Last week New York hosted both kinds of bands at the annual CMJ Music Marathon. The Rapture unfortunately seemed to be the poster children for both CMJ and the city, with ads plastered everywhere for their dull new record, Echoes, the press scampering further and further up the group's ass, and the band members DJing a stale night at a bar where Billy Ocean songs were supposed to pass for irony. (Aside from the club hit "House of Jealous Lovers," Echoes is really uninspired--especially up against a raft of more experimental bands pushing a strong beat around Robert Smith-style vocals with a lot more energy--and live the Rapture go through the motions with the energy of a band already past its prime.)
Montreal's the Stills, another act whose music brightens a club with the wattage of a dead bulb, were a different sort of flagship for a hyped-up, waifish aesthetic. The aftereffects of their new buzz trickled down in a showcase where every act was a similarly studied reduction of snoozing shoegazer pop. One booking agent checking out a Las Vegas band called the Killers (one of the actually promising new new-wave rock acts of the week) complained that overly fey retrograde rock was one of the unfortunate new trends for New York bands. I heard that same complaint (about what "all the crappy New York bands are doing these days") at a show for Avenue D, two electrotrash girls who rap about raunchy sex as if buying dildos and girls getting fucked in the ass is such shocking new material.
Luckily enthusiasm and talent trumped posturing. A New York group called the Fiery Furnaces blended together the Pixies, Patti Smith (their frontwoman was a dead ringer), and, in the sugar-pop songs I wasn't so fond of, Mates of State for a mixture that at least stood out from the rest of the pack as dissonant indie rock. Troubleman Unlimited hosted a three-floor showcase at the Knitting Factory that ranged from out-there electro improv to sweet-laced folk pop. The standout was a D.C. band in the vein of Black Eyes and Q and Not U called Measles Mumps and Rubella, a wired dance-punk act heavily into chanted choruses and using everything as a percussive instrument. And although they were part of a different showcase (for File 13 Records), Need New Body used hot pink duct tape to weave together a web of themselves, their instruments, and the walls before pounding out a tribal punk commotion of keyboards, drums, bass, banjos, sound effects, and bike wheels in Niagara's basement.
One of my favorite lineups went down on the final night at an Ace Fu Records showcase in the overheated basement floor of Lit. I'm now totally enraptured by Aqui, who sound like Glass Candy gone metal, a heavily psychedelic thrash band with a singer who inflects like Ida No on acid. With the vocals and guitars both set on delay, Aqui's music was wildly sexy in a very dark art-rock way.
My headphone soundtrack for most of the week was the Ex Models, who create discordant dance music that's the perfect accompaniment to rush hour in Manhattan. On their most recent album, Zoo Psychology, the band transforms the science of street noise, with honking bass lines and screeching guitar distortion instead of car horns and break pedals, all policed by herky-jerky vocals that mock as much as direct everything into a post-punk urban sprawl. Live they're even more turbulent, and you can jaywalk through their stops and starts yourself at Graceland when they play there on November 5. I promise no mopey gazing at the shoelaces from these guys, who are on par with other New York sound contortionists the Liars, another Brooklyn act whose sound definitely--thankfully--isn't on life support.
