29th October 2009

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CMJ Report: Day Four
Takin’ a Break… Kind of…

Friday was a pretty light day, as far as music went. I mashed in visits with my mother and my sister, so that didn’t leave as much time for shows, but that was fine, because I like those people.

After getting a late lunch with my mom, I headed to Webster Hall to see VEGA, and a few other acts. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect from this showcase, as I’d only heard of VEGA, and I’d never even heard them before. But it turned out pretty alright.

I arrived right as BEAST was finishing up. They seemed to be going for the Portishead thing, except with a more “soulful” singer. I can’t really evaluate this act too much, since I saw maybe one entire song. But it seemed fine, as far as I could tell.

After that, I saw Two Fresh. That might be the lamest name I’ve ever heard for a group, but they were actually highly acceptable. Two DJ’s and a live drummer, basically doing hip-hop instrumentals. It was some fun stuff, totally acceptable background music, and the drummer was pretty nasty. I don’t know if I’d buy their record, but then again, it’s not totally my thing anyway.

Body Language was the last act before VEGA. And it was really, really uncool. It seemed like they were trying to go for what iPod commercials see as “cool.” The singer had “kitschy” clothes, and they played indie pop stuff, involving a xylophone. Lame. Luckily for me, Webster Hall had a couple of couches near the back that I was able to put to good use during this set.

Last, VEGA. I knew VEGA (real name: Alan Palomo) only from his other project, Neon Indian, and, since I didn’t think I would be able to see that group this trip (despite the fact that they were playing at CMJ and I really dug the new EP), I thought I’d check this out. After a pretty hefty slip up on the first song in which the guitarist “forgot to tune” his guitar, resulting in a pretty not-good solo, they proceeded to jam it out relatively well. The instrumentation is drums, guitar, and Alan Palomo’s electronics. It was a pretty fun set, and people were moving around, but it was missing… something. I’m not sure what. They had a good time with it, though, and Palomo ended the set by falling backwards on his ass, which I thought was funny, and a pretty sweet dance-move.

After VEGA, I peaced out to walk a few blocks uptown to hang with my sister for a bit. I hadn’t been planning to see anything else at this point, hoping to take it easy after a not-as-great and extra-long previous night, but once we finished eating, it was around 11:30, and I knew Japandroids were going on at the Bell House at 1:00. I thought that would give me more than enough time to make it over to Brooklyn to catch their set, so I took off. This was probably a mistake. The trains weren’t running on any regular schedule (which I suppose IS the regular schedule), so I ended up getting to my final stop at 1:20. I thought there was a pretty good chance that they would start a few minutes late, even though my contacts told me the show was more or less on time, so I wasn’t too worried at this point. I then proceeded to walk several blocks in the wrong direction, and was only able to get into the venue at around 1:40. I was still ten minutes early.

Japandroids was pretty good. The guitarist puts a lot of effort into being a rock and roller, and it’s fun to watch. He also uses loads and loads of distortion, giving his guitar a synthetic feel that’s really unique. The main drawback is that the drummer is kind of sloppy. He held it down on most songs pretty well, but when he took lead vocals, the drums would suffer. Nothing major, but you could definitely tell he wasn’t totally comfortable. But I can understand why people are getting into their new record; they own it pretty well. The best part, by far, of this show, however, was the stage-divers. Most of them seemed to be successful in their crowd-surfing, but eventually, some heavier guys started getting a little to excited about the prospect of riding the human wave, and a couple people got dropped. Watching them hit the dirt and hearing the crowd yell “Oh!” as it happened was one of the highpoints of the night, and I enjoyed watching the expression of one guy in the front row who seemed REALLY pissed to have to carry ANYONE above his head.

The night ended like many others did during my time in New York; with a long-ass commute back to Harlem. The subway our group decided to take back (a different line than the one I took to get there) wasn’t running, so we ended up waiting in the pouring rain to catch a shuttle-bus. And then we caught the wrong transfer. So, that kind of blew. But I knew it would be okay to start late on Saturday, and I also knew I would need the rest for what I planned to see that night.