A TALE OF TWO BANDS: ONE GOOD, ONE EVIL

Lynn was trying to listen to what Kyle was saying. She caught some of it and could piece together that he was working on his newest painting. Unfortunately, Kyle had some obnoxious music playing on his stereo that was stealing her attention away. The music was like a bad car wreck. She’d been in the studio with Kyle for ten minutes now, and so far the only thing she could concentrate on was how if the music playing had some drums in it to cover up the horrid vocals, maybe it wouldn’t be so bad.
“Goddamn,” Lynn thought to herself. “How many times can this guy sing about being alone?”
Lynn cringed at a particularly corny lyric and had to repeat it in her head to make sure she had never said anything like it herself. “Kiss me hard ‘cause it will be the last time.”
Kyle was explaining why he decided to use a certain color of red next to a vivid blue. Lynn nodded at him as if she had been taking notes. She heard the next song come on and was disappointed that the previous track hadn’t been the last. Again, Lynn had to cringe at the sound of the vocalist’s voice. It sounded like an indie-rocker band trying to make a love song album. Lynn imagined that if Jawbreaker started making really sappy and trite songs, it would sound exactly like this.
“Kyle, what the hell is this melodramatic, crybaby bullshit you’ve got on?”
Kyle was thrown off track. “This is a band that is on The Get Up Kids’ label, Vagrant Records. They’re called Dashboard Confessional.”
Lynn rolled her eyes. Even the band’s name took itself too seriously and came off as cheesy.
“I thought it would be good,” admitted Kyle. “You don’t like it, huh?”
“God, no. The singer is a whiny little sissy and the music is redundant and bland.”
“Oh,” said Kyle as he got up and went to the stereo. “Here, I’ll put this other record on.”
“What’s this one?”
“They’re called the NSA.”
The music came on and instantly Lynn was relieved. The first band, Dashboard Confessional, tried hard to be serious and deep but it ended up sounding dumb. The Secret Sound of the NSA was immediately fun and didn’t take itself too seriously. They sounded kind of poppy and punky, and had a rhythm you couldn’t help but tap your foot to. Lynn could imagine the band on stage swinging their guitars around their necks by the straps and stabbing the air with the sign of the devil. She pictured the guitarist jumping in the air during pauses and then coming down right with the music’s restart.
Lynn smiled at Kyle. “This is much better. These guys sound like fun.”
“I like the keyboard stuff.” Said Kyle.
“I like that the singer isn’t such a whiny little sissy,” replied Lynn. “I’d tell you to keep telling me about your painting but I want to listen to this album first.”
Visit dashboardconfessional.com or the-nsa.com for more info.