This week has been lots of craziness as the 2009 CMJ Music Marathon has descended upon New York City! This year seems to be mostly about finding new bands and talent, since I haven’t heard of a majority of the bands that are playing this year. While it makes enthusiasm ahead of time a little low because you never know what you’re going to get with any new band, it makes new discoveries that much better when you see an act that put on a good show and has some good tunes that make you dance around!
Let’s start with Tuesday. I had to cover a showcase at the Cake Shop, and while I wrote down little snippets about each band I saw, the only band that really impressed me was the Hospital Bombers, who were much poppier than the other bands that played after. They are definitely a soundtrack to a breezy summer day laying out in a field somewhere, and I like the occasional female vocals and the violin is a cute touch as well.
Hospital Bombers @ Cake Shop
I also saw Surf City and Male Bonding later that night at Cake Shop who were both good and I did enjoy them as well, but perhaps I’d enjoy their recorded stuff more than seeing them live (without knowing their music ahead of time, anyway).
Andrew WK @ NYU Kimmel Center
On Wednesday I went to see CMJ’s keynote speaker, Andrew WK! You already know that I love Andrew WK, so of course I was going to be at his panel! He gave a brief introduction and then pretty much opened the floor to questions for anyone to ask. He still dispelled his AWK wisdom, which is to believe in yourself and do what makes you happy, something I try to live by as well! It’s always nice to hear some reinforcing positive messages when it comes to things like that. But there were definitely parts of his talk that were funny as well. You never know what you’re going to get when Andrew WK gives a talk!
Bang Bang Eche @ Studio at Webster Hall
Later that night I saw another lineup of bands, but none impressed me until Bang Bang Eche. They’re roughly about 17 years old from New Zealand, and what caught my eye first was how energetic they (especially the lead singer) are. From the bands I saw earlier that night and the night before, none of them really rocked out when appropriate. This kid was all over the stage and jumped into the audience! Their music seems pretty complex for kids of their age, so I think that adds to the appeal, plus it’s just plain good and gets you up and dancing! I’ll definitely be looking for some music by these guys.
Bodega Girls @ Crash Mansion
Moving on to Thursday where I first saw Boston’s Bodega Girls after work. Note: there is only one girl in the band, and she doesn’t do much but try to dance sexily (is that a word?) onstage. Anyway, my friend Leila had seen them the night before and liked them, and it turned out that I shared her enthusiasm! Their first song, possibly titled “I Won’t Write You A Love Song”, was super catchy and dancey and it made me think I had heard it around somewhere before. I ended up dancing through the rest of their set, and I am excited to hear more from them!!
pow wow @ Cake Shop
I was able to quickly catch a few songs of the band pow wow. I don’t know anything about them, I just thought the description of them in the CMJ booklet sounded like something I’d like, and I saw that they only seemed to be playing this one show all week. I’m glad I was able to see even the three songs I did, because I loved their cute poppy sound, and it had all the girls dancing adorably in the venue. Might I mention that everyone in the band was adorable, including the girl guitarist who wore heels and a nice classy dress, and I kinda wanted to be her! I need to find out more information on them and get some music ASAP!
Hockey @ Mercury Lounge
Finally, my night ended at Mercury Lounge where I got to see probably one of the bigger buzzed bands at CMJ at this year, Hockey. I have their album and generally enjoy it, but live they sound much much better! Plus it’s also an automatic dance party! Everyone there seemed to be super into their set and it got pretty sweaty by the end of their set. Lots of energy plus catchy songs equals a great set! I wouldn’t mind seeing them play again, and perhaps with a longer set next time.
So those were the highlights of the past three days for me. Stay tuned for CMJ 2009 – Part Deux!
I can finally think about SXSW last week without feeling exhausted! Below is just a fraction of the bands I saw. The week is such a blur that I’m already forgetting all the bands that I saw, both good AND bad! But I tried to provide links, pictures and video of all the bands I saw so it’s almost like you were there with me (except you were probably much less drunk ;)! This is a long one, so beware!
I actually arrived in Austin the Monday before the the music part of SXSW started. That was cool because I was able to go out and see my friend Marko DJ for a little bit, and also where I met a couple people I’d hang out with for the rest of the week! We danced to his set and then made our way to a few other places throughout the night to get our groove on which was a lot of fun and we ended up being out until 4am (note: bars in Austin close at 2am, I forgot that seems to be the norm outside of NYC) drinking free beers at the PureVolume House! And there was a group of guys dancing who were basically having a dance-off and they were AMAZING to watch. I wish I had half of their skills!
