A punk/pop band in Silver Spring, Maryland that once called itself ‘A Spike Lee Joint’ received a cease and desist letter from Spike Lee’s legal department demanding that they change the name of their band.
Filmmaker Spike Lee refers to each of the dozens of his films as ‘A Spike Lee Joint’ and argues that the use of his name for the punk band is unauthorized.
The band will abide by Lee’s request and desist to use his name. Lead singer G’Ra Asim, 24, was less than happy about this notice. He told theGrio:
This is a little disappointing. We definitely feel like there is a common aesthetic between our music and Spike Lee’s film making. It would be nice if artist-to-artist he could recognize that we named our band out of respect to his filmmaking.
Well at least they got some free publicity! But Asim has something else in mind:
I would suggest maybe if [Lee] is not cool with us using his name, perhaps he could consider enlisting us in contributing music to one of his film soundtracks.
It seems the band needs some support. And they have decided to fall on Spike Lee by any means necessary.
perhaps they should have contacted him before going public with the name…