Monday (10/15) Yellow Dogs, The Immaculates and Habibi were at Brooklyn Bowl. Yellow Dogs are the most band-of-thieves looking Iranian bunch. Their sound is very refreshing and reminds me of a bunch of poppy post-punk band from the UK I listened to when I was in middle school in the early 2000s. The boys of The Immaculates were looking sharp as usual, and I didn’t actually see Habibi, except for one of their members face-down asleep in the green room earlier in the evening. Hope she’s doing better now…
CMJ felt like any other week to me honestly, except it was more socially acceptable for me start drinking before 5PM. On Tuesday I went to pick up my badge, since I managed to get my shitty punk band, Sharkmuffin, a showcase at Muchmore’s. My badges only use the entire week seemed to be to get a ton of picture likes on Facebook and the ability to pretend I was still an NYU student hanging out in the Kimmel Center. I saw a decent panel Tuesday on the state of DIY music that included Krissy Krissy as a speaker. I don’t want to knock her as a DIY musician or anything, but her story basically was that some popular rapper’s former manager discovered her in a karaoke bar in Bushwick, and now she has a video on MTV. Her point though was that this wasn’t her first album she’s recorded, it was her 9th, so she did work her ass off for it, and it is a self-released album. But it still apparently takes a lot of luck and a manager with a lot of connections to get on MTV as a ‘DIY artist’.
I didn’t catch any shows Tuesday, but I went to an all night keg party at 285 Kent and then ended up at The Commodore playing the Gilligan’s Island pinball machine til 4. There’s free pinball at The Commodore everyone.
I woke up Wednesday (10/17) and decided to go to Webster Hall thinking that The Denzels were playing at 4:30 at the Surprise Attack showcase in The Marlin Room, but I misread the band name and ended up seeing The Danvilles. This turned out to be a wonderful mistake. They were a great southern rock band that did a great cover of a cramps song and inspired me to immediately go buy some bourbon that I carried around in an iced coffee cup for the rest of the evening.
After that I went to the Camper’s Rule showcase at Muchmore’s with Sharkmuffin, Indian Rebound, Quiet Loudly, Backwords, and Gunfight! It goes without saying that my shitty punk band, Sharkmuffin, was awesome. I was glad to hear that the boys in Indian Rebound are teenagers because they kept fucking with me like they were teenagers. They’re sweet kids though and they write good poppy music that also reminds me of early 2000s pop post-punk from the UK like Yellow Dogs. Is that a thing now or something? I missed Quiet Loudly, Backwords, and Gunfight! because I went back to my apartment to get more of my bourbon to share with someone who I now know was most likely underage. Lol, oops.
On Thursday afternoon (10/18) before I saw Popstrangers at Cameo Gallery, and Backwords, Spanish Prisoners, and The Denzels at Legion Bar, I had a lovely brunch with Miss Leah Lovecat at Egg. We drew on the table and drank mimosas. All the way from New Zealand, Popstrangers killed it with their noise grunge pop. I was really into their catchy bass lines. Then I saw Backwords for real at Legion Bar. They seemed like a very happy band that had a lot of fun psychedelic trips together at summer camp. I missed most of Spanish Prisoners because I was off getting chex mix, but they have a track called guitar dream, which is pretty sweet. The Denzels were great. I love bands with bigger-than-your-average-boney-hipster scruffy men with mustaches and telecasters. I really enjoyed their lead guitar lines and their death by audio fuzz war pedal.
On Friday (10/18) I saw J. Rambo’s unofficial CMJ showcase at Cheap Storage with King Tuff, Total Slacker, Habibi, Royal Baths, and Turnip King. I feel like Cheap Storage is cursed, because all of my friends’ multiple current and ex-lovers seem to flock there and create this weird vibe by awkwardly running into each other in all the awkward crevices that this place contains. It also has a really charming piss staircase in the left corner of the roof.
Turnip King opened the show. The guitarist on the left side of the stage had a really cool pick guard design & the dream catcher hanging off his telecaster. They have a good balance of ethereal loose reverbed-out songs and more basic pop structured ones. Royal Baths was my favorite band I saw all week. I think I drunk texted everyone I know about how good they were. I haven’t seen them since Leslie (formerly of the band Friends) joined the band. The attitude of her voice and her facial expressions were perfectly sexily off-putting. I usually don’t like making other band comparisons but they’re sort of like if The Velvet Underground and The White Stripes had a baby or if Jack White & Alison Mosshart’s band The Dead Weather was more psych influenced. I was kind of creepily turned on the whole time. Habibi was cool, the girl I saw sleeping earlier in the week was alright if you were wondering. This was Total Slacker’s first show since their drummer, Terence Connor sadly passed away October 1st. Ross Condor, their original drummer took over. Their 2nd guitarist, Tassy, has the best head movements and dance moves. Their bassist Emily had an awesome leather skirt. By the time King Tuff started Cheap Storage was hot, stuffy, and really sweaty, so I sang along on the roof for a few of their songs. The crowed and the pit were crazy and like this one headline stated it proved “sketchy Brooklyn venues are the place to be.”
Saturday (10/20) at Muchmore’s was The Dingus/TheSnake showcase. My favorites were Flora & Lil Kids. Flora came all the way from Israel and took an awesome picture of me on the couch. Lil Kids projected erotic images onto the celing and were the most energetic project I saw all week. @SugarMamaBK
