After a mess of wandering around Washington Square park, progress was finally made in hearing my first bands of the festival. It was around 1:30, but Piano's was getting noisy on both their upstairs and downstairs stages. Mistaking the room upstairs for the main one, I was expecting to see some of the Force Field PR day party but instead was greeted with a ramshackle, punky trio who enthusiastically gave shout-outs to everyone in the room and covered Pavement, a musical touch point for their noisy (if not particularly "indie") rock. A terse discussion with the doorman revealed where the main stage actually was, and I jetted over to see the ten-piece Still Flyin' ending their set. Unfortunate, because this fantastic supergroup (their press photo looks like a class reunion, and members include Jens Lekman and many more) was a festival favorite. With ten people on stage, at one point five were singing, though it didn't turn into the cacophonous, bleak diatribes of the Arcade Fire or their mopey ilk. Instead, Still Flyin' hug tight to the outskirts of indie pop, occasionally freshening their sound with a touch of outsider influences - a little reggae here, or west African guitars there.

In contrast, Grooms were minimal, tiny, but somehow louder. The trio's new album came out just Tuesday, so the songs were fresh (to us, anyway). Taking a cue from noise celebrities Sonic Youth and a touch of the more abrasive, early emo movement (Sunny Day Real Estate, perhaps), Grooms played jagged, burnt rock that snarled and expanded. The drummer led the charge, slamming the hell out of the poor communal Piano's set. His force alone was daunting, and hands were flying everywhere. The occasional addition of vocals from the female bassist lent their sound some softness to the fury. One song was about summer camp, we were told.

After a brief respite to make a phone call (finding a quiet, private spot was harder than it should have been) I arrived back to the Force Field-a-thon to catch Real Estate. This was the best attended of all of the performances thus far. Lead singer Martin Courtney has a kind of a higher, softer lilt to his tone, but the band was all raggedy in its pretty abrasiveness. After the set, I spoke to bassist Alex Bleeker, whom I recognized as "Dinosaur BBQ," an alias he had used in the past, which included few house shows in Austin where I had seen him play. He mentioned his new band was playing at Monster Island - but more on that later. At this juncture, the room thankfully thinned out, and Gainesville's Holopaw set up. The group is excitingly diverse, with cello and steel guitar added to the usual fray. Fans of indie rock history know John Orth from his work with Ugly Cassanova, but this band is a different beast entirely. More country-tinged than you might be expecting from Florida, the band had a softness to them but stopped short of straight-out balladry. At one point musical guest Liza Kate took the guitar for a brief but wonderful tune before the band closed out.

And then, it was time to head into the hipster promise-land, Williamsburg. So much has been said (and so nastily) about what to expect (would the streets be coated in day-glo and cocaine?) but I found the area more fascinating, diverse and beautiful than obnoxious. Blanket statements about the people and attitude here (including this one?) are painfully exaggerated, at least that's what my one experience tells me. Monster Island, a basement off River St., featured one of the finest homemade shows I've attended recently. A tastefully minimal space with wood floors, the Island was intimate but not packed. Budweiser was being sold for three dollars a can, and it was so refreshing to have an alternative to Lone Star and PBR that I gladly drank three. First up was the aforementioned Alex Bleeker and his band, the Freaks. Featuring a rotating cast, the band this evening included Matthew Mondanile, the name behind the notable tape hiss project Ducktails (and also a member of Real Estate). When I last saw Bleeker as Dinosaur BBQ, he preferred boisterous, singalong compositions on acoustic guitar. This could not have been much more different. Eschewing vocals for the most part, Bleeker and his group traded in noisy melodies like a wily, punky Crazy Horse, complete with the Ducktails brand of wah-wah love. Bleeker and Mondanile's exchange of licks and turns soloing was inspiring and powerful, but never wanky. Apparently the group has some vinyl coming out on Group Tightener records - keep an eye out.

Fluffy Lumbers performed next. Though drummer-less, lead man Samuel Franklin took to the set himself and did a more than consummate job. With Franklin drumming and singing
in the back, we watched the two spazzy guitarists instead. With a sound a little akin to early My Bloody Valentine or other fuzzy rock with pop innards hidden somewhere under an abrasive skeleton of power and feedback, Fluffly Lumbers made a compelling case for the area's noise rock contingency.

From there it was off to the Charleston to check out the night's first "official" CMJ anything. The Australian/New Zealand-based Batrider, described by the CMJ guide as "the grungiest ever," turned out to only partially fit that description. Sure, they took a page from the Nevermind playbook, but the dramatic tone and urgency of the female-fronted vocals were more snarly PJ Harvey or Kim Gordon than the late Cobain. It was a dirty and festive set - very enjoyable. For the interest of full disclosure, I arrived at this Windex-smelling, weirdly dingy bar and basement to catch miniBoone, a band featuring the bass talents of friend and MadeLoud artist Sam Rich. After catching up with some odd Brooklyn beers and meeting his friendly and fun bandmates and girlfriend, we cruised downstairs for the band's set. Rich described the band to me as "synth-pop," which was true in that they had a keyboard - but that's about it. After blowing up balloons and setting up a floor tom near the edge of the...well, it wasn't a stage, but on the edge of the audience, I guess, the band floored it and didn't let up for the entirety of a sweaty, tasty set of spastic art rock that was a little Talking Heads and otherwise just boundless movement.

Featuring three vocalists, the five-piece twitched like a hyperactive kid who skipped his ritalin, yelping and otherwise exorcising the ghosts of dance rock's past. Balloons popped, bodies flayed, and The Boss's "Dancing in the Dark" was covered. Riding back to Queens on an oddly technologically-equipped cab, the evening loomed large in my memories and in the slow deaths of my eardrums. Until tomorrow...