CMJ Music Marathon Wrap Up for 10/23

Not to sound like a snooty New Yorker sandbagging the bridge and tunnel ruckus that leeches onto the Meatpacking district on Friday and Saturday nights or anything, but the Thursday night scene has always trumpeted the weekend crowd.

However, despite the workday looming the following morning, Thursday night crowds have become my favorite to partake in, if only for setting the tone for the party, before the party actually starts. Shows are just the right amount of crowded and people are actually civil.

It’s no wonder then, that my night hopping around the clubs hosting the CMJ Music Marathon last night proved to be the best yet. The festival took over the SoHo club district – I counted four CMJ parties within a six-block walk – filling basement bars and nightclubs with the best of the up-and-coming independent music scene.

My first stop was Fontana’s, an out-of-place rock bar in the heart of Chinatown. Had it been before 6pm, I would have stopped over to see the new Dolce & Gabbana knockoffs, but I had business to run. I landed at this venue anticipating my second live taste of Washington D.C.’s Jukebox the Ghost. That is, until I got there and found out they weren’t showing up. Something about their van breaking down. Something about a lot of people not showing up as a result. It seemed by the near-empty upstairs bars, a majority of fans had bailed, and soon after, so did I. The second walk through the block aligned with the stench of the raw Asian fish markets didn’t help, but it did bring me to The Annex for Club NME (as in the music magazine.)

An 8pm start time had them booked well past 1 a.m. for acts including The Whip and Passion Pit. I arrived in hopes of catching the electro/thrash styling of Heartsrevolution, if only to hear “C.Y.O.A” live. Getting there two hours early for their 11:30 set time had my patience wearing thin -- with the banal grassroots guitaring of Kuroma not helping. I decided to hop the train back over to Paste magazine’s CMJ artist lounge at Red Bull Space. The 10pm time slot called for a little bit of Oxford Collapse and a lot of free PBR, in a tin Red Bull cup, no less. This was a festival, you see. Blatant overrun advertising has its home here.

The walk back to my car found me in front of (Le) Poisson Rouge where I decided to test my luck to see if Moby had started his DJ set. He hadn’t and it didn’t seem anyone had by 11pm. The emptiness of the elaborately lit club signed that people surely must have been taking there dancing over at Webster Hall for Crystal Castles.

Tonight is the dreaded Friday, but there are too many good shows going on to call a day just yet. It will mean hauling myself to three parties. And that could mean a DJ set from Soulwax, a Perez Hilton party with Yo Majesty, and perhaps another chance to makes up for my missed opportunity with Heartsrevolution.

Wish me, and my legs, some luck.


RELATED: cmj, jukebox the ghost, oxford collapse, crystal castles, moby, heartsrevolution, the whip, passion pit

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