White Denim
On Tuesday night I saw White Denim at Ms. Bea’s. I had only heard of them, though figured that since they were playing a Todd P event that they were probably going to be good, and they were great! Their music sounds a lot different on their site than it did live (I’m hoping this is the right White Denim that I linked to!), but I really like both! Live it was much more jangly garage rock, and had I had any friends there I probably would’ve been in the back spasm dancing along! Then I spent the rest of the night at Red 7 where I saw Mike from MXPX’s new “alt-country” band which was cute and upbeat, then saw my friend play in Death in the Park, which is the singer from Hot Rod Circuit’s new band. I stayed a little longer to see a Minor Threat cover band with members of Gallows and Rise Against taking turns singing songs. While I’m definitely not that punk, it was still interesting to watch people (and the singer from Gallows) go crazy during the songs.
Yelle
Wednesday was finally the first official day of music at SXSW and I started it off (I think) by seeing Natalie Portman’s Shaved Head at Maggie Mae’s. I had heard about this band for a while but didn’t really know what they sounded like, and they turned out to be really fun upbeat dance funness! I really enjoyed their set and was bummed I wasn’t able to catch them again during the week. They have pretty random songs like “Sophisticated Side Ponytail” and “Iceage Babeland,” but these songs make me dance, not think, so it’s okay!
Right after NPSH, Yelle was up next! I’ve loved Yelle for a while and was finally able to see her this past September in Boston, and since she is from France I took this opportunity to dance my boots off, even though it was still quite early in the day. I think I started a dance party up in the front, and I even introduced Yelle to my friend who hadn’t heard of her before and ended up loving her once it was over. I ended up seeing her close out the Perez Hilton party at the end of the week too and didn’t spare any dancing there either!
After Yelle we high-tailed it over to the next venue to try and catch Superdrag, but unfortunately they ended up being late and had to cancel their show, and I wasn’t able to see them the rest of the week either which was sad. But that left me time to go over and see The Thermals! I’ve seen them a couple of times since CMJ in 2006, but they still put on a good show and it’s so fun to sing along to their songs live. The new songs also sounded really good and I’ve been enjoying their new album on Kill Rock Stars.
The Thermals
Thursday was a bit of a slower day. My friend Mai and I ended up getting into this VIP party where they had free food off of a fixed menu and free breakfast drinks, so I overindulged and had a HUGE burger and 4 bloody marys. I mean, when the bartender asks if I want a free refill on my bloody mary, how can I say no?! So that slowed me down in the morning for seeing bands that seemed to be on the opposite side of Austin from where I was. But I ended up over at Stubb’s for the Spin party where I caught the end of Passion Pit, and was very excited to see Justin from the Darkness’ new band called Hot Leg and they didn’t disappoint! They weren’t quite as over the top as The Darkness was, but Justin still rocked the black studded leather jumpsuit unzipped to the belt as seen below:
Hot Leg
I was not expecting, but secretly hoping that they might play I Believe In A Thing Called Love, but luckily they didn’t, because if they had I would have exploded. I rock that jam at karaoke quite often, and wouldn’t have been able to resist jumping over the front barricade and trying to claw my way onstage to sing with Justin. So yes, it was good for all of us they didn’t play it! Moving on… I spent some time at the Fader Fort and saw Late of the Pier who I thought were kinda meh, and I also saw Tricky who was good, but a little too mellow for my mood at the time. I eventually ended up going to Austin Ballet to catch Ninjasonix, The Death Set, and Monotonix (who I wrote about earlier). I don’t really need to explain much more about that one, but if you still need clarification, it was definitely the best show I saw all week.
The Matches playing on the street
Friday morning I went to the Village Voice party where I was able to get my free food intake for the day and listened to Bear Hands who I thought were pretty good. I need to check out more of their stuff myself. A little while after that I was FINALLY able to catch King Khan & the Shrines after at least 3 or 4 failed attempts! They have a girl who just dances onstage. How do I get that job? Life goal: be in a band where my job is to DANCE!!! So awesome.
