The Chronicles of I Set My Friends on Fire, Episode 1

If you haven't heard yet of local duo I Set My Friends on Fire, well, you are probably of legal drinking age and/or don't spend a lot of time on MySpace, so let me fill you in really quickly on what basically every teenager seems to already know about. The twosome of Matt and Nabil used to play around town in an all-ages-scene, screamy band called We Are the Cavalry, until they broke off to do something more experimental.

Although they intended to write "real," serious songs, as a joke, last summer, when they created their new MySpace band page, they uploaded a screamy, grindy version of Soulja Boy's "Crank Dat." The thing sprouted instant, massive Internet legs, and garnered so many plays so rapidly, MySpace shut down the band's page three successive times, accusing the guys of using a program to falsely boost song plays.

On the strength of the Internet buzz, and off a few other songs they wrote in the aftermath, they scored a deal with none other than the latter-day punk rock label holy grail: Epitaph records. That album, You Can't Spell Slaughter Without Laughter, comes out October 7.

But in the meantime, the band has produced its own YouTube series, The Chronicles of I Set My Friends on Fire, a fictional, funny account of the band trying to record its album as a mysterious villain tries to thwart them. The first episode appeared this past Tuesday; there will be six episodes total, with a new one debuting every two weeks.

Stay tuned for next week's issue of Miami New Times, in which I'll recount the story of the band's rapid-fire rise in my Suicide Blonde column. But until then, check out this the band's first Chronicles episode. -- Arielle Castillo