Monday, May 30, 2011

Dashboard Confessional-The Places You Have Come to Fear the Most

The first time someone tried to explain the concept of Dashboard Confessional to me it sounded something like, "It's a band, but it's just one guy. It's totally punk, but it's just him singing and playing an acoustic guitar. It rocks, but it's totally not loud." I figured anything that enigmatic was worth the ticket price. Dashboard Confessional turned out to be the ultimate extension of the guy who brings his acoustic guitar to parties and sings all these songs that bear his deep emotions in an attempt to pick up chicks. The funny thing is that girls usually love that guy and guys usually hate him, but the only people I ever heard talk about Dashboard at the time were guys. This album filled a perfect void in my life when I thought the girl I liked didn't like me but she really did and by the time I figured out that she did she was dating my best friend. This is perfect music for people who felt like I did in that situation. Now that I'm happily married it sounds more than a little overwrought. Here's the funny thing about Dashboard, though. Chris Carrabba was the former lead singer of Further Seems Forever, a Christian emo band. They were basically the plugged-in version of Dashboard Confessional. When Chris Carrabba left the band and went unplugged it seemed like he was going for a different sound than that of the band he left. In the meantime Further Seems Forever dug up a guy who looked and sounded just like Chris Carraba (Jason Gleason) to the point that it was unnerving. When Gleason quit, they replaced him with Jon Bunch who also looked and sounded a lot like Carrabba. During this same period, Chris Carrabba turned Dashboard Confessional into a fully-fledged band that sounded exactly like Further Seems Forever. Confused? So am I.

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