This last round, for an acoustic guitar/vocal duo, we went through a cerebral process involving three layers of analysis:

1. How might one describe our material, approach, etc.?
~ unique
~ eclectic - across musical genres, time zones
~ melodic
~ acoustic
~ ?

2. And then, based on 1., >>how<< are we unique, etc.?
~ our music is unique in that we have a swing/ragtime flavor, emphasize fingerstyle guitar playing, have a large % of vintage music back to 1870s in our mix, ??
~ our music is eclectic in that we include swing, folk, ragtime (in the old piano-style guitar sense), pop, blues, ???
~ our music is melodic, etc.....on and on

3. Band/Duo names chosen tend to focus on a) being descriptive, b) trying to be funny, c) creating contrasting images, d) trying to be hip or claim/express some value in popular culture, e) using actual names of those involved, f) sounding cool, i.e., the name sounds cools when you say it, e.g., The Dropkick Murphys, g) - z) some other reasons...or some combo of name types.

So, based on 1. - 3., the names we targeted were:

Vintage Acoustic - vintage implies higher-quality old stuff
Ragpickers - evokes images of early junkmen, ragtime music, finger-picking
One Big Note - blending, genre-bending,..

Then we chucked the whole process and called ourselves Home Brew. Because we just felt like it.

- Merritt