The Orange Eats Creeps Title Explained (Barely)

[Above: the shortlist, circa 2004]

There was once a low-fi garage band called Unicornface. Its members were Nickole and Grace. Like Steely Dan, they were purely a studio creation. They were prolific, cranking out three cassette EPs in the span of a year. Each of their initial pressings (of 25 tapes, 30 tapes and 44 tapes, respectively) sold out in months.


Unicornface appeared on Santa Cruz Pirate Radio in March of 2003. Their manager, fearing a unicorn backlash, convinced the band to change its name to Lifetiger for the third and final EP release, “Suntan Creep.” Shortly thereafter, in the spring of 2004, the band went on indefinite hiatus. All that is left of Unicornface is this lonely Myspace page...

Unicornface had a song called “The Woof Eats Creeps.” I started writing a novel that summer called “Slutty Teenage Hobo Vampire Junkies” after a friend suggested I write a TV pilot based on a couple ideas I’d pitched to him (the other idea was “Ancient Egypt High School”). After working on it for a while the STHVJ tag began to feel ill-suited for a story that was finally transcending its Roger Corman-esque origins. So I messed around with some other options, mostly recombined GG Allin song titles. I liked Gypsy Motherfuckers, I liked Urchin Mystic, I liked the Woof Eats Creeps, but I wanted something more vague and all-encompassing.

“How about the Sun Eats Creeps?” said Nickole, wrapping some mango chunks in sheets of nori.

“Uh...maybe. Maybe ‘orange’ like the sun?” I said, going for one notch less obvs.

“Cool.”

“Yeah, okay, I like it.”

And the rest is history, dudes.

[The only known photograph of the band Unicornface, taken at Tiny's family restaurant at three in the morning.]