LAS CRUCES, N.M. — Organizers of a spelling bee primarily focused on metal band names were disappointed to see every participant eliminated in the first round after failing to spell Sanguisugabogg correctly, confirmed multiple long-haired sources.
“This was obviously a big mistake on our part. But even if we saved Sanguisugabogg for the final round it wouldn’t have made a difference. People get halfway into spelling the name and just get lost,” said event organizer Terry Leonard. “The craziest part is we had the drummer of Sanguisugabogg in the competition and he couldn’t even get it right. We want to apologize to all the diehard fans who flew in from all over the world to see the brightest minds in metal spell band names for their chance to win a 30-rack of Old Milwaukee and a custom knife from Old Forge Metalworks.”
Last year’s champion Omar Gibson admitted he was frustrated by the results of the competition.
“I spent all year practicing only to have some goofy band from Ohio ruin my chances of going back to back. I was locked in, Cryptopsy, Hypocrisy, Pestilence, it’s all child’s play to me,” said Gibson. “I even practiced spelling Sanguisugabogg at home, but when I was under the bright lights I choked. I took my time, asked them to use Sanguisugabogg in a sentence, asked the origin of the band name, and even asked them to play a selection of their music, but it didn’t matter. All I can do is hope the band breaks up before next year’s competition so the organizers are forced to remove their name from the options.”
Historians who have followed the competition since its inception in the early ‘70s say it’s had an outsized influence on the genre most wouldn’t expect.
“When metal music was first rising to prominence you had so many fans and so many bands and so many people that wanted to compete to spell those bands names,” said Dr. Robert Lancolm of Oxford University. “The competitors started forming their own bands and using fonts that were harder and harder to read. So basically the unintelligible ‘death metal font’ we see in metal band logos is a direct result of someone trying to obscure the spelling of their band’s name to achieve an advantage in competition. And now it’s just become part of the genre as a whole.”
At press time, all the competitors in the spelling bee were shuttled across town to participate in an air guitar contest.