Man Up Your Band

The name

Your band name needs to be memorable, weird, and totally fucking badass, like "Butthole Surfers" or "Sex Pistols" or "Anal Cunt." In other words, any of these will do. Band Sluts (more on them in a moment) won't really care about the name of your band so long as your lyrics sound pseudo-intellectual, but fellow members of your gender will respect you infinitely more if your country/western trio goes by the handle "Buster Hymen and the Penetrators."*

The goals

There are only two goals any manly band should ever strive to achieve, and you can pick one or both. You can make really good, really hardcore, really man-tastic music, or you can make something which (regardless of actual quality) will get you repeatedly laid. If you can reconcile these two ideas, great; if you somehow manage to make a punk rock or death metal group whose lyrics cause every 18-year-old girl in the tri-state area to drop her panties and prostrate themselves under the pretense that you somehow respect them as music fans, then fantastic.

If you can't, however, then it's time to choose. Do you want to be an honest, unflinching artist who exposes the corruption and bullshit of everyday life and die alone but dignified and untainted, or do you want to talk a bunch of bullshit about how alternately awesome and sorrowful romantic relationships are? You'll hate yourself if you choose the latter, but you'll be too busy banging every pierced gloom-cookie with pale skin and jet black hair to give a rat's ass.

Should you go for the artistic dignity, then don't let established rules of music hold you down: write your own shit (God fucking help you if you wanna form a cover band), scream it at the top of your lungs, and tell everyone who doesn't like it to fuck off and die. Or personally kill them. Manliness is all about yelling and sweat and aggression; your shows should include copious amounts of all three.

If you're just in it for the vajayjay, then carefully study bands like Brand New or Bright Eyes for what makes idiotic teenage Band Sluts love them so goddamn much. Borrow the lead singer's monotone singing voice. Steal the faux-clever lyrics which have all the depth and cadence of a third grade poetry contest runner-up. Dye your hair black, start wearing hoodies, and buy a metric ton of condoms because once you get your venue you will be literally swamped with sexual propositions from horny, half-retarded nymphos. Just make sure your friends don't see you singing all that bullshit.

The instruments

Regular guitars are for pussies. This is a Pikasso: four necks, two soundholes, forty-two strings, and an immeasurable amount of sheer badassitude. If you want your band to be as manly as possible, don't stick to the normal bullshit instruments most bands use on a daily basis. Don't be afraid to throw in a didgeridoo. A fire organ. The obscurity factor of the instruments you use is directly proportional to how badass you will look and sound, and -- like giving your band an unusual yet badass name -- will earn the respect of people with penises without turning women off to your musical attitude.

Do not be afraid to put your audience in mortal danger

Music is about pain and suffering and meaningless violence, and anyone who tells you any different hasn't been in a mosh pit. The enjoyment your audience derives from your show is usually related to how injured they are by its end, so be sure to send the first three rows straight to the emergency room before you're even into your second song.

You can take the Rammstein route seen above and shoot fire into the air a mere few inches away from your adoring fans, or you can be a little more creative; why not throw buckets of live scorpions into the stands? Why not hire a professional mercenary to jump into the crowd and begin bludgeoning people in the head with no rhyme or reason? The ultimate manly band treats physical pain and musical enjoyment as one and the same, and so will your audience.

Better to leave a great-looking corpse

Part of being a great musician means knowing when to die. Just look at Sid Vicious here: played with the Sex Pistols in the 70's, did some hard drugs, accidentally stabbed his girlfriend to death while on heroin, and eventually died of a drug overdose.

That is awesome.

Sid Vicious will never grow old; he'll never become a sad, wrinkled version of his former self, attempting to reach the heights of popularity he achieved in his early 20's. His memory is perfectly intact, and diehard fans of the Sex Pistols miss him every day.

Not so with Johnny Rotten. Johnny Rotten is still alive, and was recently reduced to whoring himself out for the Guitar Hero guys to promote their new game. This is what resulted.

It's nice to see that Johnny accidentally refused to play their game and ended up being just as crazy and odd as he was in the 70's, but even so -- isn't it a little depressing that the guy who screamed "I am the antichrist, I am an anarchist" at the top of his lungs so long ago can now only yell about random shit to an audience full of videogame nerds who don't care about him?

Fuck that -- do a shitload of drugs and die young from an STD. You'll be doing a favor to yourself, your music, and your fans. 

*(TM)