My friends at home in Louisiana and I decided that instead of exchanging Christmas presents this year, we would instead exchange mix CDs. I was pretty excited about this plan, as I kind of tend to be a fan of imposing my musical tastes on other people. Oh, and acquiring lots of new music from my friends with very little effort has been pretty great as well.

Before I listened to the CD that one of my friends had made, she told me that a couple of the songs were by a band that had actually played in my hometown last summer. They're called Them Who Must Not Be Named and, as their name suggests, they mostly sing about things relating to Harry Potter.

From what I've heard, their story is something like this: The three or four members of the band met at a release party for the sixth Harry Potter book, and they decided that they should form a band. Even though they don't even all live in the area, between the release of the sixth and seventh Harry Potter books they managed to scrape together something like five songs for a CD, then performed them at a local release party for the seventh book. That was really all they wanted to do and, having served their purpose, they disbanded immediately after.

All of this didn't really make me believe that this band would be terribly worth listening to. The list of Bands Who Have Played In My Hometown is very unimpressive, both in length and in content, and while bands like Harry and the Potters or Draco and the Malfoys can entertain me for a little while, it's hard for me to take them entirely seriously. But in the course of listening to the CD my friend made, I of course listened to Them Who Must Not Be Named. And contrary to my snobbish expectations, they are actually good.

I realize that it's hard to say that a band is Good when they only have five known songs and when I've only heard three of them. But what I mean is that they have a good sound, something of a mix of Rilo Kiley and Tilly and the Wall and something a little different. They're cute and happy, and their somewhat unpolished sound seems intentional (think Sunny Day Real Estate) rather than due to the things that are certainly actually to blame (lack of funds and such). My friend mislabeled the track listing for her CD and completely left one of their songs off of it. I listened to the mysterious unlabeled track on the CD a few times before I asked my friend what it was and had absolutely no idea that it was by them. No joke. They sound that much like a Real Band.

All in all the band's songs were a pleasant surprise and I wish there were more of them. I'm not saying that everyone should rush out and listen to them, because I honestly don't know where they would exist outside of a bookstore in Bossier City, Louisiana in July of 2007. It's just that they came together so randomly, and very likely didn't take their little project seriously, but then they actually did something impressive. I can't help but wonder what might have happened had these people come together for more than five songs and one night, or how many other little groups are out there who truly have the potential to do something but, for whatever reason, either don't want to or can't make themselves heard past a small community. Of course there is the possibility that a band like Them Who Must Not Be Named would lose its momentum after five songs and fall into the Okay category, but really, who knows? Apparently nobody, because they're already over. But it's interesting to speculate.

In high school my Very Smart friend gave me a CD he'd made entitled "Unsigned Bands" and told me that I would probably only like about seven of the songs on it. He was exactly right, as it turned out. I told him so and said that some bands are unsigned for a reason. But, I'm realizing, not all of them.