Band Name of the Week: Abracadaver

Well, well, well, Band Name of the Week went ahead and found itself a little Cursive ripoff band in Turner, Oregon, of all places. And it's got a noteworthy (if not horrible) band name: Abracadaver! I'm not sure if that cat's gonna pull a deceased human body out of its hat next, but I can tell you that Turner is that town with the exit off I-5 between Eugene and Portland that claims to have a gas station even though there is nothing resembling civilization anywhere near the exit (and it will certainly leave you stranded if you're really running low on the ol' petrol, 'cause the station is at least five miles down the road from the actual exit, as the exit appearance portends).

Abracadaver sounds a lot like many of my ex-boyfriends' bands and/or high school guys ripping off Cursive (hey, you could idolize a lot worse) or pretty much any band you may have sat in a practice space drinking something like Busch and tapping your foot to. And, I've gotta hand it to bassist/frontman Brian Briles, 'cause he's nailed down darn near every Tim Kasher-ish vocal inflection I can think of. Now that's what I call a student of music--very, very specific music. But, I mean, what the hell else does a kid from Turner have to do with his time besides get all angsty and listen to Saddle Creek bands? Not much, I'd imagine. But more on that later. Here's what last week's BNotW title-winner, Sprinkles (pronounced Thprinkles) had to say for itself:

The tragic story of SPRINKLES: BeefJake and I were dinking around playing together at his other band (Pure Country Gold)'s practice space trying to come up with a name for our new band when I slipped and fell down on my face. As I lay there bleeding about the nose, neck, breasts and shoulders, my swollen eyes focused on the cause of my calamity: a sprinkles-covered, half-eaten donut. I yelled out "Sprinkles!" but it sounded like "Thprinkles!" Jake fell off his drum stool laughing and began text messaging all his new friends our new band name.

We received responses such as "You guys are fucking idiots!" "What the fuck were you thinking?!" "What kind of stupid asshole names their band after light rain with a chance of showers?!" "I will personally come to your home and beat you half dead if you name your band Sprinkles!" "Your family is dead to me!" "Jake, I will personally destroy your power base!" "My god, it's full of sprinkles!" And someone who received the text message on accident that was not part of Jake's "Hot Friends 2007 List" said, "Oh, I love thprinkles!"

We went with the last answer.

We have now lost all our friends, our family has disowned us, and we have been fired from our jobs all due to the name Sprinkles. But it's worth it to play once a month in front of 30 people that chant "Thprinkles" and wear hooded robes while sacrificing sprinkles-covered stray cats in our honor.
-Jason

P.S.- We play at Slabtown on Friday October 19th!
P.S.S.- Also, the idea of opening for tough guy bands and seeing flyers that say "Metal Church with Sprinkles!" was too good to resist.

There you have it. Tragic indeed, but (I must agree) totally worth it. Way to take your punishment like men, Thprinkles.
[Please allow me to indulge in a tiny editorial pet peeve for a moment, though: P.S. stands for "post script," so a second P.S. would actually denote a "post, post script," thus P.P.S., not P.S.S. Sorry, that always bugs me.]

Now, here's a look at this week's recipient of the BNotW title:


Hopefully they'll get back to us and confirm my Cursive-worshiping suspicions--and explain their morbid 'n' magical name! Seriously, that Cursive business is so uncanny it's worth a trip to the band's CadaverSpace just to check it out. That second track, "Sleeping In Sin," is pretty darn Isaac Brocky at the beginning, but you just wait: The Kasher comes at exactly 42 seconds in. For the record, I love Cursive. I would probably do the same thing if I was a Turner-residing teen (or young man, not sure on their ages). Just sayin'. Oh, and I'd like to nominate Abracadaver as the official band of the OMSI installment of Body Worlds--only three weeks left!

Images: Magician cat courtesy of a Google image search; Abracadaver photo taken from the band's MySpace.