CMJ Marathon 2007

New York, NY

October 16-20 2007

CMJ Marathon ‘07 had the wonderful luck of taking place right in the middle of two industry-shaking events — Madonna’s flight from her long relationship with Warner Bros. to LiveNation and Radiohead’s “pay-what-you-want” deal with In Rainbows — but it wasn’t enough to stifle the usual debate over mp3 sound quality and general sky-is-falling predictions about the music business while drinking Vitamin Waters at panel discussions and on black leather couches across from the tradeshow booths in NYU’s Puck Building.

The overall atmosphere at CMJ is interesting and a little tough to figure out. Known mostly for its daunting week-long show schedule, the festival also serves as a national meeting place for industry professionals, label owners, performers and kids from hundreds of thousands of college radio stations, many of whom have no idea who any of the panelists are. Young volunteers stumbled from panel from panel with clunky walkie-talkies and clipboard cuecards, creating impromptu diversions like watching students crawl under tables to poke around on mixers trying to fix feedback issues while world class audio engineer panelists wait patiently in mid-sentence with their fingers in their ears.

Attending the panel discussions was sort of like attending the Philadelphia Convention after the Revolutionary War, the sense of a new industry frontier now stronger than ever. Audience members hurled questions at panelists like “What’s the best way to break a band on a blog?” and “How can anyone make money doing this kind of stuff?” to no avail. “We don’t really know one way or the other,” said Wired magazine‘s Eliot Van Buskirk.

NYC resident DJ and Jill Scott collaborator Rich Medina tried to parlay fears by telling his crowd, “You know that music is one of the only jobs that will always be in demand, right?” Former Pere Ubu founder Dave Thomas was on hand elsewhere, though, relishing the opportunity to sink his fangs into the state of the business, blaming consumers and untrained kids with home recording programs for, from his perspective, ruining everything. “Music is a Masonic craft with rules and regulations that are unfathomable to outsiders,” he read. “Leave creation to the professionals. We’re the only ones qualified to deal with the process, the success and the overwhelming sense of disappointment and failure.” College DJs waiting for the elevator after the panel looked at each other in dismay. “Who was that guy?” Shirking Thomas’s hyperbole and that of the music business facing unbeatable odds, founder of the ARChive of Contemporary Music Bob George noted the invisible financial restructuring going on in the music business, pointing to hardware costs and internet subscriptions as new factors in the music economy. “No matter what,” he said, “you’re going to pay for what you want, even if you think you’re getting it for free.”

´Five Nights In New York´
By Matt Parish and Ashley Willard
Photos by Jeremy Balderson
and Ion Sokhos

In its five nights, CMJ hosted over 1,000 bands in mid-October at clubs all up and down Manhattan and, more so than ever, all over Brooklyn, too. The bands ranged from acts capable of selling out the Bowery Ballroom (see: Deerhunter) to bands just getting their first shot at ever playing anywhere in New York City, even if it was in a 40-capacity back room (see: about 900 other bands). In the interest of space, we’ll get right down to what we caught, what we missed, what we heard and what we saw while camping out in the streets of New York City, desperately clutching our CMJ badges for fears of the $495 replacement fee.

On Tuesday night, we were weary from traveling, but we dropped in to the Lit Lounge to catch former Southeast Performer cover band 13ghosts. Their Birmingham, Alabama roots were strong as they played their brand of melody-driven Southern indie rock. The songs were swooping and thoughtful, with a full and lush guitar-driven backdrop. They shared a bill with fellow Birminghamers Through the Sparks, Seattle’s Barton Carroll, and San Francisco’s Von Iva.

Wednesday, after a chill afternoon show by Thurston Moore in the back of the Soho Apple Store and an unsuccessful attempt to get in to the packed Pirate! party at Arlene’s Grocery (featuring Imperial Teen), we headed to The Cake Shop on booming Ludlow St. in the Lower East Side, where Athens, Georgia label Hello Sir Records had put together a careening bill of oddball noise-rock. The surprise of the night was Mouser, the Athens scene supergroup on their first trip north. Led by Colby Carter, the group was traveling at about half its usual size, but still included a three-piece horn section and two manic drummers. Mouser brings to mind a more celebratory Thinking Fellers Union Local 282 or a free jazz take on The Beach Boys. Other Southeast bands to play that night in The Cake Shop’s bunker-like underground room were Tigerbearwolf, who swaggered through complicated takes on bloozy boogie metal, and We Versus the Shark, who continue to get more precise with every show, their noise flare-ups reined in with Terminator mechanical efficiency. Frontguy Jeff Tobias ran around the club at his wit’s end all night as the de facto tour manager for the night in the absence of the label heads in Cinemechanica, who were then on tour in Europe. The bill was rounded out by St. Louis Dismemberment Plan disciples So Many Dynamos and Boston’s Ho-Ag, who also reside on the label and (full disclosure) are fronted by Performer managing editor Matt Parish.

