…everybody’s got a CMJ story, right? So here’s mine.
Thursday afternoon, I was lucky enough to have two bands (The Amazing and The Blakes) on my East Village Radio show. Both bands played a couple live tunes and sounded fan-fukkin’-tastic! Actually, you can check out the post-show roundup via this here link… The Amazing and The Blakes on Beyond Beyond is Beyond on 10/22/09 (there’s even a couple great YouTube videos of the two Amazing songs).
Then, Thursday night, the good folks at Kemado/Mexican Summer Records were kind enough to have me out at their soiree in my old neighborhood of Carroll Gardens, where I got nice and toasted with the guys from The Amazing. ‘Twas a blast of a time. And Farmer Dave Scher played a pleasing set to an intimate group of pretzel-eaters.
Friday night led me to some great adventures. Mind you, my CMJ path is anything but typical…as I never even saw Surfer Blood play once! Not only that, I typically have to work weeknights, so I just can’t be doing that shit all week long. Not to mention that my liver wouldn’t be able to handle more than the 3 days that I did!
Read on to find out how Chris Squire fits into this equation…
And one more thing before I tell you about Friday. Is anyone else bothered by the band name ‘Pop Tarts Suck Toasted’? First of all, it’s not true and secondly, it’s an awful band name.
Anyway, there were about 100 showcases or so on Friday night so I chose my poison by seeing stuff that I already dig, but haven’t seen live yet. First I went out to the Tee Pee Records showcase at Union Pool, where I found I had already missed a couple acts that I wanted to see…Weird Owl and Imaad Wasif. I also missed the great Hopewell too although I had just seen them at ATP last month. So, I half-heartedly watched a couple Tee Pee bands that I wasn’t really too keen on seeing and then headed over to Don Pedro’s just after midnight for the Colonel Records unofficial CMJ showcase. This is not your typical CMJ lineup, my friends. This is gritty sweaty fun guitar-driven garage rock & roll. That’s when the magic started to happen…
I got there for the last two bands, both of which I’d been wanting to see for a while. First up, Tough Shits from Philly. These guys rocked the dive like they were the New York Dolls. But the big difference is that the New York Dolls are too big for a dive like this. There was not a person in the room not having fun…no exaggeration.
I had the next band, Stalkers, on my radio show a couple months ago so I was talking to their singer, Andy Animal, for a little between sets. That’s when this girl that was friends with the band approached us, handed us a button (see below), and said that she’d give us ten bucks if we could tell her who the hell it was on the button…
I couldn’t believe what we were just presented with, especially at this punky garage-rock showcase. Well, goddamn if it isn’t Chris Squire, bass player for Yes, on that there button! In case you don’t know, I’ve been a huge Yes fan since I was like 11 years old…so I found it a little serendipitous that I would be confronted with such a rarity on this night. Apparently, this girl had been wearing the pin for a long time, she and her friends always referring to Mr. Squire as her ‘Mystery Man.’ Well, now the mystery was solved and she didn’t give Andy and I ten bucks, but she did give me the button and even helped me get it pinned on my leather jacket. I forget the girl’s name now, but I was very thankful to her and still am!
Then the Stalkers took the stage and proceeded to rock the fuck out of it. Seriously. It was out of control madness…and everyone was eating it up. They blew a PA speaker (you could see and smell the smoke coming out of it), people were dancing wildly, crowd-surfing, tossing beer on each other. Andy went down the front of his pants and touched his dick a lot, was in the audience about half the time, was breaking glass bottles on the ground with his boot, lit off some firecrackers on the floor, and even turned out all of the lights in the performance space (the band played in the absolute dark for a few minutes). And all the while, the Stalkers were playing some of the most fun upbeat and even melodic garage-rock you’ve ever heard. Maybe that’s what sets it apart from punk…although it was that too!
Okay, that was the peak of my story and weekend, so I’m going to summarize the rest. But don’t think the rest of the weekend wasn’t important or didn’t rock or anything…it’s just that I’ve already spent a whole fucking hour writing this thing. I’m working on time-management, friends.
Saturday night, I went to the Kemado/Mexican Summer showcase at Music Hall of Williamsburg with Paul and we saw three very solid sets of music from first, Farmer Dave Scher, then Real Estate, then The Amazing. We had a blast getting drunk and kickin’ it a bit with Jess from Kemado too.
Then on Sunday, I woke up nice and late and headed out to the WFMU Record Fair on 18th St. in Manhattan. I walked away with about 20 records for probably no more than $40. I got a few old favorites I haven’t owned in a while and plenty of newbies to the collection too. In addition to some Halloweeny stuff, I’m gonna spin some of that shit on Thursday’s BBiB show, but here’s a sneak peek.
What was your CMJ path like…or your weekend?
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