Fake Bands
Zine, Isabella Laird, 14 pgs, isabellalaird.wordpress.com
Hit “Generate” enough times at bandnamemaker.com and you’ll eventually get a usable band name: Wonderless Drunk, Screeching Deacon, Perverted Turnip of The Spun Maiden. (Why aren’t these taken?) Vancouver’s Isabella Laird took a more thoughtful approach to the exercise. Fake Bands provides invented biographies for five fictitious groups — one per decade from the 1970s to the present. The Queen’s Succubus (a 2010s heavy metal outfit) draws inspiration “from women and magical creatures in European folklore.” Shrub & Bush (a 1970s folk band) exclusively writes songs about plants and fungi. Each bio is accompanied by a related illustration or logo, and while the band histories are typically clever and amusing, it’s the artwork that stands out here. Laird should consider a career in album cover design.