How did you guys choose your stage name? (Page 1 of 6)

lol
i feel bad for him though, coming up with a great name without realising it's been taken for 20+ years :v

nothing wrong with using your actual name, lots of great chip musicians do it. jeroen tel, jay tholen, alex lane, kris keyser etc etc
your name's not even boring. it's kinda great!

Last edited by Victory Road (Jun 14, 2014 4:18 pm)

[From wiki]:

Materia medica (English: medical material/substance) is a Latin medical term for the body of collected knowledge about the therapeutic properties of any substance used for healing (i.e., medicines). The term derives from the title of a work by the Ancient Greek physician Pedanius Dioscorides in the 1st century AD, De materia medica, 'On Medical Materials' (Περὶ ὕλης ἰατρικῆς in Greek).

[Not from wiki]:

I believe that art is a universal language.  We can all understand each other through it.  I believe these raw expressions of feeling to be 'medical materials' for the problems that ail our world, because it can be used to connect with one another as living beings instead of being apart and at odds.

the 'x' is for many reasons.  i consider myself 'straight edge'.  in certain circles, it is used to represent 'together with'-- such as in erotic or romantic manga, thus representing togetherness or intimacy.  it also represents multiplication, for which it is applied mathematically;  as in to suggest that we multiply these 'medical materials' of togetherness, oneness, love and empathy.

tl;dr: cat pictures

i was thinking about artist names that i like in early 2001 and thought up environmental sound collapse because it was a good descriptive phrase for a project about things falling apart both literally and figuratively around us with the bonus of being able to be shortened to e.s.c. (or sometimes the escape key early on)...ending the e.s.c. stuff now after 13 years
new project, d_strct... just occured to me as an interesting way of simplifying "destruct", and since the project is meant to be a little more straight forward than e.s.c. stuff was, felt it fit

My name came from a Youtube video where the guy from Classic Game Room was trying to describe the weird box art for the DMG (where those see-through metal hands were playing a gameboy in space). It was esoteric enough that nobody else would use it, and it had the silly air of a kind of failed attempt at 'badassery', which is how I kind of see the atmosphere to a lot of my songs; they're either heavy chipthrash songs juxtaposed with stupid and funny topics, or they're bouncy dance songs about getting your arm cut off. Just totally mismatched and awkward on purpose.

Last edited by Invisible Robot Hands (Jun 14, 2014 5:09 pm)

Wow, so much awesome feedback! You guys flip-floppin' rule! I guess I'll play the wait and see game till I play a show, if I ever play a show.

Haha, this is quite a story, and it requires a little exposition. Bear with me.
I was reading before kindergarten and writing a secret daily journal by the first grade. On the other side of the coin, I'm a low grade dyscalculic and was nearly held back through grade school because of that. I remember feeling like the world was so much more than what we were taught in school and saw in daily life. I got hooked on escapism early on through reading constantly. (my parents are both book lovers, my mother is a high school English and history teacher with a masters in literature.) I was mercilessly hassled by other kids for reading on the bus, in class, everywhere. (We went to Great America in the 3rd grade and I sat on a bench and read Mossflower the whole time. Loved every second of it.) It's fair to say that YA Fantasy and Science Fiction shaped my early life. Of course, eventually videogames entered the picture. I was a full-time devotee to books, videogames and music by the time I was eight or nine. I was interested in every aspect of all three. I spent so much time on escapism that people started to actively worry about me. The moment of truth came when my mother confronted me about this behavior when I was in the 5th grade. She wanted me to pursue other more active interests. (I was a scrawny, effeminate kid, hopeless at sports, bored to tears by extracurricular activities.) I needed to live a real life. "Books, art, videogames, dungeons and dragons, all that stuff is good for your imagination, but at the end of the day, it's just imaginary". I read the journal entry for that day earlier this year. It's the kind of silly angst that only an obnoxious ten-year-old can write, so I'll spare us all the great deal of the entry. What really matters is that it ends with the line: "I don't think I would mind If I were imaginary".

That phrase hit me like a ton of bricks. It taught me a lot about who I am, and where I come from. At that point I decided to take it back, then and there. It was a defining moment in my choice to take a new direction in my life.
I assumed that there was probably already an artist (maybe even a chiptune artist) or band called Imaginary. Consider my surprise when I found that it was still up for grabs. Maybe it was fate? In the end it's only an alias, but it's something that I can really stand behind as representative of who I am.

Thanks for listening.

- Imaginary