Bad band names ask for trouble
In a country that values freedom of speech and expression, it has become commonplace to see people using pins, patches and stickers to express their personalities, political beliefs and even their tastes in music.
Students, in particular, seem to enjoy displaying signs of support for bands they enjoy. Most of them parade these displays with little or no reaction besides the occasional, “You’re a Nirvana fan? Wow, me too!”
But last Thursday morning, an Ohio University graduate student received a much bigger reaction.
A student placed a sticker of a Florida-based folk band on his bicycle. Where did he go wrong? Possibly because the name of the band was, “This Bike is a Pipe Bomb,” according to the Web site, Breitbart.com,
A university police officer discovered the bike parked at an on-campus restaurant, and in a classic case of miscommunication and misunderstanding gone awry, the officer believed he was dealing with a local garden-variety terrorist.
Four university buildings were closed, a bomb squad from 65 miles away was called to investigate and the bike was dismantled.
The team discovered there was no bomb and the sticker was merely advertising a band. The bike’s owner was charged with causing panic, a misdemeanor offense, but the charges were later dropped.
This student likely could have prevented this by realizing not all local cops have heard of every obscure band ever in existence.
A similar incident involving a bike fan and the same sticker occurred in 2001 at a peace rally in Texas.
But in this case, the bike’s owner was actually detained. Thankfully, she was released when the police realized her only crime was showing the world her favorite band.
You would think after incidents such as these, the band would change their name to something their fans could stick to their bikes without fear of being arrested.
What kind of show can they expect if all their loyal fans are in prison, thanks to heightened terror alerts and the Patriot Act?
I suppose a 2006 version of “The Jailhouse Rock” might be interesting, but I think most bands see stadiums and bars as better venues than state penitentiaries.
Perhaps, in a twisted sort of way, this is exactly what some bands want.
They’ve probably run out of traditional publicity-grabbing stunts (i.e., starting false rumors of a breakup, throwing temper tantrums onstage, leaking private sex tapes to the general public, plane crashes and dying of a drug overdose).
These methods have boosted record sales for bands in the past, but they’re getting boring. Implicating fans as public threats and getting them arrested simply for being fans is much more original.
I guess that means I should reconsider my lifelong dream of starting a band named “I’m a member of Al Qaeda” and passing out badges and T-shirts as the primary advertising.
If it’s deemed important enough to make the news, it could well be a chance at a farewell to obscurity.
I, for one, had never heard of “This Bike is a Pipe Bomb” before this incident.
I am in no hurry to go out and buy their latest album after this, since I’m not in the mood to be arrested at the checkout counter today.
Being mistaken for a terrorist is not very high on my list of things to accomplish in this life. From what I’ve heard, it’s not exactly the perfect way to relieve stress on a Friday afternoon after a hard week of classes and work. But at least now I’m one more person who knows this band exists.
Bands need to realize not all their fans are the smartest people alive. If you give a college student a free T-shirt or button, in many cases he or she will wear it, regardless of the message it displays.
Whether that means these bands need to recall some of its merchandise to keep kids from going to jail, so be it. Just because someone is a popular musician doesn’t give him or her the right to create suspicion of terror.
In the pipe bomb case, while the band could have chosen a name that’s less of a cop magnet, the fans could choose better places to put their stickers than on a bike.
Stickers of that size would fit on car bumpers, computers, CD cases, stereo systems, closet doors and practically anything else that’s not a bike.
It makes little less sense to have a sticker reading “This bike is a pipe bomb” on a stereo system, since a stereo is only a bike to someone who is delirious, drunk or incredibly delusional.
But at least you won’t have an expensive and highly useful possession dismantled by the police before you get a chance to explain yourself. And it certainly beats getting arrested.
Columnists' opinions do not necessarily reflect the views of The Spectrum