The most important lesson I’ve learned about CMJ is that it is not SXSW, and New York is not Austin.
This might seem fairly rote or obvious, but for all intensive purposes, our local (but far-reaching) music festival was my sole reference point for CMJ. Austin seems to ooze outward for SXSW, encompassing venues not usually associated with music, or with anything. In New York, most of the venues for CMJ host music all year round, and are fairly spread out within Manhattan and Brooklyn. In other words, if you crash-landed in Williamsburg, you’d still only get a taste of what was going on during the week of CMJ.
Speaking from a visitor’s perspective, I unearthed many, many venues, walked the streets and soaked up the City. From a music journalist’s perspective, the trip was more frustrating. The dichotomy between the bounties and losses is best encapsulated by the last two full days of the festival (Friday and Saturday). Let’s begin.
While it might be wrong to call Friday an entire loss, that’s a bit of the way it felt around 12 a.m., after unsuccessfully trying to push our way into a few notable Manhattan venues. The Suffolk, home of the Matador and True Panther showcases, was the most disheartening. The staff letting folks in was overwhelmed, confused, and – at least once – belligerent. When a young lady requested access so that she could go up to her art studio (in the same building), the door guy answered with what was basically, “Yeah, and I used to be in a band too.” What? It was, to say the least, a bad scene. Trying to cover our losses, we headed up to the Cake Shop for the SESAC showcase, featuring the Depreciation Guild, etc. We walk in, and then are escorted down into a musty, all-too-warm basement, where we appear to be in line for a bathroom but, no – we’re just “watching” the band from the hallway. The place was packed, and with no admission fee, it made having a badge seem like kind of a weirdly useless accessory.
That was my Friday, folks - only peripheral music and later some weird, Twin Peaks-esque bar where my college friend Domenica told me about her romantic entanglements. We had some catching up to do anyway, and I believe we also spoke about religion and jazz music in a sort of whiskey haze.
Waking up on the Firmest Mattress in the Western Hemisphere the next morning with a scraping sensation in my throat, I resolved to make the most of my last day at CMJ. The big catch that night was at the Mercury Lounge, home of the Sub Pop/Hardly Art showcases. Buzzy band Dum Dum Girls were set to play at eight, and as they’ve recently begin playing as full band (with the addition of Austinite Babmi on bass), it was a must-see show. Thankfully, the Mercury Lounge was the antithesis of Friday’s cramped-ass venues. The venue was accommodating, well-attended but not packed, and the room sounded superb. The Dum Dum Girls really are on par with the best lo-fi rockers, and, in this writer’s opinion, put the wailing of WAVVVES to shame. The quartet’s performance featured fancy outfits and that ubiquitous reverb, but it was no cool kid’s fashion show. The songs were melodic, expertly crafted, and deftly exciting. Kristin Gundred, who fronts the band as Dee Dee, is not an amateur. She played with Grand Ole Party previously and knows how to write a song. The Dum Dum Girls compare favorably to Gundred’s old band, with sweet three-part harmonies smothered under husky guitar parts and primitive, thumping low end. The drums concentrated almost solely on the floor tom and snare, and Bambi's bass added melodic grounding to what could have been too much cacophony otherwise.
Hardly Art band The Moondoggies were up next with a surprisingly stellar set. Surprising, because the Seattle band has as of recently floated under the radar, and with such a terrible band name we should only have expected the worst. Instead, the roots-rocking quartet blew out the doors. Smartly tuneful without losing a ramshackle edge, the band split the difference between CCR and Pavement, featuring (again) three-part harmonies and the added benefit of some great organ parts. “Changing” was a high-point, with its layered vocals and unbridled riffage. Normal dudes clearly from the northwest (a wiseacre at one point yelled out, “More flannel!”), The Moondoggies let the music do the talking, and that was more than enough. Both of these bands should be hitting big in the next year.
From there, it was time to head to Zebulon in Williamsburg to cap off the evening and CMJ en masse. Featuring the slogan “No History...No Funding...No Cover,” the swanky but welcoming bar has both booths and tables for sitting and schmoozing, but also a fairly large stage area in back for performances. Sweltering with body heat and humidity, the space was a little gross with soggy warmth, but nothing a few trips outside and a quality beer couldn’t make bearable. Another quality group with a crappy name was on stage – No Eye Contact, who seem to have made Brooklyn their home at least one point in their wandering. A trio featuring multiple singers, songwriters, and a gaggle of fun instrumentation not limited to banjo, a pump organ, mandolin and more, the group was refreshingly jovial and unpretentious, spinning musical yarns that encompassed a variety of moods and textures. Nice Guy Rock, is that a thing? In as much as it compared to the underrated qualities of Guster circa Lost and Gone Forever, sure it is.
Finishing up the evening was Duke Amayo, a group centered around Amayo himself, a musician who also performs vocals with the afro-beat Antibalas. Entering the venue doing a dance with a Chinese lion headdress, Amayo took the stage amongst three percussionists, guitars, and musicians that included cello and flute (the latter played by my aforementioned friend, Domenica). The instrumentation and song lengths pointed toward more jammy, Fela Kuti-type territories, but the playing was full but not cramped, and always tasteful. Amayo’s organ and vocals were especially arresting, and the combined strengths of the bursts of flute and cello added extra melodic depth to the material. The songs tended to wander into the ten-minute mark, and one couldn’t help but wonder how the band would sound in a more accommodating venue – one that wasn’t cramped, hot as ass and where each instrument could get a proper sound check. But this is a band that makes often-improvisational, danceable music, so it fit Zebulon like a sweaty glove.
It was three when the band finished and packed up, and as my flight was at 6:00 a.m., I just stayed up all night and headed straight for the Newark airport. It was an exhausting, marathon ending to a long week in the self-referential town of New York. In the cab ride to the airport, Alicia Keys and Jay-Z rhapsodized about the town on “Empire State of Mind.” Keys was in the middle of singing the hook, “In New York/ Concrete jungle where dreams are made of/ there’s nothing you can can’t do” – when the cab driver shut her off and switched over to 38 Special imploring someone to “Hold On Loosely." It's important to know when enough is enough - bye bye New York, hello Austin.
