WUML CMJ Day 5

Saturday's pretty slow, as there are no panels. After getting some pizza and smashing through happy hour at Iggy's we headed out to the last of the showcases, most of which were 21+. The Motorcycle Industry played early in the night. John and MichaelWiessthePrideofConn killed it...and probably played the best out of their whole bill.

The Sub Pop party was stocked and lasted until 2:30AM. We got their just as Pissed Jeans was finishing up. Tom liked the pit...we both liked the pigfuck. Finally...a band that harnesses the intensity of Jesus Lizard and the heaviest, drivingest drums; as if Steve Albini himself was running the soundboard.

Obits...whom are signed to Sub Pop put on a decent show. They seemed like a watered down Replacements or Husker Du, but never broke out of playing bar rock. Thier music seemed to sound the same and guitarist usually took a solo. However, as a perfect ender for CMJ we got to see Male Bonding. The trio out of Dalston England took the stage, far from the moldy speakers of the Silent Barn and asked "reverb...lots of reverb." Then they blasted into a non-stop string of songs with fluid basslines, screechy guitar, and frantic drumming. As I said earlier watch out for these guys. This intense alt-rock-twee pop-surf drive by is to beautiful to pass up...and you better not blink. Here's a video of them from '08.

WUML CMJ Day 4

Day of rest thanks to beer. I found a real bed at the GilroyMigs place...it belonged Gilroy.

Late night Hercules and Love Affair show at the Fillmore in Irving Plaza was fucking amazing. The duo Aeroplane and James Zabiela with Shinichi Osawa opened for the show. The lights were pretty sub-par up until the disco-DFA squad took the stage.

Andy Butler was joined by Kim Ann Foxman (above) and two other singers and three dancers. Helping Butler bump the jams, which were bass-heavy adaptations of much of their debut album, was Mark Pistel. As soon as Butler and Pistel got on stage, showered in red light, they began bumping True/False Fake/Real - enter singers and dancers and the crowd went nuts. Butler's new work is going to be awesome, I Can't Wait, which was featured on Sidetracked, has some electro infused with high pitch steel drum, and they closed with some incredible dance anthem...which I guess has to remain nameless. Other highlights included a Blind remix, a loud rendition of Raise Me Up and skewed live horn sounds of Athene.

WUML CMJ Day 3

Songs of Solid Songwriting Cities was as confusing as it is to say with all that alliteration. Hoping for a biopic on metropolitan hotbeds for scenes, but it took a turn for the passion of songwriting. The host Tony Fletcher, who recently finished a book on scenes in NYC, led the panel. Everyone's back story was interesting, but perhaps the most intriguing was Anna Wayland who's been to music school and lived in Cuba for a while before later picking up a songwriting career. She now has the likes of John Legend under her belt and took to passionately discussing the important essence of songwriting. Wes Hutchinson, Jeff Cohen, and Leo Mellace were also there, discussing their running of the music industry gauntlet.

The DFA show case at the Brooklyn Bowl was epic. Dance wunderkinds James Murphy and Pat Mahoney mixed disco and house to hundreds of raving lunatics. Words can't really describe when these two get up and start going. From there it was over to the Saddle Creek showcase at the Knitting Factory.

Old. Fucking. Canes. New album on Saddle Creek is good, but they played their old shit. Chris, who belted out One Day, Taxi on Vermont, and Face it, all from Early Morning Hymns, was a nice guy who came down into the crowd after the set in real Kansas ethos. Old Canes is made up of guys from the Appleseed Cast, Casket Lottery, and Minus Story. Because they record with 8 track tapes, for the most part in basements, the live show translation is perfect. The Canes can certainly rock, croon, and demonstrate their vast talent on a lot of damn instruments. Finally we headed to Don Pedros for some more scum-fuck rock from Smith Westerns and The Beets. Captured Tracks, a sort of cute little Sup-Pop, is coming in hot.

WUML CMJ Day 2

Slept on a hardwood floor for the first night but woke up feeling a little more comfortable with the subway and sans hangover. The first panel of the week I went to was on Miles Davis. Miles' son Erin, one of later drummers Vincent Wilburn, journalist Ashley Kahn, Wax Poetics Editor Andre Torres, DJ Logic, and Q-Tip 'rapped' about what was perhaps Americas most pivotal year 1959.

Many things were invented, turning points in history faced, and jazz music reached a Milestone. Now at the 50th anniversary of Miles' groundbreakingly solemn Kind of Blue and his technical masterpiece Sketches of Spain, the panel took many different looks at it. They discussed Miles' attidtude on and off the stage, DJ Logic conjured up feelings of dancing with girls and drinking wine in Spain, how Miles' work influenced the work of east coast hip-hop, and the album's concept of the anti-single. Kind of Blue is one of the first cohesive albums, and since the late 50s music as a whole has turned to not just concept albums, but cohesive albums which maintain a sound. When asked to choose a favorite cut, Erin Davis had trouble remembering the name Freddie Freeloader, perfering to choose "Kind of Blue" as his favorite cut, because he prefers to listen to it as an entire experience. This was the general consensus about Sketches of Spain.

The Silent Barn rules. Its a perfect venue for whatever you call this new brand of regular, slacker rock. Scum-fuck music seems to be everywhere at the festival. it purely for partying, shitty speakers, and dark smelly spaces. Borrowing equally from Beat Happening, the Misfits, and Pavement, these guys put on a great show. Uzi Rash "took the stage" first, and played two songs which combined Pere Ubu with JAMC drumming while doning dinosaur masks. German Measles sounded like incredibly heavy, perfectly off-kilter. Happy Birthday, who headlined are supposedly signed to Sub Pop, but they sounded a little too refined for the show.

Please watch out for Male Bonding because they are the best. Hailing from England, they should come with a surgeon general's warning for insane house parties...or perhaps something less lame.

WUML CMJ Day 1

Fung Wah to NYC. After swarming the South end of Washington Square like some many other children, we settled in for the day. Ate lunch in Soho at a yuppie market called Jubilee and took in the scum, sounds and fashion of the area.

The Leonard Cohen Isle of Wight 1970 primere was rather well attended. Director Murray Lerner and Judy Collins were in attendance, both who were at the historic concert. Cohen presents an interesting contrast to Hendrix here, who incited a stage fire and trampling of sheet metal fences. The documentary meshed the performance perfectly with interviews from Collins, Kris Kristofferson, Joan Baez, and others who were at the show. Cohen's short set began at 4:00 AM as he crooned in his dark, prophetic voice to the unruly crowd, seeming to calm them to sleep. Such intimate shots of Cohen allow us to see his switching from comedic quips about sleeping with multiple girls or holding up matches and the circus to a philosophical one-liner which makes you ponder for an instant before he goes into a song. He was accompanied by a small group of electric guitar, banjo, violin, organ, and his usual two back-up girls adding a eerie hum to the background.

Opening with Bird on a Wire, Suzanne and Chelsea Hotel were soon to follow in his encore, for which the crowd was screaming. His high points include Sing Another Song Boys and Seems So Long Ago Nancy was very well done, in remembrance of her suicide, and perhaps his the highlight of the set. Even the likes of The Who, ELP, Miles Davis, Mungo Jerry, Donovan, Jethro Tull and the Moody Blues couldn't top Leonard Cohen.

Day Two soon.