Swimming Pools, Soap Opera Stars

Mid-October brings so many things: Halloween anticipation, rosy cheeks, ripening pumpkins, and a huge uptick in my attractiveness due to my suddenly apropos wearing of jackets (it’s much more bizarre when it’s 90 degrees outside). After tonight, I have to add “Soap-opera-star-packed charity galas.” Yes, I was at yet another work function tonight, working the red carpet at a charity fete inside the somewhat underwhelmingly beige hallway of a certain largish Times Square hotel. That is to say, the hotel is large in toto, mostly by keeping all individual parts of it shoulder-schrunchingly tiny.

I am more or less unable to describe this event outside of its affect on my self-esteem, which was overwhelmingly positive. Soap stars, young and old, were unfailingly polite to me. Ridiculously attractive young women complemented my clothes. Daringly dressed journalists touched my arm and called me “sweetie.” I was, in short, thrilled. If only I watched soap operas- - “daytime television”- - and therefore had some idea who they all were, I can only assume I would’ve more completely enjoyed myself.

After this, I checked out the Fiery Furnaces show at Town Hall, the venue immortalized in Christopher Guest’s “A Mighty Wind” (“These plants are sticking out just at eye-level”). The only problem with this (apart, of course, from the fact that my complimentary seats were as high as a rapper on Saturday afternoon) was that the audience is REQUIRED to sit during the entire performance, and is FORBIDDEN from eating or drinking during the entire set. This is, needless to say, not the best environment for the fuzzy rock of the Furnances. On the upside, an acquaintance of mine, Bob the bartender from North 6, is now their drummer! I more or less solely concentrated on the job he was doing (fabulous) before my premature exit.

Look for a post of the upcoming weekend’s Creativity Now! conference from Tokion Magazine. And by “look for” I mean some time in the coming month or so.

CMJ Dispatch #2

also from Blogcritics.org

CMJ 2005: When Hipsters Dance

Can you dance with your arms folded across your chest? How much dancing is enough to show that you’re down for having fun, but not too much that you seem, you know, like a raging doofus? Will I get any free drinks?

In pursuit of the answers to these questions, I, in the spirit of pure scientific curiosity, set off to the DFA Records showcase at the finest music venue in all of Brooklyn, New York, and quite possibly the world: Williamsburg’s Northsix (full disclosure: I used to work there).

DFA RECORDS SHOWCASE, NORTHSIX


DFA records (Death From Above) had their biggest hits in 2002 and 2003, releasing a string of ironically danceable noise-disco tracks that spoke straight to the hipster’s heart.
DFA has declined somewhat in the ensuing years, though. Freak Folk and Noise have been on the rise, along with a general attitudinal retreat in the college scene from, what’s the phrase? “Enjoying yourself,” I think is what I would go with. Add to this general critical ambivalence towards this year’s Juan Maclean release (it was widely dismissed as falling off the edge DFA had walked in previous releases between fuzzy, guitary dance and straight up house music), and you have an uncertain crowd and importance for this year’s showcase.

Imagine my delight, then, at the mass of tight-jeaned and white-shod masses that packed Northsix at last night’s sold out show. Did I mention that I like them? I do.

Perhaps the night’s oddest facet, aside from the fact that everyone seemed to be wearing skinny suspenders (are these back? Were they ever “in” to begin with?) was that the Juan Maclean was the only band playing who is actually signed to DFA records. Usually, a label showcase, predictably enough, showcases the talent on that label.


I arrived about halfway through Hot Chip’s set. It thumped along pleasantly enough, and brought to mind nothing as much as playing a vector video game. Where you spin the ball, you know, and it’s all crazy? They moved around the stage well, with the guitarist at one point muscling in between the two keyboardists to do a sort of Van Halen-esque instrument-playing-simultaneous-swaying kind of thing.

Next up was the night’s stand-out band, Australian imports Cut Copy . Wearing their Daft Punk influences so proudly that they actually sampled “Around the World” at one point, they vibrated through an extraordinarily long set. Not that anyone was complaining. They led the crowd through roughly 45 minutes of complete, non-self-conscious enjoyment, quite a feat here in New York City.

Occasionally, Cut Copy would let their drum machine play itself while they picked up guitars. While their guitar runs were undeniably catchy, the sort of “Weezer with an 808” sound of this portion of the show was much less successful. Please, guys, stick with the synths.

Rounding out the night was a truly bizarre and literally room-clearing performance from Delia & Gavin. Playing what a friend of mine called “sort of a freaky ‘Tubular Bells,’” Delia and Gavin both stood stock-still for their entire show, a half hour endurance test during which Delia never looked down at her keyboard and Gavin never looked up. The band is just the two of them, on dueling keyboards, producing an echo-y and expansive sound that was, yes, building towards something, albeit very very slowly. They suggest with their sparseness the impending arrival of something very ominous; imagine the soundtrack to a 1970s space horror movie and you’ll have a rough idea what they sounded like.

Despite an initial hopefulness among the 40 or so stragglers who bunched in front of the stage as they began, it seemed no one was in the mood for this after 3 hours of hedonistic dancing and frequent bathroom trips. People were soon slipping out the front door as soon as they could muster the courage. It became, for me, like watching an exceptionally tedious art film. Can I admit that I’m bored? What does this boredom say about me? As I grappled with these and other intellectual identity issues which Delia & Gavin’s set prompted, they mercifully left the stage.

