Fat Mike is the singer of NOFX. I don't know the story there.
Tom Shear is Assemblage 23, and that's a story I have heard.
Somewhere around 1992, someone wrote a program that jumbled up color words, certain numbers (7, 9, 23…), synonyms for machinery, electrical engineering terms, etc. to create the most generic industrial band names possible, then posted it, along with the first 20 names it came up with, to the rec.music.industrial newsgroup.
Tom Shear had been using the name Assemblage 23 for a few years, but hadn't shared any of his music—until that very weekend. He had just sent out the first demos he was proud of, and the next day, some smartass perl script came up with Assemblage 23 as the third most generic name possible.
He replied to the thread jokingly pretending to be angry with the program for stealing his name.
He decided to stick with the name, because no label was ever going to sign him and only a few dozen people were ever going to hear his stuff anyway, right?
Fat Mike is the singer of NOFX. I don't know the story there.
Tom Shear is Assemblage 23, and that's a story I have heard.
Somewhere around 1992, someone wrote a program that jumbled up color words, certain numbers (7, 9, 23…), synonyms for machinery, electrical engineering terms, etc. to create the most generic industrial band names possible, then posted it, along with the first 20 names it came up with, to the rec.music.industrial newsgroup.
Tom Shear had been using the name Assemblage 23 for a few years, but hadn't shared any of his music—until that very weekend. He had just sent out the first demos he was proud of, and the next day, some smartass perl script came up with Assemblage 23 as the third most generic name possible.
He replied to the thread jokingly pretending to be angry with the program for stealing his name.
He decided to stick with the name, because no label was ever going to sign him and only a few dozen people were ever going to hear his stuff anyway, right?