Are your feet sore?! Is your voice horse and are your eyes blood shot?! Mine are! Which can only mean one thing—I’m doing CMJ just right.
On Wednesday, I began at Spike Hill, then went to Arlene’s and finally over to Pianos. Spike Hill featured a band called Fast Years, which bizarrely enough featured one of the same band members I’d seen play in a different band the previous night. (Of all the hundreds of bands and all the venues in New York…) Though still seemingly a young band, Fast Years offered up some fun surfer rock songs that had a slight punk edge. I do think they could have benefitted greatly from more than 30 seconds of sound check, since the lead vocals almost couldn’t be heard.
Over at Arlene’s, Canadian indie rock band Elephant Stone rocked out on a slew of traditional rock instruments as well as on a sitar. Although the band was far too deafeningly loud, causing me to leave early, the sitar sounded great and added a unique element to the music.
Later, in the upstairs area of Pianos, I caught Emma Louise, a teeny tiny Australian blonde singer, accompanied on guitar and laptop by her friend Graham Ritchie. Unfortunately, her soft and subtle music was drowned out quite a bit by general loudness of the bar. Pianos was just not the place for her. (Somewhere like Union Hall, in the earnestly attentive neighborhood of Park Slope, probably would have suited her a lot better.) But regardless, I got a good taste of her beautiful music and slightly husky voice. She’s definitely an artist that I would recommend checking out.
