Across The Pond - New York's CMJ Festival: Part 1
Published
Subba-Cultcha is dedicated to discovering new music, so when our man in New York, Alexander Keblish, asked whether he could cover the music marathon that is CMJ we agreed it would be a superb idea.
My 2014 CMJ Music Marathon experience was about to begin! What is “CMJ”, you might ask? “CMJ” stands for “College Music Journal,” and for the past 34 years this publication has put on a music marathon / festival that’s geared towards showcasing indie rock talent that (generally) have yet to make it big.
In the five days of this music marathon, you can walk around various parts of Manhattan and Brooklyn and find bars with bands playing, beginning at 12 noon and continuing to the wee hours of the morning… any fan of indie rock would dig CMJ and it's often known as New York City’s version of Austin Texas’ South by Southwest.
-Tuesday, October 21, 2014
After picking up my press pass, I headed downtown to the Hotel on Rivington for the CMJ press party. After meeting some of the CMJ team there was talk of some of their plans for CMJ’s 35th anniversary next year in 2015. It was hard to believe the festival was as old as I was….
A question that persisted was; is a showcase of new up and coming talent trying to “make it” in a world that already has an overabundance of bands trying to “make it,” relevant in an age when social media and YouTube go hand-in-hand to promote such artists?
It’s one thing if it’s the 80’s and R.E.M. is playing a show at CMJ, as they did years ago. But if R.E.M. was an up and coming band in 2014, would their social media presence be enough to propel them to become a legendary band without the aid of a festival like CMJ? R.E.M. wasn’t joking when they sang “It’s the End of the World as We Know It” back in 1987; but I’m sure even they couldn’t predict how much the music industry would change in the 25+ years since that song came out.
This question of the relevancy of a music festival for indie and up-and-coming acts isn’t one that can really be answered – but it seems like the folks behind the CMJ Music Marathon “get” that social media is not mutually exclusive to their vision of promoting up and coming bands. Throughout the course of the festival I made good use of their CMJ 2014 App, which had all of the participating artists listed as well as a schedule of set times and locations of the venues… you could save and track any CMJ artist and keep tabs on where else they were performing in the course of the week’s festival.
But let’s face it - I wasn’t really there to answer such questions or fret about the future of the music industry – I was there to see as many bands as I possibly could.
I should probably mention how I would go about choosing the bands to check out. Since Brooklyn is awash with a near infinite supply of indie bands, I would not go out of my way to see a Brooklyn band that I could probably see in the near future. So any artist that traveled from afar would have priority. I would have to give bands credit for making the journey to NYC. Additionally, any artist that played a single set the entire marathon would also have priority.
So I left to walk a few blocks north to the Mercury Lounge on Houston Street to check out Tom Vek, a British indie rock act.
I had heard good things about Tom Vek and he was only playing one set at CMJ this year. I discovered that although the CMJ schedule had Tom Vek on at 7:30 PM, the set list posted at Mercury Lounge listed him to go on at 8 PM. Sigh. As good as CMJ is at scheduling bands at the 80+ venues they boast, one must have patience when dealing with set times.
I arrived for the second half of Olga Bell’s set. Bell, a blonde Scandinavian-looking songstress, performed her synthy songs solo while perched behind her keyboard. Bell had a capable voice and reminded me a bit of Bjork, but unfortunately, the crowd seemed indifferent to her sound. It struck me how much it must take for an artist to produce music that strikes a chord with an audience – in this case, Bell was met with stony gazes from the spectators who had likely arrived for Tom Vek to go on at 7:30.
Still, the crowd was kind to Bell and ready for Tom Vek.
At 7:53 PM, Tom Vek began his set a bit earlier than the 8 PM time posted, and he proved to be worth the wait. His bright indie rock featuring a fair amount of Vek speak-singing much of his lyrics with his somewhat nasally British-accented voice reminding me of early Weezer mixed with “Kid A”-era Radiohead, with Talking Heads thrown into the mix for good measure.
I dug Vek’s sound and thought he was a great start to the CMJ Marathon. He’s now based in Brooklyn and I knew I’d be seeing him in NYC again.
Vek himself even reminded me a bit of a British Rivers Cuomo and his vocals at times reminded me a bit of Damon Albarn. He referenced a song that was from 2005 – apparently Vek’s been around a while, and it was clear based on how receptive the crowd was that he had developed a following. That night he gained another fan.
Key tracks for me: “Pushing Your Luck”, “Aroused,” “C-C (You Set the Fire in Me)”
Vek’s set ended at 8:55 PM and I walked down to Pianos on Ludlow Street, still in the Lower East Side. Pianos is a popular bar that boasts a small stage area in the back and another space on the second floor for other acts to perform. They also provide what may be NYC’s strongest frozen margarita – a friend of mine jokes that they use gasoline to combine with the slushy mixture.
I popped into the back to check out Fort Lean, another Brooklyn-based band (so much for my “rules” with respect to seeing bands, I know!). I had been meaning to check out Fort Lean for a while now, although they were playing a bunch of shows at this year’s CMJ, their set immediately followed Vek’s and they were within walking distance, so I decided to give them a go.
9:22 PM - Fort Lean start their high-energy set and I’m immediately glad I’ve finally taken the time to check them out. They play bright, upbeat post-punk rock that sounded like the Strokes intersected with the Joy Formidable. I’m not even sure they played 30 minutes, but then again I was enjoying them too much to really worry about the time.
Key Tracks for me: “Beach Holiday”, “Cut to the Chase”
By that point I had met up with my friend John who had come from a few other CMJ shows and we cabbed it over the Williamsburg Bridge to Cameo Gallery in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. We entered Cameo Gallery’s back room area around 11:20 PM and caught the very end of a set by the band Mannequin Pussy. The punk band closed with a blistering punk cover of the ‘60’s classic from the Contours, “Do You Love Me.”
11 PM – The September Girls, an all-female outfit hailing from Ireland, began their set. They were why we came, having generated quite a bit of buzz and were playing numerous sets at CMJ this week – we were actually checking out their second set of the day.
Their fuzzy guitar-laden sound with dreamy vocals (they alternated lead vocals between at least three different girls) reminded me a bit of “Bleach”-era Nirvana mixed with The XX. Despite the fact that I like both Nirvana and The XX, I wasn’t overly impressed –the vocals were too low to be heard over the fuzzy guitars and all of the songs sounded the same to me. I felt like their music was well-suited to that goth kid in high school who only listened to gloomy, sullen music and contemplated death too much.
I left at 11:25 PM and headed to Brooklyn Night Bazaar, a large space that has all that a hipster can desire – a flea market filled with artisan goods, food trucks, mini golf, and a stage for indie rock bands. I came for DIIV (pronounced “dive”), another band I had heard good things about.
They went on at 11:46 PM and initially sounded to me like a cross between early ‘80’s U2 mixed with Daydream Nation-era Sonic Youth. They had echoey guitars but played with a jam band feel mixed with Animal Collective-style psychedelic rock.
Brooklyn Night Bazaar is a great concept, but unfortunately the acoustics of the venue leave much to be desired (it was my second time catching a show here), so I left before the end of their set at 12:44 AM early Wednesday morning.
It was a great start to the Marathon, but I was tired and ready for bed. There would be more music tomorrow and the days that followed – I would have to pace myself – it was a marathon, after all…
To read part 2 of Alexander's review click here.
Words & pictures by Alexander Keblish
