Monday night was the start of the ridiculousness most commonly known as the Deli’s CMJ Music Marathon (i.e. covering 26 emeriging bands playing CMJ for The Deli – 26 as in the miles in a marathon.) Luckily (or unluckily?) my first night out on the town was not an insane drunken debauchery. But let’s be serious, there are still four days left for that! What’s good about CMJ, and the relatively small size of New York, is that you can hop from one place to another to check out a bunch of great shows. And this is precisely what I did last night in LES. Per my fellow Deli writer’s recommendation, I started off at the Deli Magazine Showcase at the Delancey to check out the Brooklyn-based Telenovelas (below, a photo of their Fender Jaguar). From the start, these lo-budget, hi-fi, darlings set the mood at the barely lit lounge with their guitar-thickened music. I was definitely digging both the coolness and shoe-gazyness of their music. Great warm up for the night ahead.
I decided to stay around for the next act, another Brooklyn band, Baby Alpaca. Again, the Delancey ground floor is pretty much a perfect fit for this group. The lead singer has a lonesome and heavy emotionality in his voice and the songs kind of melt into themselves, filled with dark and droning qualities. Before I started crying my face off due to these semi-depressing sounds, I headed over to Cake Shop to check out yet another band from BK, Dinowalrus (pictured below), for the Panache showcase.
Before seeing them live for the first time, I decided to listen to their tracks on Myspace and picked up that a rock-turning-pyschedelic pop vibe (kind of). When I saw them live, though, I realized that although the pop sound might be what they are going for – think electronic, bouncy beat openers – it’s not so psychedelic as much as guitar screeching, chaotic rock. These guys are LOUD. But fun. They have this punkish attitude going on, heavy on the instrumentals, not so much on the vocals. I definitely enjoyed their-in-your-face musical enthusiasm, and the lead singer is super entertaining with his goofy antics. Might need some plugs next time so my ears don’t bleed.
I stuck around for a bit to catch a bit of the set by the Parisian DJ, Onra – very nice – then headed LITERALLY next door to the Living Room to catch the LA-based Chapin Sisters – read my review on the Deli LA.
Following the Living Room, I skipped on over to Fat Baby to hear Brooklyn boys, Goes Cube (dudes in picture above pretending to be… rain?) do a set later on in the night. Talk about a shift in musical tone. Again, I was enveloped in some LOUD music. The band’s been described as having a “sledgehammer assault.” My ears concur! The music (feel free to call it metal) was heavy, powerful and all pretensions aside, seriously intense. They smashed, they banged and they made quite the impression.