What's in a name? (21 Feb 2019)

For nearly ten years, Gaby and I have been playing - as an acoustic duo and trio, as a full electric band - as Franklin.

Without rock star names ourselves, we figured we needed a band name. And Franklin is just a word I liked: favourite characters from Sesame Street and Peanuts, a famous Benjamin, perhaps a vaguely American frontier town. But it never really meant more than the sound we said when announcing ourselves on stage in a little London club.

So when we finally decided to record an album, and with multi-instrumentalist Lyle securely on board, it seemed like time for a change. Okay then, we’d just have a quick think, find a couple of words that encapsulate everything about who we are and what we’re doing, and then start using it. Simple.

You should see the list. Anything and everything got thrown in and kicked around, from the painfully earnest to the extremely silly. A never-ending sea of possible and improbable noms de tunes. None seemed quite right - apart from those that did seem to fit but were already taken.

What do you do at these moments? Like Inigo Montoya, you go back to the beginning. Gaby unearthed a decade-old list of thoughts and ideas about who and what we might want to be, and one phrase jumped out: ‘listening to music in the car on a sunny day’.

Next time we’re playing, come say hello to Ragtop Down.