Twelve days ago I traveled to New York City for the CMJ Music Marathon, a kind of combination of indie-music conference and giant music festival put on by College Music Journal. I have to admit that the main attraction for me was not the discussions and panels, which ran all day for three days and addressed topics from music -- sharing software to the Latin music market to making it as a music journalist.
Instead, I was most excited about the music: literally hundreds of bands, from little-known (even unsigned) acts to well-established artists from outside music's mainstream, like Girls Against Boys, Rustic Overtones and Orbital. The genres represented ranged from indie rock to metal to electronic, jazz, hip-hop, Latin, country and world. The shows took place at nearly every well-known club from Hoboken to Brooklyn (but mostly in lower Manhattan), with some venues showcasing up to eight bands each night for four nights.
I decided to catch a panel discussion about online music streaming. Some of the people in attendance were musicians looking for a way to reach out to the world and expand their fan bases, and the panel of web gurus was happy to give them how-to tips. But then there were others there who, like me, were sent by college radio stations and were looking for information about how they could get around the legal issues that last year forced most stations (including WDCR) to stop webcasting their on-air content. There is a complicated mix of concerns about ad revenue and music-publishing copyrights that few people seem to understand clearly, least of all the web designers. Other panels dealt with the legal issues; none I saw listed sought to unify the technological and legal ends into something any normal person could understand.
Thursday night, I ended up at CB's 313 Gallery -- the art gallery/performance space next door to legendary punk club CBGB -- where I found two floors worth of very eclectic indie rock. First I caught a very strange and nerdy man (I never did find out his name; he was apparently a last-minute addition to the lineup) wearing a tight velvet suit and a bow tie. He stood at a Casio keyboard playing '70s electronic sounds while singing in a really high voice with drum machine accompaniment. The drum machine was hooked up to a PlayStation and a TV, which apparently was used to either program the drum machine or to provide a visual representation of what the drum machine was doing; I really couldn't say.
That got old fast, so I headed downstairs where there was a fantastic set in-progress by a very unusual band called Piataland. The instruments involved were guitar, bass, drums, accordion, fiddle and tuba, and the only way I could describe the music is to say that it was a cross between alternative-rock and klezmer music.
I eventually called it a night, and headed back to the hotel to rest up for day two, designated College Music Day.
At 10 a.m. the following morning there was a panel called "Hey, Wait For Me: College Radio Now," consisting of industry insiders and station music directors and general managers. The hotel ballroom was packed, and a debate soon emerged among the panelists. Some saw college radio as a vehicle to help promote bands they liked by playing their songs in heavy rotation; others saw their responsibility as simply to provide a mix of music that listeners would enjoy. From the questions asked and opinions stated by the audience, it seemed most audience members agreed with the latter philosophy. In fact, it was surprising and sort of sad to see one DJ, a college student herself, up there advocating the use of college radio as a vehicle to help major labels sell more records. Aren't we college students supposed to at least APPEAR young and idealistic?
My next stop was a panel called "Write Stuff," in which music journalists shared the secrets of their trade. Among the sage words of advice: nouns and verbs good, adjectives bad. One writer cautioned against what he called the "Silky Smooth School of Music Journalism." Example: "When listening to the silky smooth stylings of Belle and Sebastian "
After lunch, it was back to the ballroom for a performance by rising New York alt-country singer-songwriter Clem Snide, who seemed on top of his game. For those who aren't familiar with the genre, imagine taking the alt-rock sound you like and infusing it with the aspects of country music you pretend not to like but secretly do. Subtract the cowboy hats and stupid shirts and that's alt-country.
That evening, I decided to seek out something different from the music I'd heard the night before. I gravitated toward the only band playing that night whom I'd actually heard of, a Latin pop band called Los Amigos Invisibles. They were opening for a Latin jazz band led by Karl Denson at the B.B. King Blues Club on 42nd Street. The Amigos came on and delivered a blistering, high-energy set. Denson's band then came on, and they were tight, but not as impressive as the opening band, whose sound is great live but nothing I would buy on CD.
On Saturday I decided to forego the panels and do a bit of shopping and sightseeing. By 8 p.m. it almost seemed strange not to have heard any music, so I headed over to the famed Roseland Ballroom, where electronic duo Orbital was about to spin. Being an all-ages show, the venue was packed with young Manhattan club kids, energy drinks, E and water bottles, but no pacifiers and very few glow sticks. Being from Maine and thus, my girlfriend claims, a "bumpkin," I had never been to a live electronic-music show before, and was impressed by the DJs' skills at creating loops with words they'd sung and warping the hell out of them with weird digital effects. All the while, I was amused at the various movements among the crowd on the floor that passed for dancing. By the end of the show, it felt as though I had completed a tour of musical genres packed into a long weekend. Where else but in New York?
