Yid Vicious

[Owen Davidson <owend...>]

Hi Bob.  Yid Vicious cracked me up.  It reminds me of "Two Live Jews" and
"Black Shabbes."  Both of those, I think, were created for specific parody
projects.  I agree that it's best to avoid silly names.  A band name is like
a tattoo.  It tends to stay with you.  Best to stick with "Mom" to avoid
being stuck with "Kathy Sue," whoever she was...  My business partner Frank
named his band "Serpico" ("the only good band in a bad town"), only to find
that the name was taken.  He tried to change it several times, to names like
the "Soda Jerks" and the "Suicide Kings" (after the king of hearts, who
appears to be stabbing himself in the head with his sword).  Not only were
those names taken, too, but the name Serpico stuck like a bad case of
hiccups.  In desperation, Frank considered calling the band "Formerly
Serpico."  I suggested the "Rum Soaked Crooks," but no one was buying that.
Finally he hit on "King Radio," after the 1930's calypsonian, and has
managed to make that stick.  Still, it took most of a year to get over the
Serpico thing.   

At 01:10 PM 1/6/98 -0600, Bob wrote:

>The name of my klezmer band is Yid Vicious. Why? Because we're a bunch of
>unfortunate smart asses, of course. My advice to future klezmer bandnamers
>is to avoid puns, no matter how clever you think they are at the time. You
>are bound to get sick of them eventually. When I first came up with Yid
>Vicious (I've since learned that other entities have used this name
>before), it didn't occur to me that anybody would be offended by the name,
>but lots of people have been. I can live with that, although I no longer
>address those complaints, since I am sicker of them than I am of the name,
>and none of them are particularly rational anyway. But now I am determined
>never to change the name of the band because I really don't want to give
>certain individuals the satisfaction of thinking that their input had
>anything to do with it. So now we're stuck with a band name most of us no
>longer like, all because we couldn't resist a good(?) pun.
>
>Bob Jacobson
>bjacobs (at) globaldialog(dot)com
>
>
>
_________________________________________________________________________
        Owen Davidson, Amherst, Mass.
        The Wholesale Klezmer Band

        The Angel that presided o'er my birth
        Said Little creature formd of Joy and Mirth,
        Go love without the help of any King on Earth. 

                                Wm. Blake