Monday, May 10, 2010

May Contest: Name the Band

I've posted a lot about how important music is to me. It's always fun to find other writerly types for whom music figures centrally in their lives and books.

I recently had the joy of reading Brenna Yovanoff's THE REPLACEMENT, an amazing book that will be on shelves September 21. One of my favorite parts of this book was the way Brenna described music. She makes it jump off the page and into your bloodstream.

Music plays a part in NIGHTSHADE's story too. One of the young wolves, Nevillle (Nev) - a member of the Bane pack - is a poet and musician who plays occasional gigs at a local dive bar, Burnout. Nev plays guitar and sings, an elder Bane wolf, Caleb, plays bass and the owner of the bar, Tom, plays drums. Another young Bane, Sabine, sometimes joins Nev on vocals.

The band doesn't have a name. Nev would never want to name it, he's not a naming his band kind of guy. In fact, I'm going to have to be sure he doesn't find out about this contest because he would be mortified by it.

Keeping that in mind, I thought it would be fun put a spin on this month's contest. Given the following teaser from NIGHTSHADE and what you've already surmised about the book itself, what would you name Nev's band:

"Evening." Nev's voice drew our attention. "I'm Nev. Caleb's on bass, you all know Tom, and the lovely Sabine is gracing us with her presence tonight."
The only applause came from our tables. Apparently the other bar patrons weren't here for the music.
Neville nodded at Tom. The bar owner and Caleb exchanged a quick glance and in the next moment bass and drums had set off at a slow, grinding rhythm. A smile ghosted across Neville's lips; his fingers moved over the guitar strings, and he began to sing.
Sabine took up the harmony. Her voice was sweet and dark like the first shadows of twilight. The music poured into my veins, a mixture of grit and silk. Subtle and intoxicating.
The Banes leaned forward in unison, drawn into the pulse of Neville's song. My own limbs felt like they were humming with the bass line.


I purposefully didn't give the song lyrics - and it's not a cover, Nev rarely plays covers; he writes his own music.

I wanted to allow for readers to create the sound of Nev's band for themselves.

And now you can suggest names for the band! (Sorry, Nev.)

I'm on the road for much of this week, so contest entries will be taken until Sunday, May 16. Only one entry per person.

The winner will receive an ARC of Brenna Yovanoff's THE REPLACEMENT.



Looking forward to your entries!!

37 comments:

  1. *grin* Awesome contest. I love the concept. (Also, I love that you have a band in your novel! That's even more awesome!)

    Now, I doubt I could come up with an awesome name like Blast/Black Stones or Trapnest (sorry, sorry, NANA manga reference that is totally unrelated to this), but one name DID come to me while I was reading that excerpt. . .

    Edge of Nocturne. Also, I like how fans of the band could shorten it to EON if they wished. :) Either way, that is my name entry for Nev's band's name: Edge of Nocturne.

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  2. Wow, what a unique contest. :o

    I'm tempted to go on a tangent of names that somewhat resemble popular bands names, but I think I'm going to stick to my first one. Celestial Harmonies.

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  3. The is a cute contest and I love when things are shaken up for us:)
    Okay, well I don't know-know the characters to well (yet) and Nev wouldn't like all this attention I'm going to guess that he and his band are different so my name would be-

    (Nev-Never-Nevah Norm-Normal)

    -The Nevah Norms- Haha! That's my pick for the band, The Nevah Norms;)

    Thanks for giving us a little sneak peak and I hear nothing but great stuff about The Replacements!

    (Tina-Goodreads)
    tina_gagnier@yahoo.com

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  4. Awesome contest! I always thought The Fighting Nuns would make a good band name. Ever since I had a dream of a band playing while dressed like nuns one night. I have weird dreams. :)

    jayliv0609(at)gmail(dot)com

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  5. Jami - I have weird dreams too; that nun band dream sounds awesome :)

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  6. This is a fun contest, unfortunately I'm terrible at coming up with names but since they're wolves I would call it The Howlers. =)

    -Cynthia
    cynthiareads@gmail.com

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  7. I think a good name would be Undone. My go-to band name is The Seasick Pandas, but I don't think that would work with this one. lol

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  8. Ooh, k, this is totally pulling from your descriptions, but given how important blood is in the novel:

    Pulse.

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  9. Hi! Great contest and I love the description of the music getting into the veins.

    I'd name the band: Hypnosis
    (The Hyp for short)

    Thanks for letting me play!
    misty_pro@msn.com

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  10. OMG this is a fantastic contest, I love these creative contests Andrea! I really like Dark Harmony (or Harmonies). I also thought of Shadowmaker but I'll go with my first choice.

