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.