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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