With more than 1,300 artists at the 2005 South by Southwest Music Festival, how they avoid getting lost in the shuffle? Apparently, the best way to attract attention (besides being extraordinarily talented) is to give your band a cracked out name. The following, listed in alphabetical order, are this year’s 10 best band names:

1. Bear vs. Shark (Detroit, Mich.)
2. A Hawk and a Hacksaw (Albuquerque, N.M.)
3. Holy Fuck (Toronto, Canada)
4. Hot Buttered Rum String Band (San Francisco, Calif.)
5. Hot Young Priest (Atlanta, Ga.)
6. Million Dollar Marxists (Ottawa, Canada)
7. The Plot to Blow up the Eiffel Tower (San Diego, Calif.)
8. +/- (New York, N.Y.)
9. The Robot Ate Me (Anacortes, Wash.)
10. Tie: zZz (Amsterdam, the Netherlands) and ZZZ (Chicago, Ill.)

Honorable mentions
As the live music capital of the world, Austin gives birth to some few hundred bands a year. Many of them never amount to much, but some of them have memorable names. Here’s a small sample:

Hurts to Purr
Faceless Werewolves
Oh, Beast!
Two Hoots and a Holler
The Weird Weeds
Yuppie Pricks
The Crack Pipes
Dead Whale Tide

Keep Austin weird, indeed.

-Juliet Moser