    Thanks so much for the contest, would love to read this one and good luck to everyone :)

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  11. Slow Burn

    You have some great entries here! :)

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  12. Slowly dying
    I love reading everybody's entries! = ]

    yilingni@yahoo.com

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  13. I've heard of a real band in Alberta (the province next to me, I'm in BC) called 'Where Echoes Revive.' it's possibly the best band name I've heard, but i guess that means I can't suggest it.

    So, I'm going to suggest 'An Echo in the Blood.'

    Lindsay

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  15. I would name the band: The Cursed
    i also liked lycanthropy, but i think another author has a band similar to that.

    van
    Littopandaxpress(at)yahoo(dot)Com

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  16. Silver Bullets

    Great entries everyone!

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  17. I think his band should be separate from other themes in the story. Come on, it should just be a really great band name.

    Whiskey For Breakfast

    I totally want that ARC of the Replacement! Come on Lucky 7!

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  18. Amazing contest! I'm so excited for both Nightshade and The Replacement.

    My nod for the band's name goes to...

    Snapfinger Swill

    What? It's catchy. ;)

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  19. Oh, tease. That snippet just is not enough for me. I must read Nightshade now. *sigh* I wish.

    Ok, so here's my take on the name game:

    Sweet Savagery

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  20. HAha! Sweet contest! Unfortunately I think of totally random band names like Pornographic Activities (inspired by District 9) and other weird crazy stuff. Haha. Hmm let me think a minute....

    ah god. Okay I'm coming up with a blank. Maybe I'll be more inspired later. I shall return!

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  21. So many great bands waiting to be created! Thanks you guys - keep the entries coming :)

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  22. Soulful Pretense?

    I was going for something poetic and beautiful yet mournful.

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  23. Wow! This Is Sooo Cool! Um, How's:

    Silken Echoes

    I Know, I Went Along With The Passage! Great Teaser! I Really Want To Read This! :)

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  24. Okay after MUCH THOUGHT. My band name suggestion is: Shades of Gray

    I kind of put myself into the characters head and since he doesn't want to define his music by doing something as condemning as NAMING it, I thought Shades of Gray represents the in-between state of his music. It's not black or white, but gray. Okay so I might have gotten a little crazy when I was putting myself into the characters shoes, but hey that's my reasoning and explanation. ^.^

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  25. Oh cool! I've been dying to read this!

    Intoxicating Florescent

    shutupjessicasreading @ gmaildotcom

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  26. Okay, so this is an awesome idea for a contest first of all! Second I have two names for you, one is serious and one is just funny :) The serious one is :

    Dark Deception

    And the funny one is: The Jalapeno Astronauts, my husband is convinced that would make an awesome band name...just thought I would try and give you a laugh while reading through these :)

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  27. Wow, I'm almost too intimidated by the fantastic entries to post my own! Everyone is so creative! Awesome contest (I soo want to read The Replacement) and AWESOME TEASER! But it's horrible of you to post it. Because we have to wait until October to read the whole book. You're cruel and you flaunt it well :P

    Alright, my silly entry is The Barking Banes.

    Thanks!
    hanging.by.a.moment_@hotmail.com

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  28. Oh gimme gimme gimme!
    This is such a great contest. Ok here goes:

    (A) Double-edged Gift

    I think that's a pretty cool band name. "Hello, we're A Double-edged Gift!"

    It has a certain ring to it!

    misshavoc@hotmail.com

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  29. Stellar contest!

    I'm trying to come up with something edgy.

    Feral Daze

    Go ahead, laugh it up.

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  30. Well, back when I was going through my "bad" girl faze a year or two ago, (not that I ever was truly bad. My idea of bad as PMSing 24/7!) my friends and I decided we wanted to start a band and name it The Covetous Bastards. Oh yeah, we thought we were such bad-asses!

    Of course the band thing never happened, but I still secretly like that name... :)
    Also, awesome idea for this contest! I love contests where you get to be a little creative.
    Love, Hannah

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  31. So great you guys! Anyone perusing the entries but not giving your own suggestion yet, remember the contest goes through Saturday :) You still have two days to enter!

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  32. Ok, first thought was to name the band:

    < insert name here >

    It certainly would not be pretentious, and it's pretty tongue-in-cheek, which I think would fit.

    My husband and I make up band names ALL the time. My all-time-fave and a longrunning joke with us is to name a band Itchy Purple Snowflake. hehe.

    Also in the spirit of the book I came up with the names:

    The Fluctuations

    OR

    The Variant

    but that might give away too much! ;)

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  33. This is so fun! Since I am absolutely without talent, perhaps I can at least help with a name. Maybe?

    Hounds of Happenstance

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  34. You're mad-crazy. And I dig it! Sorry, just trying to chanel my uber-cool-band-naming vibe.

    The Interlopers

    What say you?

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  35. I AM mad crazy - that's the best compliment I've gotten. Thanks redhatzgal :)

    I love these entries. Picking a winner is going to be tough!!!

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