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!
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!
posted by Chris Chafin at 10:42 PM
1 Comments:
QUEENADREENA!
I both hate and love you...
And it's true, I have entered some sort of "reactionary goth-phase," I guess. Though in all fairness, I've always kind of been that way... what with the Lynch obsession, and the constant middle and high school readings of the works of Anne Rice and Poppy Z. Brite.
And I've always liked Tim Burton... and stuff.
Back to Queen Adreena...I love Katie Jane GARSIDE (not Garsaw, but that sure does have a ring to it). I heard Katie was REALLY crazy at that show, but definitely don't underestimate her lyrics. They are PHENOMENAL. Just listen to the song FM DOLL... if you wanna hear a song about Jon Benet Ramsey's father singing to his little girl to STRIP!
Whoa, said Keanu!
cheers,
garrison
PS - you should set up the spam filter option on your blog (I imagine that's why all your comments have been deleted, as they were probably spam). The filter option makes you type out a work with your blog that a computer can't do, but a person can! Technology and Know-How!
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