One lovely Wednesday night in January 2000, I was watching the short-lived Fox series, Get Real. There was this band playing during the school dance scene. Two of the guys in this band looked familiar to me.

The lead guy looked like the guy from the Gap commercials whom I was quite attracted to. I had named him "Mark" because I didn't know what his real name was. I tend to do this with a lot of people whose names I don't know. It's fun. Anyway, I resolved that it was "Mark" and I was pretty excited.

The drummer looked like the guy from that movie I hadn't seen and only recognized from trailers, Rushmore. I had also seen him in an interview on the Howie Mandel Show and I remembered he was a pretty fun kid.

I found it interesting that these two guys were guest starring on the same show, in the same band, and I wondered if they were actually in a band or if they were just pretending to be in a band. So, I did a little digging on the internet. I went to a Get Real website and looked up this episode in their music section where they had a list of the music played during that episode (Sound samples are no longer available on that site. Click here to listen.) It said that the music played was by a group called Phantom Planet. Then I wondered if these two guys were in Phantom Planet or if they were just lip-synching for some band. So, I looked up Phantom Planet and, voila! "Mark" and the guy from Rushmore were in this band called Phantom Planet.

After this, I did some more searching for samples of their music. I listened to them and, let me tell you, thems were some catchy tunes. I fell in love. I searched in three different music stores to find Phantom Planet is Missing, till I found one. . . just one and purchased it for almost $30 Canadian. It was worth it, baby.

Phantom Planet plays good, freakin' music. They play real music, as opposed to the crap on the radio these days, which is why I don't listen to the radio. Phantom Planet has rich instrumental harmonies, mind-infecting melodies, and a lead singer gifted with a big, beautiful, entrancing voice. I haven't heard one song of theirs that I don't thoroughly enjoy. Their sound can make any song beautiful. If Phantom Planet was a guy, I'd want to have his babies.