CMJ Day 2
By Erik Myers and Trent Wahlfeldt
Captains’ Log – Day 2.
In this strange and foul-smelling terrain known as New York City, we are finding that one must be careful not to get caught up in the “excitement” that permeates our every other move. Sometimes, Trent and Erik feel a need to toss away their return tickets to home and pursue “making it” in the Big Apple. But that is a road measured in tear drops and McDonald’s wrappers.
These poetic musings have come to us in the few hours of sleep to be had, but we know in our hearts that neither of us would make very good bums.
Today’s panels did a swell job of instilling in us irresponsible dreams, but that’s probably a good thing. We realized quickly on that the panels we attended (Trent checked out a neat discussion on the distribution/marketing of music on mobile devices while Erik learned about what the major label landscape looked like) were more suited for actual musicians and not the folks interested in becoming a part of the industries built around the sound. That’s for tomorrow.
We were fortunate enough to get exposed to featured speaker Andrew W.K. Wearing his trademark white shirt and white pants, Andrew introduced himself and his method of life: “Just keep doing what you love to do and do it with as much intensity as you can.”
He showed off an interpretive dance with a chair, culminating in him ripping the seat cushion off and then just head-banging. “You really can see how CMJ has changed by how they’ve made me today’s featured speaker,” he later said.
Luckily enough, we caught up with the guys from The Knew. They told us about the cool bar they were playing in – Wicked Willy’s – that night in lower Manhattan. They appeared to be having a good time. Sometimes you can just tell.
After an hour or so of Andrew anecdotes and a neat piano rendition of “Party Hard”, we rode the L Train into Brooklyn to go to the Pirate Party at The Gutter, a cool bowling alley. There we would meet up with Doug, the guy running the show, but also meet up with the man we had waited too long for: Steve Hendrickson, formerly of KCSU, now of Team Clermont.
“My BOYS,” Steve yelled. “My boys.” This was a reunion long in the making. We didn’t have much time to catch up honestly; we hugged and all, but there were so many others there to chat with (including Jessi, who has misplaced her cell phone). This included Colin, who we better remember as Afro Thunder from the Miami (OH) University station. Their station is internet-only, which doesn’t sound as fun as doing terrestrial radio, but Colin assured us it was actually cool. People EVERYWHERE can listen in, he told us. The future of the radio is the Internet too, so perhaps its time we learn to embrace the future. Soon we’ll have Internet in our cars, so it won’t be all that different really.
We walked for a while with Steve and Sean from Planetary, another cool dude. Steve showed us the place he was staying at for the week and we all took a much-needed sit and watched an episode of How I Met Your Mother.
After that, we parted ways, knowing it wouldn’t be long until we met again. From there, it was on to the Studio at Webster Hall, where The Syndicate was having their party. It was very cool; we chatted with Karen about our days and watched the variety of great bands: The Swimmers had fun melodies driven by pop guitar and keys, while Twin Atlantic was more pop-punk-rock similar to The Photo Atlas, who are also playing out here. Trent hung out in the back while Erik took photos, ending up with chatting with the Finnish band Rubik, who told him about their quirky sound and Finnish origin. One of the best things about CMJ is being so close right to the musicians, we love meeting all these folks from around the world.
After their set, we went home. We got to bed around 2:00 a.m. and got up at 8:00 a.m. to write this blog. Not the most fun sometimes, but there’s so much to say and document. Day 3, surely, will be better: Trent is one of a five-person panel on “Making Executive Decisions.”
Executive decision #1: live hardy, party hardy.
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