27th October 2009

Video

CMJ Report: Day One

As many of you know, last week was the CMJ Music Marathon.  I was there (which is why you saw ZERO updates to this blog since Tuesday morning), and it was pretty kickass.  Shit went down in Brooklyn and Manhattan, and I’ll be doing a recap f’ya right here.  The idea is for me to do one day a day (pretty easy, right?), so each of these should go up exactly one week after the fact.  So, here’s what happened last Tuesday, the first day of CMJ.

The WMUA party, a crew of six - including Ian from Friendship Bracelet, as well as some other less “internet-famous” types - arrived in New York around 2:15, and, after checking in at the hostel, went to pick up some CMJ badges.  This took a bit, because our names didn’t show up on the pre-registration list, but things got sorted out, and all was fine.  It was a minor frustration (which some members of the party felt a bit more frustrating than necessary), but, hey, guys, we’re paying you money, so why not recognize?

Anyway, first stop on the trip was Brooklyn’s Monkey Town, home of the Chocolate Bobka, Old English Spelling Bee and Underwater Peoples’ showcase.  I’d not heard much about any of the folks on the bill, and had never been to the venue before, so this was all new to me.  But it was a pleasant surprise.  The place was a pretty sweet set-up; one row of seating stretching around all four walls, with big projection-screens set up on each wall, so everyone’s got a good seat.  The artists set up in the middle of the room, and most of the sets utilized the screen to solid effect.  They served all sorts of way cool stuff (for all you wanna-be ground-breaking philosophers, they’ve got absinthe), but most of it was not vegetarian, and there was one server for the whole room.  Still, a cool space.

As a quick aside, there was some excellent graffiti just down the block from this place, which you can find at the top of this article. Turkey boobs!!!!

First up was Fluffy Lumbers, usually a lo-fi shoegazy garage rock band, but this night, a solo noise drone project.  Of the two performances by this guy (one with and one without band), I think I actually preferred his solo stuff.  During his set, a sweet-as doggie cartoon was playing on the projectors, and there was tons of distortion, from both his several effects machines, as well as his guitar.  So much, in fact, that it took maybe three times through the main riff of “I Wanna Be Your Dog” that I realized he was doing a cover one of the most recognizable and influential punk songs ever.  Pretty nasty.

After that was Family Portrait.  More droning, but this time with a drum machine.  These guys weren’t as interesting as Fluffy Lumbers, but they definitely had some gnarly moments.

Following Family Portrait was Alice Cohen.  In my opinion, her set was the high point of the night.  She’s not only an excellent musician, but also a pretty talented visual artist, and she created the video (Terry Gilliam-inspired awesomeness) which played throughout her set.  Her stuff ranges from straight-forward (but still weird) rock, to more droning noise music, and it’s all great.  Check her out ASAP (and I believe she’s got a new record coming out soon…).

Julian Lynch was Skyping in, with one piece played on clarinet (to a backing track), which was pretty excellenty spacey.  I believe the guy’s at school in Wisconsin right now, which explains the webcast.  The audio quality wasn’t fantastic, but it was good enough, and just fuzzy enough to make it fun.

Africa German Germany Turkey Australia. I hate to be a jerk and everything, especially because I’m pretty sure the guy from Chocolate Bobka was part of this group, and so were several other performers from the rest of the night, but this shit was BORING.  Exactly what you expect when you think of bad noise music; there was little variation, and I kind of felt like I wouldn’t even really enjoy it if I was stoned out of my mind. Low point of the evening.

But Mountain Man finished the night out, and were exceptional.  I’d spoken to one of them briefly before the show about comic books, so I was already set to like them, because, hey, a girl who likes comics!  But they did have some excellently arranged and executed three-part harmonies, and they made a point to play to each side of the room before their set was over.  The only uncomfortable part was when someone was talking and that Chocolate Bobka guy yelled at him to “STFU!! or talk outside FOR SERIOUS!”  Simmer down, guy.

Overall a good show, and a fun space which I definitely can recommend.  After that, we hit the hostel, to recharge after a long day of traveling and a late night of music.