The first night of CMJ is usually more relaxed than the others; shows start at 8pm, one can flow in and out of crowds with ease, and the walk between venues is unhurried. A storm threatened to break, conducting a moving bruise in the sky above Williamsburg, but rain never fell, giving the night an agreeably unreal dimension.
Philadelphia band Amanda X played the Oh My Rockness Showcase, which took place under the raining light of Cameo Gallery. Guitarist Cat Park pulled dense and bright helixes out of her guitar, drummer Tiff Yoon guiding them into precise rhythms, until Park broke a string in the course of the first song. Another band in attendance provided a replacement guitar – a crimson Gibson SG. “Oh, that looks so metal,” Park said as she grabbed the guitar and started tuning it. “It’s in Drop D ... as an SG should be.” Park played one song with the SG and its notes blended strangely into the structure, emitting spidery clusters of sound. “It’s so very bright,” remarked bassist Kat Bean, either describing the guitar or the venue which was lit diffusely. “Everything’s wrong,” Park said, definitely describing the guitar. She returned the Gibson – the aspect of it had felt weird — and resumed playing her guitar with an absent string, its familiar but slightly bent tones warping the edges of each song.
During Amanda X’s set I encountered a friend of mine, who was considering walking to Glasslands to see a band he had never heard but whose name captivated him — Dune Rats. They’re Australian, and they resemble an alternate cast of Airheads: each member of the band has a mammalian quality, plus long, curly hair that flows from beneath a cap. Their music is juvenile in structure, full of loud, abrupt, and intelligent surprises. Bassist Brett Jansch plays his instrument with total abandon, bass vectoring away from his body at oblique angles. He still plays coherently, so the final visual effect is one of him loosening from time. “We’re Dune Rats,” announced guitarist Danny Beusa. “We’re fuckin’ pieces of shit.” They felt as if they were spiralling out of control but the designs of their songs kept unfolding, revealing new, intricate depths. The chorus of their second song constituted “Dalai Lama / Big banana / Marijuana.”
In my schedule I had written Union Pool instead of Union Hall, so I ended up accidentally seeing Chicago band J Fernandez, who produce a kind of textural, geometric indie rock; think a relaxed Tortoise with vocals. Their songs sound like unfolding equations and are illuminated by muscular, pulsing bass lines and diffuse organ phrases. The calculations with which each instrument is engaged create an intricate vortex around the kind of monotonous vocal melodies. The band at one point asked the audience how it sounded. “More vocals!” a member of the crowd shouted. “How about more dancing?” the organ player asked.
The Knitting Factory is five minutes away from Union Pool, so I walked there to see Charly Bliss. Singer Eva Hendricks totally inhabited every song, jumping around to implied rhythms. The band are compositionally impressive; each guitar chord seems to leap out of the previous one, building intense and elastic shapes that feel emotionally lived in. Already exhausted, I took the train to Palisades in order to see Baltimore band Roomrunner. I caught the end of Brooklyn band Celestial Shore’s set, who seemed visibly disengaged from the meticulously composed music they were playing. Roomrunner were the opposite, totally absorbed in their densely jointed grooves. Their riffs seem to swarm into each other, creating a kind of moving asymmetry that conducted me fitfully out of exhaustion.