Then I went to see the new supergroup Tinted Windows (with Taylor Hanson, James Iha, Bun E. Carlos, etc). I was talking with a few people there about them and I didn’t think they were anything great, but for a power pop band they aren’t too bad (though I’m personally not a huge fan of Taylor’s voice). Check out a video I took of them covering The Buzzcocks’ “I Don’t Mind”
Then later that night I ended up at the Red Bull Moontower party. I had to sit through some terribly boring bands, and then The Von Bondies played, I didn’t realize they haven’t had a new album since Pawn Shop Heart, so they played a lot of material from that, along with some new stuff. I’m excited to hear a new album from them! Been listening to them a lot recently. While there I also abused the free photobooth privledge while waiting for friends to show up, haha.
The Von Bondies
Saturday was a good day, we had another free burger and drinks, I ran into Bryan and we checked out Flatstock. I tried to get into the Rachel Ray party since there was a pretty good lineup for the show all day but wasn’t able to make it in. I was, however, able to watch Alex from Ima Robot’s new band Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros through the open window at Maggie Mae’s. Their sound wasn’t what I expected from him, it was much more similar to Broken Social Scene (especially with so many people onstage). But they were fun and I need to listen to their songs a little more on their MySpace.
After that I didn’t have much else scheduled so I just hung out at the Fader Fort for a while, drinking free beers and talking to some people around me. Diplo DJed for a while since Rick Ross didn’t show up and his set was really good. And finally Kanye West took the stage. He put on a good show and performed for almost an hour and a half, however he only played two singles, and they were the last two songs that he played. After about 45 minutes I was getting quite bored with all the music that I didn’t know and had he thrown in a single here and there I think I would have enjoyed the set much more. Check out a video of Heartless below:
After that I jumped in a cab to head over to the Perez Hilton party, which was apparently quite exclusive (and I’m still not sure how I managed to get into that one!). It took place in an old Safeway building which was pretty cool. I think I got there when Solange was playing, and didn’t really care to see any of the bands playing that night (I had already seen Little Boots earlier in the week, she’s too pop for my taste) except for Yelle again. A little while later my friends and I staked a spot on top of a swingset they had set up in the back, and Perez came out and announced that Kanye West was a surprise guest. By this time I had consumed more free alcoholic beverages, so I was much more excited when Kanye came out this time. I believe he played 5 songs, and at least this time he played Stronger along with the two singles from his new album. Check out Heartless from the Perez party:
After Yelle played around 3am we went home to finally sleep in for a little bit!
Sunday we took it easy and met up with Mai’s friends in Hymns as they took some photos and filmed for a music video. Then we ended up at an art space / free BBQ where the So So Glos played. I’m glad I saw them because they were really fun. We totally made their set a thousand times better by bringing in the strobe light that was going on in an empty room into the room where the band played. So much better!
The Perez Hilton party in between acts
Then we ended up eating a late dinner at Maudie’s Tex-Mex which was filled with people, including all of Hot Leg! I wanted to say something to Justin but never found the right time, and then before I knew it they had left already. Totally missed out on my chance, I’m still regretting not saying anything sooner, haha. Ohh well, I’ll get over it.
And I believe THAT was the last thing relating to SXSW that I did while in Austin! Phew!! I’ve got an update coming about what I did my last day in Austin though, which has nothing to do with music at all! But they were still some very good times.
So thanks for reading this if you did, I know it’s excessively long. If you were at SXSW did you see any of these bands too? What did you think? What were some bands I missed that I should have seen? Let me know in the comments!
Oh and don’t forget to check out a few more of my photos from SXSW over at my Flickr set!
It’s the last day of SXSW! Obviously I have much to update on but definitely no time for that right now. So I will give you a preview of two videos that I did not take of Monotonix from Tel Aviv, Israel, who I saw Thursday night (or should I say Friday morning) starting at 2:45am. The show was at Ballet Austin and inside it was the sweatiest thing you can imagine, you can even see the windows all fogged up. The show eventually got shut down by the cops, but it was still a great time while it lasted. These videos can explain way more than I can in words, but still doesn’t capture the essence of being there::
Awesome, right?
I also recorded a quick voice recap yesterday morning that you can listen to by clicking here and it will stream.
Rad! I will definitely catch everyone up more in depth but for now I gotta run!
As I’m writing this, I’m on a flight down to Austin, Texas for the annual South By Southwest (SXSW) music festival! I went for the first time last year through my college’s radio station and it was so much fun, and I’m excited to be going again this year! Last year I had a badge which allowed me access to all the official showcases and panels, though unfortunately I don’t have one this year. But what’s great about SXSW is there are so many “unofficial” parties during the day and at night that you don’t even need a badge or wristband to have a great time and see all the bands! I’m also staying with my friend Mai which will be a lot of fun too! So be prepared for my good time updates coming from Austin this week!
