01:46 AM - CMJ recap - day 5
By Saturday I'd seen a lot of bands. My ears were tired, by body was tired, and I think my shoes had worn down quite a bit. But did that keep me in? No way. I wanted to make it up to the blogger panel to see Matthew and Maura discuss the power of all this newfangled internet business in music, but instead I opted to just go and see for myself how much clout a blogger can have - so it was off to the free Brooklynvegan show at the Annex. I'd been running into Danny from the Big Sleep at every other show over the past week and despite them playing about 5 or 6 shows an hour (or so) I hadn't gotten to see them yet so this was a last ditch effort to make up for that. Tokyo Police Club started their set shortly after we arrived at the Annex. From the balcony, behind all the Sidekickers, they didn't look or sound very exciting to me (despite being Canadian), so it didn't really make sense that everybody squished down below was so in love with them. MPS provides an accurate account of their set. When the little Canadian boys with the cardboard signs finished, the crowd left to get some food, smoke a cigaratte (that comes in mocha too!), or call their moms, and we took it as a cue to plant our feet front and center for one of the best bands in town. The Big Sleep are probably too loud for the Annex. There seemed to be some difficulty reigning all their noise into that smallish venue, but still the band played a great set full of songs from their French Kiss debut, Son of the Tiger and the crowd definitely appreciated it. It wasn't the best circumstances under which to take in their show, but it was much better than missing out on them entirely in the midst of all the music this week. There were a lot of possibilities for late afternoon shows Saturday but I held out for the later musical goodness. First was Via Audio at Pianos. I didn't expect this show to be as insanely packed as it was, so I didn't bother to get there early - but the back room of Pianos has a frustrating bottleneck effect, even when the room isn't full, which made it difficult to get a view of the band but eventually I managed to push my way through the crowd and secure a perfect spot right up front in the invisible gator pit between the band and the audience. They were very much on, maybe because of the large and enthusiastic crowd, but Jessica and the boys was charming the pants off the audience and I heard more than a couple overwhelmingly positive comments from apparent first-time audience members. Good job! I though it would be nice to end CMJ by actually sticking around for most of a show instead of just one or two bands, so I headed over to Arlene's Grocery, where the Theory 8 Records showcase was happening. Cities were on before the Tennessee kids took over but I missed them as I was catching up a bit with Mike and Scott. They looked good on the little tv screen though... Apollo Up were next and helped to bring the energy of the night up even more - they have a sort of rock 'n roll swagger that most heavy indie bands can't pull off, but I think it's the drummer who deserves the credit for setting them apart. Of course the fact that Jay is an amazing guitarist doesn't hurt. Check out this live WOXY lounge act session by Apollo Up. The transition to Forget Cassettes was quick but an obvious shift in the mood of the room happened (maybe it was just that Jack + PBR drink special finally kicking in) and suddenly Beth was looking out over a crowd of faces staring back with total attention. I wonder if most of the people in there were longtime fans like myself or if they'd happened to see them the other night at Pianos and been impressed - or perhaps they read the CMJ booklet description of Beth as a glamourpuss (what?) and somehow that made them want to check out the band - I suppose it's not totally off base though. While I'm thinking of it, who writes those CMJ blurbs? Some of them were more than a little misleading. By the time my head stopped spinning from Forget Cassettes' whirlwind set (and the Jack + PBR), I thought I'd fallen through a black hole and entered Oompah Loompah land. A crew of striped bathing outfit-clad people were setting up gear and proceeding to rock my face off. I knew that De Novo Dahl wore their cute/silly/ridiculous outfits for press photos but I didn't know they performed that way. I expected the music to be a little stranger than it was, but it was pretty straightforward, maybe a little glammy, but they sure know how to ham it up and put on a fun show. So that was it. The end of my CMJ experience this year. I went and had a pizza burger to top it off. I count 27 bands in 5 days that I actually watched (that's not counting ones I just happened to see for a minute or two or ones that I'm in). Not bad. Now let's see if I can double that next year...
The Carter Administration were the first band of the showcase. Last time I saw them was in Indianapolis, but they didn't do much for me then. Turns out it was just a bad show (the band apparently thinks it was the worst set they ever played, just my luck!) as they were much MUCH better this time. The guitarist reminds me of Ted Leo (both the way he looks and performs) but the key thing here is that the drummer does a lot of the singing - "like Phil Collins?" a friend asked, "yes, just like phil collins." Ok, maybe a little more like Dirty On Purpose, but much more rocking.
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