With less psychedelic drugs than Bonnaroo and less, uh, Red Hot Chili Peppers than Lollapalooza, the College Music Journal's Music Marathon isn't the first music festival that comes to mind when musing on the topic.
Half college radio conference and half industry schmoozefest, CMJ brought thousands of fans to New York City last week for performances by The Knife, The Shins, The Slits, Girl Talk and more. AU's own student radio station WVAU sent up a handful of its disc jockeys and staff to check out the scene.
On the surface, the most difficult thing about CMJ is making choices. How do you choose between a rare show from punk godmothers The Slits and the first U.S. show for Swedish electro-duo The Knife? Or Deerhoof and The Decemberists?
As it turns out a lot of these decisions don't take much consideration. Despite being a college radio festival, many of the A-list performers played at 21+ venues, shutting out a majority of concertgoers. This became so frustrating that the underage folks from WVAU said they considered making a trip down to Chinatown to pick up fake I.D.s, just to get into the shows.
But the all-ages venues did offer up some amazing acts. On Tuesday night, the Tokyo guitar-and-drums duo Metalchicks played their first U.S. date to a small but appreciative crowd at the Knitting Factory. The female pair pumped out dirty riffs and distorted vocals over thick, precise drums, crafting a sound that was undeniably both metal and their own.
Uptown at Lincoln Center, the festival headquarters, a day stage hosted NYC's O'Death on Wednesday. With banjo and fiddle, these mountain punks rocked their way through a half-hour set of raspy, driving folk. Think D.I.Y. bluegrass. Philadelphia's Dr. Dog took the stage next, blending psychedelic and indie rock. The group enlisted two members of Architecture in Helsinki to play drums halfway through the set.
That night an anxious crowd awaited a late performance from The Knife at Webster Hall. An especially excited (or wasted) concertgoer overheard in the crowd assured anyone who would listen that the concert would be like seeing Pink Floyd in 1969, times 12. He wasn't wrong.
Sandwiched between two mesh projection screens, the two members of The Knife played an hour-long set assisted by an audio-visual light show. Images of geometric shapes and trains served as the only illumination on the stage, besides the glowing orange masks that the duo wore. They played a three-song encore before the sold-out show degenerated into a dance hall.
Moon and Moon played a Thursday night show at the Knitting Factory Tap Bar. Vocalist and sometimes trumpeter Will Lemon, with his unkempt hair and tribal facial tattoos, gives the art-rock ensemble the feel of a homeless Polyphonic Spree. Reverb vocals bounced around over the raucous sounds of three drummers, three keyboardists and the finger cymbals of the group's two belly dancers.
Upstairs, Pennsylvania-based band An Albatross shattered expectations as they air-humped their way through a sweaty set of psychedelic art-school grind. With an extended ensemble of performers, including an unexpected horn section, the group played such enigmatic hits as "I am the Lazer Viking" and "The Revolutionary Politics of Dance." Frontman and self-described "psychedelevangelist" Eddie B. Gieda III kept the crowd energized for the headliners, heavy-metal forefathers Blue Cheer.
Hyper-literary folk rockers The Decemberists played an afternoon show at the Apple Store in SoHo on Friday. Despite being on tour to promote their latest album, "The Crane Wife," vocalist Colin Meloy piloted the group through a number of old favorites instead of playing all new material during the unfortunately short set. The slowed tempos of "July, July," "O Valencia" and "Song for Myla Goldberg" worked well in the theatre-style space.
That night at Irving Plaza, the infectious pop of the Pacific Northwest's Shapes and Sizes and Elephant 6 members Apples in Stereo set the stage for two of the week's best performances, including K Records darling The Blow. It is the kind of music that is so infectiously adorable that, when paired with The Blow's Kaehla Maricich's banter-laden performance, has the audience plastered with jittery smiles and nervous laughter. Maricich sings over minimal electronic beats and cleverly breaks the fourth wall of her songs to interact with the audience. By the end of her set, Maricich was referring to the crowd as, collectively, a giant polar bear with whom she was in love.
Headliners Architecture in Helsinki delighted the audience with hits from 2005's "In Case We Die," but also played lots of material from a forthcoming album. Judging from the new songs, the Australian multi-instrumentalists have honed their eclectic sound even more and the upcoming release is worth picking up.
Dutch-American four piece Das Oath played a blistering set on Saturday afternoon at Rebel, after openers Yip-Yip and Chinese Stars had gotten the crowd moving. Oath played their crushing hardcore anthems on the floor of the club, encouraging the audience to crowd around them. Vocalist Mark McCoy, a giant of a man with a look somewhere in between disgust and horror, would sporadically plow his way through the crowd. McCoy didn't say one word to the audience the entire set, and the show ended with little to do.
This is just a sample of the bands that performed at this year's CMJ Music Marathon. For more information on the festival and band biographies, check out www.cmj.com.