(Side note – Eugene Mirman was sitting in the row diagonally across from me on the plane! As I was leaving after picking up my bag I told him that I love Delocated! Haha. He was really nice and I’ll probably see him hosting or performing this week!)
If you’re a music fan at all, I suggest that you check out the unofficial SXSW Artist Torrent that has one song by just about all the artists playing at SXSW this year. I downloaded the first two torrents that has just over 1,000 songs total. I wish I had started listening to it sooner than just a few days before leaving because just getting through the first few letters of the alphabet I’ve found some good songs. I would also suggest anyone who makes mix tapes to download this torrent, as I’m sure you can find a few great songs that would fit any theme, and make you seem like a musical genius.
Speaking of mix tapes, I attended the Sound Fix Tape Exchange for the second time last month (anyone in NYC they’re on the first Sunday of the month, now at Coco66 in Greenpoint. They used to be held at the Sound Fix bar, hence the name, RIP). It’s really a lot of fun, and I recommend anyone in the area to check it out. There’s a theme each month and it’s pretty general so you can go about it however you want. Last month’s theme was Television, and I thought I came up with a pretty good mix. You can check out the tracklist here. I tried to use mainly artists who host TV shows which I thought was pretty clever, however I forgot to add a song by Black Sabbath and/or Kelly Osbourne and Xzhibit. Are there any other artists I forgot that host(ed) a TV show? And if you don’t know why I included a song, feel free to ask in the comments and I will more than gladly show off my nerdiness elaborate. This month’s theme is “Songs from other countries.” I seem to have a lot of songs in French and Japanese, so I may try and do a mix of those two. Or I can just indulge my inner anglophile and make a Britpop mix, but that’s too easy!
I’m going to see if I can add some voice posts on here to be able to update y’all a little more in real time, since I don’t think I’ll be able to really sit down at a computer until next week. So keep an eye out for those!
Last week I saw the Japanese band Peelander-Z for the first time at a private party. I’ve had multiple opportunities to have seen them live before, but last week was the first time I actually did. Now I am KICKING myself for not having seen them every chance I’ve had. They were SO much fun. I didn’t know any of their music going into it, all I knew was that it was punk, which it was. But their songs are super fun as well, and easy to yell along to. Songs like Mad Tiger, S.T.E.A.K. and Karaoke Party have easy repeating choruses that they encourage you to chant along with. And if you aren’t sure what you’re supposed to be saying, they have signs to go along with some of their songs!
They run into the audience a lot which is always fun. At one point they had a huge rope and had some people limbo under it and others jump rope. Later, Peelander Red jumped on top of the bar, and the bartender just kept pouring drinks like nothing was happening (and it was a pretty small bar area too!). They even had a bowling pin costume and set up 10 pins and Peelander Yellow (as the huge bowling pin) ran and slid into the bowling pins! Ridiculous and fun!
They also bring people onstage to play their instruments while they jump into the crowd for the human bowling, so I volunteered to play bass and it was awesome! Did I mention that I went to this show alone? Haha. Thanks so much to the dude who I handed my camera to for taking pictures!
Definitely check out Peelander-Z next time they come through your town! Even if you don’t know their music going into it (like I did) you will still have a good time guaranteed. Click here for more of my photos from the show!
Over the past four days I have gone to five shows in a row! Keeping in mind that they would all be a good time, I made an effort to try and give you some visual aids to help you feel like you were there. Let me know if you dig ‘em, and if so I will continue to try and take some A/V samples for y’all. Let me tell you about the good music times!
First on Friday was Tim Fite. I first saw them at SXSW last year playing with Man Man on the recommendation from my friend. I was very impressed with his live show, both entertaining, and a little weird (at first), but very fun! Since March last year I’ve seen him 8 or 9 times, including booking him to play at my school. His shows are always a good time, and even though I know what to expect by now, it’s always fun to see how other people react. Along from watching him and “Sexy Leroy” onstage, he has some video shorts in between songs, and cloned backup singers that show on a projector that add to the visual stimuli. Plus the songs have a great musical range, from acoustic to hip hop to rock. Check out a video from when he played at my school in September (audio NSFW):
My favorite line from this song: “Even though we both sound exactly alike, is that Jadakiss or is that Tim Fite?!”
