Festival Review: CMJ 2003

CMJ can be a tiring experience — 1000 bands in only a few days. Luckily, you don’t notice until you get home and realize you’ve gone partially deaf, then start to be concerned about the functionality of your liver. From the snapshots however, I think you’ll see that it is a highly worthwhile road trip.

On thursday night, the Lager House seemed materialize at the Continental – an East Village dive. After catching a bit of the one man act appropriately called Man, I wandered down the narrow staircase to the men’s room and ran into an eyebrow-less Bobby Harlow (The Go)… he said he shaved them off to see what it would look like, which was a good enough reason for me. Truth is, it looked pretty creepy. Wandering upstairs, I found Bogue taking the stage for the first of several great Detroit bands to rock the Continental that night, along with a couple others. The place was packed as The Go took the stage and blew us away. Watching Bobby Harlow carve his chest with a broken beer bottle and jump up and down from the stage, I momentarily wondered if Iggy had joined The Go. There was no question that the show embodied the spirit of Detroit rock and roll and the crowd loved every minute of it.

Party animals the Detroit City Council were next up. Clad in their ultra-swanky white tuxedosdetroit city council and led by dynamic frontman Tom Potter, the Council reminded New York that “it is your civic duty to shake that booty,” and reinforced that notion with their catchy new single “Party Planet Rising.”

Concluding this evening of outstanding Motor City rock was Outrageous Cherry, led by Matthew Smith.

Several others of Detroit’s best were on stages throughout Manhattan and Brooklyn. At the SouthPaw, in Brooklyn’s Park Slope neighborhood, Saturday was another evening of Detroit bands including the Hentchmen, Paybacks and Gore Gore Girls. On Wednesday, at this same venue, Brendan Benson headlined a show that was opened by the Waxwings. Other D-town acts included Pas/Cal, The Singles, Andrew WK, Sponge, Slumber Party and Molly. Small Brown Bike played what may be one of their last shows outrageous cherryahead of Ted Leo / Pharmacists at CBGB’s. Saturday Looks Good To Me was scheduled to play, but did not end up making it… word on the street is that there may be no more shows with the old lineup. To top things off, former MC5 guitarist Wayne Kramer played Tobacco Road and delivered the keynote speech at the “Do It Yourself in Film, Music & Books” convention.

A few Detroiters were spotted off the stage as well. At the Continental, we ran into some of the Times Beach Records crew and spotted Real Detroit’s Shannon McCarthy. In SoHo, Big Matt ran into Brendan Benson looking sharp in a black & white pinstripe suit. Pas/Cal were seen picking up some suits of their own at H&M, then partying at Brooklyn’s trendy Luxx. Speaking of Luxx, we also ran into a Wings fan in town for the game and toting his personal bottle of Chivas.

Oh yeah, and there were a few hundred non-Detroit bands there as well. We had a blast checking out Longwave and stellastar*. We also really dug a band from Indiana by the name of John Wilkes Booze. With a name like that, you’ve got to put on a show, and they didn’t disappoint. With an Electric Six swagger, they presented their views on the buffoon who runs this country. If they are ever in a town near you, they’re a can’t miss!

Pictures are worth a thousand words (a million if I’m the writer). Come join us for next year’s CMJ pilgrimage. -Ryan Sult