So, you may be asking yourselves: what the hell is CMJ? Well it’s probably a fair question. And much like SXSW in Austin, Texas, it’s the sort of event that needs to be experienced to be fully understood – but let’s see what I can describe to you here. CMJ (or “College Music Journal”) is a music and film conference and festival which takes over New York City (both Manhattan and Brooklyn) for five days every October. With 1300+ bands at more then 80 venues, you better believe this is a jam packed week, one that has left yours truly pretty damn exhausted by all counts.
For most punters, days kick off at NYU, where the “conference” part of the festival is held. Here, a variety of panels are held, alongside mentoring sessions, opportunities for meet and greets with industry professionals, acoustic performances and much more. The day would continue as you made your way to a variety of day parties around the city, before settling in to a venue (or four) over the course of the evening – which generally took you to about 3am… at least. Wash, rinse, repeat and then start all over again the next day.
While most days run like clockwork, things generally fall apart a bit by the evening. With schedules at venues falling behind (sometime by hours) and the most popular of events filing up so quickly, you often miss most of the acts you had prioritized to catch while you were in town. And having a “Press” badge seems to mean very little when it comes to being able to get into the venues you want to cover… so if you’re wondering why many of the headlining acts are missed in our coverage it’s because we were unable to get into them – but more on that later.
What we caught in place of these artists, however, were a potpourri of talent from around the world, all keen to show themselves off to an international audience, and in particular the College Radio bookers for whom this festival was originally focused. The bands who come to CMJ are there with two goals in mind: immediate exposure and press, and long term relationships formed with college radio stations in the USA. Because from that comes the possibility of touring the lucrative national college scene – often the break a young band is looking for, not to mention a hell of a lot of fun.
So it comes with little surprise that some 22+ Australian artists made their way over to the festival, many of whom we caught up with over the course of the festival, and over the next couple of weeks you’ll be enjoying our retrospective CMJ diaries alongside dozens of interviews undertaken. And where better to start this coverage than on the first day of the festival, October 18th.
DAY ONE: October 18th
Grabbing my badge from the Judson Church and my tote bag from the Kimmel Center, I immediately headed along to meet with a variety of industry types at one of Sounds Australia’s “Tim Tam Slams” – which bring Aussies together with people from around the world in a variety of round table discussions, with some kindly donated Tim Tams to enjoy along the way! As I only made it to one panel the entire week at the festival, these sessions gave me the opportunity to have a bit of one-on-one time with the people who are making the decisions in the international music industry. As such, this was a fantastic endeavour by the Sounds Australia crew, and a great way to kick off my 2011 CMJ.
But onto the music, as that’s what this coverage is all about. My first stop was Le Poisson Rouge for the New Zealand Party. Spending most of the event backstage interviewing the artists on the bill, enjoying pies courtesy of Dub and a few drinks thanks to 42 Below, I was only able to catch two of the artists at the event – but having not heard of them before, they were both a great way to kick off the music portion of the festival.
First up was Princess Chelsea, a solo artist performing tonight in full band mode, which sounded far too tight to be a one off event (indeed, she has been performing with Jonathan Brunette, Pikachunes, Bradley Artesque and Gay Kings Queen live for quite some time). Armed with a variety of instruments, including (and perhaps most importantly) a well deserved amount of focus on the xylophone, Princess Chelsea and her band created a unique soundscape well received by the CMJ crowd. A cover of “I Could Never Be Your Woman” by White Town went down particularly well, as the xylophone focus made it more of an interpretation than a pure cover, achieved with skill, class and precision.
Princess Chelsea is an artist clearly devoted to her craft, and she goes about it in an exciting way. I look forward to hearing more from the New Zealand native. Andrew Keoghan followed and was a similar delight – though his music was of quite a different vibe. Keoghan very much reminded me of Andrew Bird or Owen Pallet – the sort of solo artist who likes doing everything themselves, even when a band may supporting. Looped guitars, violins… whatever it may be. I only caught a few tracks but they were spellbinding. He may have been making music for a while now, but he remains an artist to place firmly in the “one to watch” category.