Security kicked everyone out at midnight, but the room filled back up in another 20 minutes as Vice magazine broke out the free Sparks and Jacksonville, Florida’s Black Kids played the first of their handful of shows that week. The Kids’ popularity had just begun to surge a few weeks earlier on a wave of blog momentum and they were mobbed here as soon as they started playing, the entire front row literally singing along with every warbled, jittery word.

Across the water on Bedford Ave. the next day, the impeccably stocked SoundFix record store had opened its back room for an afternoon show by Tulsa, Boston’s psych-pop band who seemed a bit lost in the big saloon room’s bouncy dynamics and sparse crowd. Like many shows that get lost in the shuffle, this one had the feel of a band on trial in front of a handful of attendees sitting back and waiting to be impressed. Singer Carter Tanton and company managed to ride the echoing, washy sound in the room comfortably, though, knowing they had a choice spot at Piano’s the next night.

Meanwhile at the Puck Building (this year’s CMJ headquarters) at Lafayette and Houston, Boston indiegazers Wild Light played an afternoon set that was flawless and infectious. The band, whose building buzz comes courtesy of opening spots on friends The Arcade Fire’s U.S. and European tours, has really ripened and seems ready to break from the shadows of their big-name friendships. Every note and every harmony was spot-on and each song so lovely that the attendees watched in silent awe. The guys with the energy drinks even turned down the Xbox and Ableton Live demos in the corners of the room for this.

Also that afternoon, Tampa rap team Yo Majesty (down to two members from three recently) tore the roof off a packed Piano’s, The sea of college-aged white kids in the crowd hung on every word and command; Yo Majesty’s Shunda K and Jwl B. said “jump” and they jumped. Favorites like “Club Action” (with its catchy chorus of “Fuck that shit, fuck that shit, fuck that shit said fuck that shit”) and “Leather Jacket” showcased the awesome talents and stage presence these badass ladies possess, and made us wonder why they still remain somewhat under the radar.

Over at swanky lounge White Rabbit, Georgia boys Dead Confederate fired up the smoke machines and played a set full of dramatic melodies and purring guitars. The five-piece put on a grand show that could just as well have taken place in a much larger venue; they owned the quaint, narrow room’s cocktail-hour crowd with their smoky auras and their soaring guitars and vocals.

Boston indie darlings Hallelujah the Hills started off Misra and Absolutely Kosher’s showcase at Arlene’s Grocery. The band has evolved from a jumbled batch of demos on frontman Ryan Walsh’s walkman to a real live six-man effort and is right now performing with the orchestration of a small theatre ensemble, switching gears from scrappy Robert Pollard rock to patient set pieces that hinge on cello plucking and delicately unfolding lyrics. Girls with glasses literally clutched notebooks to their chests while lit-swooning to every obscure reference.

Across the street at the French Kiss showcase inside Piano’s, Houston’s Fatal Flying Guillioteens were in the middle of their spazz-punk temper tantrum. The band has become tighter than ever now that they’ve pilfered Bring Out the Guns’ guitarist, but this still didn’t rule out band members knocking each other into the drum set, falling headfirst off the stage into puddles of beer and dragging the microphone out of the room.

Back at The Cake Shop, Gowns were slowly and carefully building up and tearing down a few of their painfully earnest swells of synth noise and skittery improv drumming. Cardboard Records head BJ Warshaw watched with pride from beside the tiny stage, having just finished performing with his own side project, Shooting Spires, upstairs in the middle of Cake Shop’s little record store with the ‘70s wood paneling, and just back from a European tour the night before with Parts & Labor.

Big Bear performed that same show with their new keyboard player, Joanne Ha. They’ve got all new songs, a new vocal approach that no longer includes blood vessel-popping screams, and a spot on Cardboard’s brand new double-disc compilation (along with 51 other bands).

