CMJ and other observations

CMJ week is here and we've been making the most of it. Went to see Alberta Cross at Southpaw on Tuesday who were pretty great. We played a great set at Europa in Greenpoint on Thursday night followed by random partying in Brooklyn and then the LES.

Friday night checked out quite randomly a band called The Teeth who blew me away. The best part of CMJ beyond playing it yourself is managing to catch random bands you wouldn't normally see or even hear about. They're from Philly and really brought the noise with a tight syncopated punk/folk thing that I've never quite heard before. Something between the 2nd CYHSY album, Violent Femmes, Tom Waits. Hard to really pinpoint but unbelievably tight, great harmonies and you could tell they were all true musicians.

Also saw a solid band called We Are Wolves at Ruff Club who introduced themselves by saying "we are We Are Wolves".

Wandered out into the sidewalk to watch people smoke cigarettes and it was a beatific dream as if the entire LES scene had been condensed into a half a city block. Was a true carnival and in a semi-intoxicated state one sensed that right now in NYC there is something truly amazing happening in this intersection between music, fashion, new media, self-published fame and the longings of youth. I really think that people will look back on this time in NYC as a truly great era where so many people cared so much about music and the particular nightlife which now exists. People are still infatuated with re-imagining themselves online and dressing to be photographed and it is still NEW. It soon won't be. It's almost over but for now it's important to remember that nothing like this has ever happened.

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In other news, It is a very important time for us. We're playing the last two shows of what turned into be a very intensive summer and fall. It's been amazing exploring all these cities and towns and schools of the northeast and playing better and better places each time, but we all have been talking about how we want to record some of our newer material, and finish half-written ideas that we've had for months, so after our Mercury Lounge show with the Figurines, and our Ottobar show in Baltimore, that we're going to crawl back into the studio and write and record like our lives depended on it for at least a couple of months and then launch back into the live insanity.



-T