More tomorrow, kids! I’m trying to see !!!, if I can get in, or perhaps current underground darlings Clap Your Hands Say Yeah! Tune in tomorrow to find out what happens. . .

CMJ Dispatch #1

from Blogcritics.com. . .

CMJ 2005: So it Begins. . .

Welcome, welcome, everyone, to installment number one of what is sure to be a rollicking, rip-roaring (and several other alliterative adjectives) series of articles chronicling my (mis) adventures navigating my way through CMJ 2005. Please suffer through a brief introduction to CMJ and myself before getting to oh-so-meaty show reviews.

CMJ is an annual music festival put on by the College Music Journal, a magazine whose primary claim to fame is being the publisher and complier of the national college music charts (basically, which songs get played the most on the country’s college radio stations). These, in turn, have a big part in determining which bands break out of the underground into. . . the ground, I guess, is what’s above the underground.

For 4 nights once a year, CMJ puts on the CMJ Music Festival, wherein virtually every club in New York City gives itself over to putting on CMJ shows. Something in the neighborhood of 10,000 bands play. I don’t have the exact figures here at my fingertips. In addition, there are panel discussions, film premiers, and other assorted special events. These are mostly boring and I will be skipping virtually all of them.

Speaking of me, I am a music industry professional and this is my third time attending CMJ. I am a Brooklyn resident, and I have a white belt. So I know what I’m talking about, and don’t think I don’t. Now, on to the shows!

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 15th


Queenadreena, Arlene’s Grocery

Tonight, CMJ’s inaugural evening, I was actually busy until slightly after midnight at an unbearably swanky party (where, among other things, I spotted Bully and Terminator 3’s Nick Stahl chatting with N*SYNC’s JC Chasez, Apparently, they share an agent). The first show I was able to attend, therefore, was Queenadreena's, midnight performance Arlene’s Grocery. Queenadreena is a UK-based goth-punk outfit, fronted by former Daisy Chainsaw lead singer Katie Jane Garsaw. This show marked their only US appearance in the recent past or future, a fact confirmed both by their website and their drummer Billy Feedom as he lit his ultra-Euro hand-rolled cigarette on mine after the show.

I’m a firm believer in being woefully uniformed when I see a band. Last night, for instance, all I actually knew about Queenadreena was that my former roommate and college chum, who has entered into a sort of reactionary Goth phase since moving to LA, swore to me that they were the best band ever. This was enough for, and allowed me to “purely experience their music.” Also, I didn’t have to do any research.

As for the actual show, Queenadreena seem to be a band more focused on evoking feelings through their mishmash of sound, as opposed to, say, their lyrics. This is a huge positive, as far as I’m concerned. Assaulting the audience with long waves of sound, the band seemed to be dying for us to grope each other, throw chairs, and obsessively scratch each other, as they were. I applaud their willingness to actually perform, something sorely missing from most popular music. I don’t applaud, however, the general immobility of the stupefied audience, a very strange hodgepodge of hardcore, mid-to-late 30s Goth-types and completely clueless CMJers in checkered shirts and baseball caps.

In short, this show was highly enjoyable.


Big Boi, Sleepy Brown, Killer Mike, et al. Knitting Factory

As the wait for this show proved to be longer than the show itself, I would like to present excerpts from a diary I kept while waiting.

2:14 AM
Despite a listed 1:30 AM start time, we’ve all been herded into the Knitting Factory’s Tap Bar while we wait for them to open the main space. The UN-AIR CONDITIONED Tap Bar. There’s not even a fan in here. When will the show start? The polite staff promises that they’ll let us know.

2:18
Despite being listed in the “Wednesday’s Shows” section of the CMJ website, the staff here informs us all that this is, in fact, NOT a CMJ show. We are encouraged to buy tickers. Luckily, I am sort of on the list and am able to talk my way in.

2:20
The website that listed this show (again, this show is TOTALLY UNAFILLIATED with that organization) lists about 6 or 7 performers, all playing at 1:30 AM. I assumed that they would all crowd the stage in vintage hip-hop, style. I am suddenly seized with the fear that they may organize themselves into “openers” and “headliners.” I make a silent promise to leave if this is the case.

2:48 AM
We’re finally in!

3:30
So, this show is actually to promote a new group/CD fronted by Big Boi, called The Purple Ribbon All-Stars. Their logo looks unnervingly like the Pabst Blue Ribbon logo. I am therefore worried that they will mostly perform new “hits” from their impending record. Luckily, there’s only one or two of these before they delve into Outkast’s back catalogue. They do “A.D.I.D.A.S.,” “The Whole World,” and 2004’s ubiquitous booty jam “I Like the Way You Move.” How do they handle the absence of half of Outkast, Andre 3000? They alternate between letting his parts play as if they were samples, rapping over them, and encouraging the audience to sing over them. This works surprisingly well.

The crew on stage is highly energetic and you would have no idea it was after 3 AM unless you looked at the crowd: sweaty hipsters lazily “putting their hands up” when ordered to. As a side note, after roughly six years of hip-hop shows, I still feel awkward when “putting my hands up” or “waving my hands in the air.” When will this get easier?

Must fly to more shows, more from me later on tonight!