Friday night began with Boston’s Drug Rug, just finishing up their first tour and still glowing from a spate of national press and the new membership of bassist George Lewis, Jr., who grabbed a guitar to sing lead vocals on one faux doo-wop song halfway through the set and was seen jumping rope with two little kids wandering through the neighborhood later that night. Carter Tanton of Tulsa had migrated here from his band’s setup at Piano’s to play tambourine onstage with these old friends while, after the show, singer Tommy Allen was inquisitive about their recent Northeast Performer cover story. “Are you sure it’s not going to be cheesy?” At the same time as Drug Rug was rocking the Bowery, several other Boston bands were taking the stage elsewhere: This Car Up at Crash Mansion, Age Rings at the Alphabet Lounge, and Bon Savants at the Mercury Lounge, whose déja vú-laden set (they played the same venue in the same time slot last year) we caught the tail end of before catching the first few songs by Portland, Oregon’s The Shaky Hands. Both bands were on their mark, Bon Savants delivering their stylish indie-dramas and The Shaky Hands providing a more organic, rootsy sound with hand drums and claps on some songs.

Meanwhile at the Knitting Factory, Panache Booking, Lovepump United and Skin Graft Records had put together one of the most monstrous bills of the entire week, opening up all three rooms to badge holders and ticket buyers. Walking all the way down the Bowery and down the steps in the Knitting Factory’s cavernous rooms was like falling into a “bizarro” version of the festival, where throngs pressed up against the stage where Made In Mexico was holding court with pummeling nastiness, sour notes everywhere and singer Rebecca Mitchell moving like a slow-motion Natalie Wood in Malibu jeans and screaming like a rabid ogre. Old Time Relijun creaked through a set of skronky Beefheart rock upstairs and band members later took themselves downstairs to witness Tel Aviv trash-rockers Monotonix kick the napkin dispensers off the bar and do squats on beer bottles. Of all the bands, Montreal’s AIDS Wolf unleashed the most scathing clusters of noise, depravity and well-organized fuzz-dirges we’d seen in years and singer Chloe Lum’s full-body black leotard added an edge of creepy dorkiness to the thing. This was a very real new brand of heaviness that took cues from Arab On Radar, but added a bit of giving-up-on-life mime school character to the whole thing that somehow resulted in … a mosh pit. But the most commanding performance of the night was early on when hometown heroes Japanther took the big stage, did their usual routine of playing over tape recorded backing tracks (played through a cassette deck onstage, no less) and told the crowd to focus on being together and feeling good. “This is all about getting together, humanity and sexuality,” said drummer Ian Vanek through his payphone mic. “I know you all have to deal with bullshit everyday. I mean, you’re at this CMJ bullshit aren’t you?”

Finally, we caught former i cover boys The Sammies as they rocked the MoRisen Records showcase at Ace of Clubs. Sharing the bill with other formidable Southern acts like Dead Confederate and The Houstons, The Sammies put on an inspired set with a righteous abandon-ship performance. New bassist Conrad Vacation flawlessly meshed with the veteran members, including ace guitarist Bobby Freedom, who plays with a visible entrancement, and ever-charming brothers Frank Backgammon on lead and Donnie Yale on drums. They had played a KEXP live session earlier in the week and seem well poised to break beyond their local-hero status in their hometown of Charlotte.

On the final day, we dragged our weary bodies to the Fader Lounge for a party at which Drug Rug was playing. The young band was captivating enough to be just as exciting the second time we’d seen them in 24 hours, and the moment in “For The Rest of Your Life” when Sarah Cronin went from soft vocal intro to raucous screamfest was alone worth the price of admission.

Later we made it over to the below-ground Crash Mansion for Eli “Paperboy” Reed and the True Loves to bring down the house with their throwback to the big bands and smooth crooners of the 1950s. Reed owned his audience as bandleader and singer, at times dropping to his knees and visibly portraying the emotions within the lyrics. They brought a trio of female backup singers in matching outfits to the show, and during one song, a long-haired, ‘70s-garbed audience member danced a jig so tight that it competed with the band for the audience’s attention.

Throughout the week, our trusty photographers, Jeremy Balderson and Ion Sokhos, were dispatched to many other shows that we didn’t make it to, as evidenced in the photos throughout this piece.