There has been only one person who has ever written about music for a living who doesn't like Steely Dan. It's not my fault, really. I hate keytars. I like soul that sounds like soul. I like jazz that sounds like jazz. I don't like souljazzrock that sounds cold, hard and plastic. Like a dildo. Maybe it's the perfect name.

Hey Donald, what's the difference between a dildo and a keytar?
Go fuck yourself.

Anyway, I'm making no declaration that the Airborne Toxic Event is better than the holy Steely Dan, but TATE's CD is an intriguing bit of guitar pop. Both bands have names pulled from literature.

One Airborne Toxic Event member is prepared for an airborne toxic event.

So in honor of bands named for books and tipping to Steely Dan's nebbish way with music, I'm getting mathy to rank my favorite bands with lit-inspired names. The scoring is simple:

Points:
I like the band (0-5 points)
I like at least one song by the band (0-1 point)
I like the text (0-5 points)
The name doesn't sound dumb (0-5 points)

Obviously if I've not read the text in question, well, that's a goose egg.

The results:

10. Steely Dan from Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs (8 points, more than half of which belong to Burroughs. For many people they'd be No. 1 on this list)

9. Uriah Heep from David Copperfield by Charles Dickens (9 points more than half of which belong to Dickens)

8. The Doors from The Doors of Perception by Aldous Huxley (10 points, penalized because I find their frontman intolerable)

7. Steppenwolf from Steppenwolf by Herman Hesse (10 points, which shocks even me)

6. Joy Division from The House of Dolls by Ka-tzetnik 135633 (11 points -- penalized for my having not read the text)

5. The Velvet Underground from The Velvet Underground by Michael Leigh (11 points -- also unread)

4. Veruca Salt from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl (12 points -- mostly for text and name)

3. Airborne Toxic Event from White Noise by Don DeLillo (13 points)

2. Boo Radleys from To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (14 points)

1. Modest Mouse from Mark on the Wall a story by Virginia Woolf (16 points)

To the lighthouse, gentlemen.

Their songs about the sea make me feel sad.

Thanks-for-playing prizes go to Collective Soul (from The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand), As I Lay Dying from the book of the same name by William Faulkner, New Riders of the Purple Sage (from Riders of the Purple Sage by Zane Grey) and dozens I'm sure I forgot. Feel free to apply the ranking system your own way.

The point of this all? The Airborne Toxic Event -- a nasty cloud in DeLillo's White Noise -- plays House of Blues Thursday.