So rock and roll was back and, with any luck, here to stay, and it felt pretty good. We had a difficult road ahead, however. Now that we were committed to it, we had to come up with a real list of other songs to tell Shinefield we were covering while playing our own songs to them in our heads. Then we would have to practice them relentlessly on our own, till playing them became something we didn’t have to think about and it would thus be easier to switch “modes” at will. Sam Hellerman said he’d make Shinefield a tape of the final list, and since his dad’s turntable had a vari-speed slide on it, he could even alter the tempos to some of the songs to match ours better, to a very slight degree, anyway.
Now, not that I’m one to talk here, but I could see the clear signs of delusions of grandeur beginning to display themselves in Sam Hellerman’s shining eyes. You have to understand, we’d been used to sucking so bad and so hard for our entire rock and roll lives that the prospect of participating in something that did anything other than suck, or that sucked even just a bit less than usual, was simply intoxicating.
“The publicity campaign starts now,” he said. “But what’s the name going to be? We need a name to stick with for at least a little while.”
This was hard. We’d already gone through three band names since I Hate This Jar, and I was particularly fond of the current one, Buddy of Christ. At the same time, the idea of sticking with one band for any extended length of time felt extraordinarily oppressive, and it was something we’d never been able to manage before.
“How long does publicity last?” I said.
“Long as it takes” was the reply.
That could be a long, long time, I thought.
We spent the next four hours saying names at each other and rejecting them.
“Caring Healing Understanding?” said Sam Hellerman. “We’ve already got the banners.” True to his note to self, Sam Hellerman had managed to swipe the Hillmont High brainwashing banners: they were rolled up neatly in his closet.
“Not much of a band name, though,” I said glumly. I had my standards.
Sam Hellerman suggested simply the Understanding, first album Caring Healing, but with pictures of bloody dismembered corpses on the album cover. Which wasn’t bad, but also wasn’t quite as exciting as you’d want a name that was going to last as long as several weeks to be. Plus, to make it sound like it was as cool as it was, you’d have to take the time to explain the album cover, losing the vital element of surprise. We needed something with a less complex path to greatness.
“Adolf Oliver Nipples?” Sam Hellerman suggested, which was obviously as great as band names come, but unfortunately, as I had to remind him, we’d already used it. You can’t repeat band names: that way lies madness.
I thought of Dr. Elizabeth Gary. There were possibilities in there somewhere: Dr. Elizabeth. Therapy Bomb. The Grief Counselors. The Therapy Counselors from the Planet Stupid, first album Healed, Feeled, and Congealed. Or was that almost too good?
“How about,” I said at last, “the Teenage Brainwashers.”
It was less bad than all the others. So Teenage Brainwashers it was.