CMJ 2008, Day 3: Voices strong, sweet, shouting, and speaking for themselves

October 23, 2008, in NYC

By Liz Schroeter
Published: October 24th, 2008 | 12:35pm

Besides the barrage of shows at the usual downtown venues, CMJ includes performances at unconventional spaces that even this local New Yorker doesn’t frequent. One such show was at the Housing Works Bookstore in SoHo, a non-profit, donated bookstore that raises money to support homeless people living with AIDS. And since it was a bookstore, tonight’s performance by Juliana Hatfield was as much about her new album, How to Walk Away (Ye Olde Records), as it was a reading from her new memoir, When I Grow Up. She alternated reading excerpts from her book with performing songs on her acoustic guitar. The soft-spoken Hatfield seemed much more at ease with the latter. Her reading about how songwriting, for her, is like chasing ghosts — the songs she writes are never as good as the melodies floating in her head — was honest and disarming.

Also performing at Housing Works was fellow veteran singer-songwriter Jesse Malin. A born and raised New Yorker who grew up in the downtown punk and glam scene, Malin’s solo work is mostly country-tinged love letters. Keeping with the bookstore vibe, Malin shared anecdotes about his songs which were charming and, in my opinion, much more entertaining than the songs themselves.

Across town in the basement of the terribly named bar Rehab, the Brooklyn duo KaiserCartel was playing. The band’s boy-girl harmonies are some of the best I’ve heard in a long time, more folksy than Mates of States-y. Courtney Kaiser’s subtle vibrato and ability to effortlessly hit well placed high notes could give Feist a run for her money. Benjamin Cartel’s harmonies are the perfect match for their bittersweet melodies. The pair took turns on lead vocals and traded off guitars, drums, and xylophones. For their last song abandoned the stage all together and walked around the room while singing a sort of lullaby to the audience. KaiserCartel was both playful and sincere, which made the duo one of the most lovable live bands you may see at CMJ.

Back at the Red Bull Space, another Brooklyn band was tearing it up. Oxford Collapse was making up for the space’s lousy sound system by performing its usual rowdy set. Bassist-vocalist Adam Rizer had a hard time staying on stage, and instead preferred to fall on his knees at the feet of the audience, or launch himself onto his friends in the front row. When at the mic, Rizer’s shouty singing is the counterpart to singer-guitarist Mike Pace’s vocals, skipping back and forth and playing off one another, then meeting for anthemic choruses. Such was the effect as they sang, “All the boys go hoooome alooooone,” on the last song of their set. It’s those shout-along moments that make Oxford Collapse one of the best party bands around.

Following Oxford Collapse was Los Angeles band the Broken West. In the vein of college rock bands of the last generation, like the Replacements and Buffalo Tom, the Broken West has great pop hooks and memorable melodies and sounds right at home on Merge Records alongside bands like Spoon and the Rosebuds. Piano, shimmering guitars, and vocal harmonies with just the right amount of grit are nothing new, but the Broken West does it well.

Thinking I would catch High Places next, or maybe even go home to bed, I instead got swept up into the vortex that was the Sub Pop, Merge, Touch and Go, and Suicide Squeeze party at Hi-Fi. CMJ is as much about seeing bands as it is about getting drunk, er, networking with your fellow college radio and music biz contacts. Awesome women lead the radio departments at all four labels associated with the cocktail party, and celebrating a little girl power in an industry that is still largely a boys club was the perfect way to cap off the evening.

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For Day 4 CMJ coverage, click here.