CMJ - or - How I learned to stop worrying and love NYC concerts

The only marathon I'm ever going to participate in is the CMJ Music Marathon, which takes place every fall in New York City. 5 days of concert madness--every venue in the city has 3-8 showcase concerts each night. And the elusive CMJ badge gets you into eveyr show. From Piano's to Webster Hall. Best week ever.

I kicked off my CMJ week on Tuesday up at Lincoln Center at the day stage. Picked up my badge and saw The Slip play. Pretty annoying sound issues, but the show was still fun. They played my birthday song, Children of December, so that always makes me smile. And you can never go wrong with Even Rats. Happy Halloween!

Yesterday Josh and I went down to Mercury Lounge to see the Whigs. Brandon from ATO has been trying to get me to check them out for a few months now and this was my first chance. They were a blast--indie power rock trio from Athens, GA, who didn't act too pretentious on stage, nor did they dress like complete schmucks (an all-too-common plight in the indie rock world). Played a bunch of songs off their last album "Give 'Em All a Big Fat Lip" including Technology, which was features on the Relix CD Sampler a few issues ago.

Then a quick bite at San Loco with Jon Bahr and Erik Dane (mmmm guaco loco) and off to Tonic to get our Slip on again. This time was a longer set with no sound problems. And they killed it!! Marc started it off in style with his foot piano pedal thingies. We got a perfect Even Rats, a raging Children of December (which SuperDee pointed out that it's more a song about HER birthday (I was lucky I was born in the summer / Nineteen seventy five
/ It was as hot as an oven) than about MY birthday (All the parents of the children of December / Have a clutch / 'Cause their birthdays are the hardest to remember).

Either way, great show. I even got my Airplane Primitive that I had wanted--which I requested to Jesse Jarnow immediately before they played it. God bless instant gratification.

Line of the night:
Outside of Mercury Lounge, Josh Baron quipped "I shit out epiphanies."