** I was pretty sick and felt like shit on Friday so I didn’t do as much as I had planned eek! **
While waiting in line for The Antlers Thursday night I had met a band who told me about this CMJ event that is open all day that includes free haircuts, messages, drinks, games, and more. I decided to check it out the next day, which is Friday.
Jace, John Scott, Ali, Karl, and I headed to find this magical party. On the way there is documented footage of our first KSCR musical, a must to check out. We got to the party before the doors opened so Ali and I performed in the street; I played harmonica while she danced and sang.
We finally got in and scored some free rock band T-shirts while Ali played Rock Band, and dominated it.
I left almost as soon as we got there to head back to NYU to catch a panel on Hair. I had received a free tickets days before to a Hair performance and I thought it was today. Unfortunately I learned it was for the night before and I missed it, I’m still pissed about that. I arrived early and was able to catch the end of the Featured Speaker panel with Emmanual Jal. He is a hip hop artist from Sudan who was indoctrinated to become a child soldier in Ethiopia, survived and was smuggled into Kenya and saved. He told chilling stories and really spread the message of how much Africa needs help right now. He ended with a performance.
Then the Hair panel started, featuring Galt Macdermot (ORIGNAL composer), Jim Rago (ORIGINAL co-writer), and Gavin Creel (currently played Claude). I was awestruck. In front of me was the man who wrote, “Let the Sun Shine In” and “Age of Aquarious.” In front of me was the man who wrote one of the best musicals in American history. There has not been a show like Hair since 1968. They talked about how they came up with ideas, how the music came about, and more.
Then Galt got on the piano and Gavin sang some songs from the current Tony nominated Broadway revival of Hair. Momentously, Jim (who had mentioned that he had wanted to be the original Claude) walked down the stairs and started singing with Gavin. There is was: original composer, current Claude and original Claude. Worlds collided. Generation X, Y, and Z became one. There was a woman, maybe in her 50’s or 60’s, sitting behind me with her eyes clasped shut so tightly and this nostalgic smile on her face. I could only assume she was imagining the first time she saw the musical while she listened to the performance.
This was the last day of the film festival part of CMJ and “Finding Elliot Smith” was the final documentary. Ali, Jace, John Scott, and I headed back to Norwood to catch the film. It was pretty good, it really focused on his friends and on the fact that Elliot’s fiance, Jennifer Chibo, did not murder Elliot Smith. Come of Elliot’s Oregon friends really bashed Los Angeles and blamed the city for Elliot Smith demise and fall back into drugs. Overall the film was pretty good.
I originally didn’t think I’d make it to all the shows Friday night since I was feeling pretty shitty, but after getting some coffee into my system and visiting an Australian Bar that was overly crowded I mustered up the energy and made it to The Bowry Ballroom. There was a great showcase this night, most notable Temper Trap and Portugal. The man. I missed most of Temper Trap but saw Portugal. The man. It was a great set and The Bowry Ballroom mixer was really on for the show. Portugal not only had great sound quality but they also had so much energy, even though John stopped at one point to tell us how sick they all are right now. Their last song (before the encore) was a great 8 or 9-minute medley; this made the crowd go berserk. It was fucking awesome. It was a great way to end my first CMJ experience.
Note to future CMJ go’ers: wash your hands and take zinc.
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Day 3: Thursday October 22nd
Today was College Day at CMJ, so I started the day with the Music Director’s Summit. This was actually quite a nice panel (surprising for CMJ) and listening to everything the panelists had to say I realized KSCR is doing pretty good! I did write down some ideas that might improve the station more.
I saw the “Footsteps in Africa” documentary as part of CMJ’s Film Festival. It documented the life, mainly through traditional music, song, and dance of the nomadic Tuareg tribe. The documentary was really interesting, especially for me because one of my life dreams is to be paid to travel Africa while recording different tribal and village music.
After the film I headed back to NYU to catch a panel about songwriting “scenes” in different cities. Of course, the panel didn’t end up discussing this and I found myself bored out of my mind. I’m sorry to be blunt, but this year’s CMJ panels were below par. Way below par. So far below par that even with a telescope the par line is still light years away.
Via Tania played at Le Poisson Rouge and she’s one of my favorite musicians right now and has been doing pretty well on the Top 200 charts, so I headed to check her out. I was able to catch Choir of Young Believers who played before her. They were great live, so great that if we could bring them to KSCR it would up our coolness factor (HINT HINT HINT). Via Tania’s live performance was pretty bad, I left before her set was over. Later that night one of her promoters emailed me asking about any feedback I had on Via Tania’s album, here’s what I had to say:
“Hey Kevin,
I absolutely LOVE the Via Tania album "Moon Sweet Moon." I think it's beautiful and fresh and wonderful. It's like rainbows, but with muted colors. It's like puppy dogs, but in the pound. It's beautiful with just enough sad.
I saw her play live at CMJ and was rather disappointed, though. Her live show did not live up to the album. I don't know if she was tired or if the venue was not right for her, but I felt the performance was flat, her voice did not shine and there was absolutely no energy. This hurts her as an artist, because I had pulled a bunch of people into the show with me, raving about how magnificent she is and they left early because they were bored and uninterested. Lost potential fans.”
This is not a show I’d wish upon KSCR.
The next stop was The Delancey, right next to the Williamsburg bridge, to see The Antlers. Getting into The Antlers was such a clusterfuck of an experience. The line might as well have stretched into Brooklyn, but I was fourth, almost touching the velvet rope. The showcase was full of great bands, such as Suckers and Delorean, but I really just wanted to see The Antlers. After a lot of annoying waiting around and watching other CMJ’ers bullshitting and trying to trick the bouncer, I made it into the venue. I went downstairs to watch Delorean finish but the room was so stuffy and the crowd was so smelly that I had to go upstairs and wait for the room to not only clear out but hopefully gain some ventilation.
The Antlers finally went on an hour and a half late and played a shortened set. Pitchfork actually wrote about this show, it’s an interesting article, and the addressed the fact that some of the bands took liberties on how long they should take to set up and through off the showcase.
But the music, the music: The Antlers were great. I was completely sober for this show but they were like weed for me. Their music swirled above my head and I felt like I had an out of body experience. Granted, I was getting sick at this point in CMJ and had a fever and maybe was heading towards delirium, but nonetheless The Antlers put on a stellar performance.
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