Also it’s a bummer you can’t see how they use images on the screen :P
Saturday night I hit two shows, but the first was a little meh, so I won’t mention it. But from there I ventured with some friends back into Brooklyn to dance the night away to Chicago remix duo The Hood Internet. I saw them open for Flosstrodamus at CMJ two years ago and they had some great (and unexpected) remixes like The Thermals vs. Katy Perry and Estelle vs. the Ting Tings. You can download all of their mix tapes at their website and have your own dance party!
Sunday night I went and saw Vince from Army of Me play acoustic. I’ve been a fan of his/AOM for many many years now and he still doesn’t disappoint. I am generally not a fan of acoustic stuff, but Vince makes it hard to resist. He played songs from AOM’s most recent album acoustic, some of the new demos that are on their MySpace, and debuting “the greatest song I’ve ever written – so far.” I wish I had gotten that one recorded because I also think it’s a new favorite. But here’s a video of one of the new songs that I also like a lot, tentatively titled Song for a King:
I also have to give a shout out to Lights Resolve who headlined the show. I’ve seen various forms of this band over the years, and I must say I was impressed with the progression of their music to its current state which has dropped the pop and gained the rock. Definitely keep an eye out for them in the future.
Then tonight I saw Jimmy Eat World play Clarity in its entirety, and then some. I’m only a couple steps above a casual JEW fan, but tonight’s show was phenomenal. Clarity is definitely my favorite album of theirs, and it was great that they played the whole thing from start to finish, and the album was released exactly 10 years ago today (2/23/99!). All of the songs sounded amazing, so full and rich. After playing Clarity straight through, they played a handful of other songs, and No Sensitivity was one of them! I’m thinking they may rotate the songs they play after in each city, but I’m glad that was one of them, it’s a good one. Check out a clip of Goodbye Sky Harbor that I took:
Phew! I hope you aren’t audio/video overloaded! I definitely recommend you check out all of the bands I mentioned since they are probably coming to a city near you very soon!
Yesterday I was able to attend the first taping of Andrew WK’s upcoming TV show, How to Party with Andrew WK, set to air on Adult Swim. I’ve been a fan of Andrew’s for a while, I’ve seen him speak at NYU in 2006 and invited him to speak at Northeastern in Boston this past summer, so I am familiar with his supremely positive outlook on life. I was also a fan of his old show on MTV2, Your Friend Andrew WK, so it’s good to see that he’s getting his positive outlook back to the TV masses again.
Upon walking into the venue that he co-owns, Santo’s Party House, I admit I was somewhat giddy and had no idea what to expect. All I knew was that his show was to be a talk show but without “celebrities” and “advertisers” and I guess stripped down to be more “real.” So we get seated onstage and the first thing they did was announce Andrew WK and had him do his introduction. Of course being the intro to the show, we had to go wild clapping and yelling for Andrew. This got exhausting by the third or fourth take, but it was still fun and it’s always interesting to see someone improvising and then finally seeing what is used in the final version that airs.
Me all the way on the right
After getting the intro down, it was on to the interviews. Indeed he didn’t interview celebrities, since the first guest was someone from The Wire, a show I have never seen nor know much about. Apparently the guy plays Bubbles, a crack addict. The next guest was Dan Deacon. Definitely not a celebrity, but he’s pretty well known if you like to read indie music blogs, and I enjoyed his interview. He included some audience participation at the end of his interview which was fun, integrating something that he does at his shows. The next three interviews were just with regular people. A cool idea, except these people were pretty boring, odd (not in a good way), and not really that excited to be there. Seriously, had they picked me I would’ve had the best conversations with Andrew ranging from partying ’til I puked to telling Andrew what it’s like to be a girl (something he asked the NYU student being interviewed). So producers, if you’re looking for more INTERESTING people to interview, send me an email, I’m available at any time! After the interviews, Andrew played a quick song or two for us on the keyboard which was fun, and then came around and shook everyone’s hands and thanked them for being there. As we were getting our coats he came out and took pictures with people which was nice, so I got to talk to him for a minute, and (insert fan moment) he remembered me from when I booked him at Northeastern (”I thought you looked familiar!”), so that was cool.
I’m excited to see the show air on Adult Swim, whenever that may be. Perhaps the first taping was off to a rocky start, but it can only get better from here! Once I know more info I shall definitely post again!
