Goodnight LA is an up-and-coming band from Canton, Ohio. From what I gathered, they are a merger of a band called Everybody Else Wins and a band called CenterLane, neither of which I have heard before. They have a general pop/rock style, but what I like most about these guys is that a lot of their songs are simply upbeat and fun to listen to. I also like how all of their songs sound so distinctly different from each other. While listening on their website I never knew what was coming next, but I always knew it would be something good.

Their songs range from mainly rock in Metamora, to mainly pop in Now That You’re Around, to a nice combination of both pop and rock in Give It Up. I really like their use of piano to complement their songs, a good example of which is Broadway Lights the Star. My favorite one of their songs is You Know Me. It’s different than their other songs, using primarily vocals and piano with some percussion, but I think it works really well and showcases the lead vocalist.

As far as I can tell, Goodnight LA doesn’t yet have MP3s available for purchase, but you can listen to some of their songs on their Myspace page. They also have additional songs that you can hear for free on their official website at GoodnightLA.com.

If you’re looking for a rock band that comes close to crossing the line into “screamo” territory but doesn’t quite go over it, then Signal The Escape is the band for you. These guys have some pretty good songs, as long as you’re okay with the occasional screaming. From what I gathered on their Myspace profile, Signal The Escape grew up in the suburbs of Connecticut, and most, if not all of their members, are the remnants of a hardcore screamo band. Apparently they decided to mellow it down a bit.

As far as my favorite one of their songs, I would probably go with Exorcism In The ER. This song sounds sort of like something from Fall Out Boy. It also doesn’t seem to contain any screaming, which is a positive as far as I’m concerned. Maudlin is also a pretty cool song. Although there’s some screaming, it’s not too overdone. Their other two songs on Myspace are a little more hardcore, but that might be something you’re looking for. Boys Lie has a pretty cool underlying melody to it, and might be worth checking out even with the yelling.

You can check out Signal The Escape’s Myspace profile by clicking here. You can also buy their MP3s on Amazon.com.

The Summer Set is a pretty cool band from Scottsdale, Arizona. Their songs tend to have a slightly more rock feel than the previous bands on this blog, but they have a pop feel to them as well. This band is especially good considering that the members are either still in high school or just graduated last year. I also think it’s particularly cool that they have a girl drummer, and all the rest of the members are guys. It kind of breaks stereotypes and gives them a unique image.

I like all the songs on their Myspace, but I would probably say that my favorite one is Cross Your Fingers. Also, don’t forget to drag that scrollbar down on the Myspace music player, as their fifth song, Ready, Set, Go is also worth checking out. On a side note, I think Myspace really needs to make it easier to see if a band has more than four songs uploaded, as I have a feeling that most bands have their extra songs overlooked if they upload more than four. I like that in addition to their four full songs, one of their uploaded songs is a sampler of all the songs on their upcoming CD. I find that most bands tend to either upload only sampler songs or upload only full songs, so it was cool to see both.

The Summer Set’s CD “Love The Love You Have” will be released November 30th. Check out their Myspace profile where you can listen to their songs, pre-order their CD, or download some of their MP3s.

Edit(11-08-07): So apparently someone from Myspace reads this blog, because two days after I wrote this post complaining about people overlooking a band’s fifth song, Myspace updated their music player so that there’s now a larger scrollbar and everytime a band’s myspace profile is loaded, the scrollbar moves all the way up and down the song list automatically to show people that there are more than four songs. Thanks Myspace for the update!

I found out about The Friday Night Boys while browsing the Myspace top 100 artists chart in the pop category. Being that this is a brand new blog, I’m still not quite sure what standard I should use for determining whether a band is too well-known to go into the blog, but since The Friday Night Boys was listed as band #100 of the unsigned bands, I figured I should write about them to at least keep them on the chart.

In reality, I would say that The Friday Night Boys is more of a pop/punk band as opposed to a pop band, but they do a great job of combining the two genres. If I had to compare them to another band, I would say that they sound like Bowling for Soup, but more poppy. They have some pretty cool fast songs such as High School and Thursday Night Pregame. There is a pretty amazing guitar solo at around 1:45 into High School.

But then just when I thought I had their style figured out, I listened to a newly uploaded song called You Do You Don’t which is a nice slow ballad and almost entirely pop oriented as opposed to the pop/punk nature of their other songs. The song is actually really good, and I’d recommend checking it out. Their song Sorry I Stole Yo Gurl is also entirely pop, so it just goes to show that you can’t judge the style of a band by only listening to two of their songs.

I would encourage you to check out The Friday Night Boys Myspace page. On their Myspace profile you can listen to five of their songs and buy their MP3s.

On a separate note, if you like the bands that I’m writing about, let me know by leaving a comment. Your first comment needs to be approved, but then after that you can leave comments without being approved.

Tim Be Told is one of the bands that inspired me to start writing this blog. I first found out about Tim Be Told through a random Myspace friend request. Generally when I log onto Myspace, the first thing I do is go through the various band friend requests that I get. Before deciding whether to press approve or deny, I usually go to the band’s profile and listen to about 15-30 seconds of the first song that plays and see whether it catches my attention. Most of the time the song isn’t particularly good, and I’ll check one more song just to make sure I didn’t pick a bad song the first time around. If I find that a song is really good, I approve their request and then continue listening to their other songs until I hear one that isn’t so good and then I stop. When I received a friend-request from Tim Be Told, little did I know that I would be spending the next 15 minutes listening to all four of their songs posted on Myspace.

These guys have some pretty amazing songs. Their style is pretty unique, mixing some pop, with some blues, and throwing a little soul into the mix. I particularly like the vocal riffs that they tend to use on their songs. Not only is the actual music in their songs really good, but I found that their lyrics all tend to have a lot of meaning.

For instance, one of my favorite songs is called Ordinary. It’s about a guy who chooses to go into singing despite everyone else in his life constantly telling him that he won’t be able to make it and how there’s so many other things that he could be doing with his life. Even though he might not become a huge star, he doesn’t care as long as he’s pursuing his passion. I think the lyrics on this song can easily be applied to your own personal situation. All of their other songs I listened to also had very meaningful lyrics.

Although Tim Be Told might not be very well-known yet, I have a feeling that with the official release of their CD last week, that it won’t be long before they take the music-scene by storm. Click here to check out Tim Be Told’s Myspace, where you can hear their songs and purchase their CD or MP3s. My favorite songs are Ordinary, Getting By, and Heroes(but all of the songs I’ve heard are really good). They also now have a link in the Featured Artists section, as will all bands and singers that are featured on MP3s.fm.