1.
Well this is weird. Earlier this evening members of the band formerly known as The Morning Benders took to their now retired Twitter and Facebook accounts to share, “this will be the last post/tweet from The Morning Benders.” Initial fan reaction was that of confusion and disbelief, emotions that were somewhat tempered by a second announcement from the group stating that it hadn’t disbanded, but that they were simply changing their name to POP ETC. Reasons supporting this perceivably erratic move were offered in a detailed statement on their old website. You’ll get the gist from reading the excerpt below;
“We had just released Big Echo, and for the first time we were preparing for a world tour. We had toured a fair amount leading up to Big Echo, but never overseas, so when it came time to tour the UK and Europe we were quite excited. The touring went well, and we had an amazing time, but also something happened that we hadn’t anticipated. As soon as we had landed in London people started asking us about our band name. “What does ‘Bender’ mean to you?” people would ask. “Are you seriously called ‘The Morning Benders’?” was a common question. For those of you reading from America, you may still be confused. Well, it turns out that the word ‘bender’ in the UK and many parts of Europe is a slang term for ‘homosexual.’ We were told our band name was the equivalent of ‘The Morning Fags’ in America. We had been called The Morning Benders for 5 years, and we were just finding this out now? It was shocking.”
Now there are a couple of different ways to look at this, and here are the positives. The band took offense to the derogatory use of the word “Bender” and have sacrificed their brand identity as a show of support for the LGBT community. Secondly they’re still together, and they’re still releasing music. Why they chose the name POP ETC is beyond me, but I’m sure they had their reasons. Musicians do things that are out of our control, and sometimes not to our liking, but ultimately it’s about the music and when new material is rolled out in conjunction with a positive stance like the one these guys have taken, we’re all winners. See below for a full stream of the debut mixtape from POP ETC, or hit their new website for a FREE DOWNLOAD.
I once went off on a morning bender so bad that I changed my band name to something stupid.
— Morning Benders (@morningbenders) March 26, 2012
(CoS)
