I WAS A DIZZY SPINNING POET

MUSIC Bands like Crunchy Frogs, Rodeo Love Gods, and Hammer Witch are among the dozens of new bands in Dallas with catchy, sometimes startling names. “Newer music has a stranger edge,” says Dallas booking agent CARROL HAMILTON. “These bands have to make their names unusual to capture an audience.”

The Clever Pennies, for example, coined their name from a hard-to-hear line in the Beatles’ song “Taxman,” says guitarist BRAD MCLEMORE, while the Dizzy Spinning Poets literally stumbled upon their name. “We used The Spin as a working name for a while,” says lead guitarist ERIC PRESSWOOD.”We found out that there was another band using that name, so we changed it to the Dizzy Spinning Hipsters. I was painting my guitar with the initials, and I painted DSP instead of DSH. So we changed our name to the Dizzy Spinning Poets.”

For some, however, the band name carries deeper meaning. DAVID GREEN, drummer for the Picket Line Coyotes, grew up near Shreveport. “One day he was out with his uncle checking the land on their ranch,” says band manager PHYLLIS ARP. “There were barbed wire fences all over. David saw a coyote hanging upside down over one of the fences with its throat slashed. When he asked his uncle what it was, he said it was a picket-line coyote. He told David the ranchers killed the coyotes because they killed cattle.”