I jetted over next to the highly anticipated launch of renowned photographer Tony Mott’s New York City exclusive exhibition, featuring wonderful performances from Cameras and Guineafowl. Both bands shined on the night, with the Red Bull sponsored venue hosting wonderful sound. The sets remained consistent with what they played back in LA at Culture Collide, so have a peak back to that coverage to learn more. Tony got up and told a few stories in between the acts, and this is always an entertaining thing to witness – not to mention the quality of the photos themselves! Head along to check out the gallery if you remain in New York and haven’t already. It remains open for another week or so!
I managed also to wander over to the Cake Shop to catch the last two songs from The Grates. Playing in a room with a capacity of around 150, reminiscent of Club 77 in Sydney, the venue saw the band playing virtually level with the crowd, meaning I couldn’t see much of what was going on, but the packed out room was grooving along to every song, making it a tasty and intimate experience. Patience and John, supported by a drummer, were in fine form, and in spite of the loss of Alana in the interim, it reminded me of some of their early gigs in venues just like it back in Australia. You just can’t fault Patience for her enthusiasm, it’s been undying since her very first performances – and spending much of the set I saw amongst the crowd, it was no exception tonight.
DAY TWO: October 19th
Kicking off a rainy and cold second day at the festival, we went along to meet with Bleeding Knees Club in Williamsburgh, near where they recorded their latest tunes. You’ll be able to check out that interview in the coming days. The commitments continued in what was a fairly miserable day in the fine city – wind and rain bucketed down as we made tracks to the CMJ Press Mixer, where I had the pleasure of meeting fellow music journalists from around the world, alongside the sort of industry types who have the power to get you into gigs and events you mightn’t otherwise have had access to. And this was just how it happened that I made it into OFWGKTA (aka Odd Future), which was in fact the only major ticketed event I made it into the whole festival.
Starting quite later than advertised, the sold out crowd brought venue Terminal 5 into a state of insanity – watching from the second level I was witness to a crazed crowd, who were there to do one thing: lose their shit and say “swag”, often. And this they did. The members of Odd Future themselves weren’t far removed, jumping into the crazed crowd (often from quite worrying heights) and worshiped like Gods.
Syd Tha Kid came on to pump up the crowd first, before Mellowhype emerged for “69”. The double wham of “Orange Juice” and “Yonkers” saw the crowd at their most insane, chanting along (impressively well) to both tracks.
Though Tyler seemed to suggest they were getting a bit sick of performing the latter track, he performed it with the same sort of theatrics that turned everyone onto the group in the first place, and no one would have complained. Unfortunately I had to head off after that, leaving behind Domo Genesis, Mellowhype, Tyler The Creator, Hodgy Beats and Syd Tha Kid to finish off a killer set to a crowd who helped take the show to another level. That sort of energy simply doesn’t come along every day! The full setlist, as far as I’m aware, is below.
Setlist: 64, Transylvania, Rolling Papers, Tron Cat, Timeless, Tina, Bastard (Partial), igotagun, French!, Analog, Seven, Orange Juice, Yonkers, Bitch Suck Dick, Sandwitches, Fuck The Police – Encore: Radicals, Earl (Outro)
My second night of CMJ ended with a killer party at a venue called Klimat Bar, on the lower East Side, which just so happened to be put on by the AU review! Yes indeed, for the first night of Sounds Australia’s impromptu bar “Jetlag”, the AU review was given the task to fill the room with DJs and people, and we did just that. I opened up the night, and was followed by Greenie (Vice), Jon Owen (Cameras) and Miss Heart (Sub Pop). Though I left around 3am, apparently things kicked on until 630am. Not a bad effort. Thanks to all those who DJ’d and partied until the wee hours of the morning. It was quite entertaining to share hangovers with you all at the College Day festivities the next morning. Unfortunately our photographer didn’t make it along but I did take this happy snap of Jon DJing… so I’ll leave you with that!
