CMJ Recap by Emilie: Day 1

After being lost in Queens I finally made my way to the Chelsea International Hostel to drop off my luggage and head to NYU to pick up my CMJ badge. Not even taking a second to breathe I immediately left with Ali to find the Spectre meet and greet at Hi Fi, a bar on Avenue A somewhere.

After being lost for about an hour we finally made it there and received free drinks and goody bags. It was great to see the promoters’ faces when for months I’ve only heard their sultry voices. Eric from Spectre, Grahm from [a man etc], and Canada from Pirate! After sufficiently paying our dues we headed off to try to catch Atlas Sound, the long awaited concert of CMJ. We made it to the venue, Le Poisson Rouge, early only to find out that no more CMJ badge holders were allowed in. Bummed, we made a new game plan.

We headed straight down town to The Suffolk to see Fool’s Gold. Arriving there two hours early we got our hands stamped and walked a few blocks down to eat a great NY pizza place. (As a sidenote I want to point out that after all the pizza I’ve consumed in New York I have to admit that the state definitely has something to brag about.) Ali and I arrived back at the venue and sat through some of the showcase already going on. The bands were awful. Ear shatteringly awful. So awful that we slept through some of them. The venue itself was awful. G-d awful. The power could not support two guitars, a vocal mic, and a drum set. For one punk band the circuit overloaded four times until they gave up. But we really wanted to see Fool’s Gold and it wasn’t until 12:30 in the morning that we were informed they had cancelled. CMJ Fail.