape

Gunfire's increasing, looting, burning, rape

Well, maybe there's a god above

But all I've ever learned from love

Was how to shoot somebody who outdrew you

It's not a cry that you hear at night

It's not somebody who's seen the light

It's a cold and it's a broken hallelujah

And what costume shall the poor girl wear

To all tomorrow's parties

For Thursday's child is Sunday's clown

For whom none will go mourning

My body is your body

I won't tell anybody

If you want to use my body

Go for it

Oh it's opening time

Down on Fascination Street

So let's cut the conversation

And get out for a bit

Because I feel it all fading and paling

And I'm begging

To drag you down with me

And you see, I kind of shivered to conformity

Did you see the way I cowered to authority

You see, my life, it's a series of compromises anyway

It's a sham, and I'm conditioned to accept it all, you see

Take in the country air, you'll never win

Gentlemen take polaroids

They fall in love, they fall in love

We just want to emote til we're dead

I know we suffer for fashion

Or whatever

We don't want these days to ever end

We just want to emasculate them forever

Forever, forever

Pretty sirens don't go flat

It's not supposed to happen like that

There's no perfume I can buy

Make me smell like myself

So I put on perfume

To make me smell like someone else

In bed

I got love for you if you were born in the 80's, the 80's

I've got hugs for you if you were born in the 80's, the 80's

Does his makeup in his room

Douse himself with cheap perfume

Eyeholes in a paper bag

Greatest lay I ever had

Kind of guy who mates for life

Gotta help him find a wife

We're a couple, when our bodies double

Summer rains are here

Savaged beauty life

Falling here from grace

Sister feeling call

Cruising land to land

No faith no creed no soul

Half a world away

Beauty sleeps in time

Sound and fury play

North to south

Empty

Running on

Bravado

As if to say, as if to say

He doesn't like chocolate

He's born a liar, he'll die a liar

Some things will never be different

Well Daft Punk is playing at my house, my house

I've waited 7 years and 15 days

There's every kid for miles at my house, my house

And the neighbors can't...call the police

There's a fist fight brewin' at my house, my house

Because the jocks can't...get in the door

I just can't help believing

Though believing sees me cursed

I am trying to say

What I want to say

Without having to say "I love you"

It took 10 years to realise why the angels start to cry

When you go home down the main

Your happy smile

Your funny name

Doesn't she look a million with her hairagami set

Hair kisses 'n' hair architecture

Yes, she's a beautiful brunette angel from heaven with her hairagami set

Hair kisses 'n' hair architecture

Augment a beautiful brunette

How does it feel

To treat me like you do

When you've laid your hands upon me

And told me who you are

You must let her go

She's not crying

Baiting

Feeling like I'm waiting

Modern times

Valentines

Hating

Hating to distraction

Just leave them alone

Whipcrack

Girls in the back

They say come back to earth and start getting real, yeah

I say come back to earth and start getting real

I know I can't

So I walk right up to you

And you walk all over me

And I ask you what you want

And you tell me what you need

The problem of leisure

What to do for pleasure

Ideal love a new purchase

A market of the senses

Dream of the perfect life

Economic circumstances

The body is good business

Sell out, maintain the interest

Sitting in my armchair thinking again and again and again

Going round in a circle I can't get out

Then I look around thinking day and night and day

Then you look around - there must be some explanation

And the tension builds

India, India

You're my love song

India, you're my love song

In the flowers

You can have me in the flowers

We will dance alone

And live our useless lives

They only want you when you're seventeen

When you're twenty-one

You're no fun

They take a polaroid and let you go

Say they'll let you know

No consolation prizes

Spit out your lies and chewing gum

Cut off your hair yeah that's it!

If you look like that I swear I'm gonna love you more

All the neighbors are startin' up a fire

Burning all the old folks, the witches and the liars.

My eyes are covered by the hands of my unborn kids

But my heart keeps watchin' through the skin of my eyelids

Prince charming

Ridicule is nothing to be scared of

Don't you ever, don't you ever

Stop being dandy, showing me you're handsome

CONDEMNED TO ROCK ‘N ROLL