Around Hear
A line of clubgoers stretched for a block outside Brownies on New York’s Avenue A; people waited patiently as the city’s usual frantic sidewalk traffic raced past on either side. Within earshot were T-shirt peddlers, who hoped those awaiting entrance might be interested in passing the time by purchasing a Subway Series souvenir. Inside, Kansas City’s Rex Hobart, the middle act in a strong five-artist alt-country lineup, played to an enthusiastic crowd.
It’s a fairly typical Big Apple scenario, except for the fact that Hobart’s set took place in midafternoon. Accustomed to playing in dimly lit dives that look as if the light of day has never invaded their space, Hobart must’ve been bewildered by the unfiltered sunlight peering in the open door. Hobart, along with artists such as Moby, P.J. Harvey, and Shivaree, played matinee sets to accommodate the packed schedule of the 20th annual CMJ Music Marathon, which stuffed 1,000-odd bands into 40-something venues. The early shift proved to be quite a blessing for Hobart, who was able to draw from an undiluted supply of music fans, record label representatives, writers, promoters, and college-radio DJs. If, for example, he had played at 8 the same night, Hobart would have been competing with more than 40 other acts.
As if the Marathon didn’t supply enough excitement, its opening coincided with the first games of the World Series, meaning countless panelists and performers felt the need to interject statements of loyalty to the Yankees or Mets during their presentations or stage banter. Similarly, nearly every panel eventually evolved into a discussion of Internet distribution, which was unquestionably the conference’s hot-button topic. Chuck D, frontman of music’s most eloquently political group, Public Enemy, managed to incorporate both subjects in the speech that officially opened the ceremonies.
“They said baseball’s a dead sport,” he said, “but there’s 50,000 people in the seats every night.” The music industry, he added, also can prove that reports of its demise are greatly exaggerated by emulating the structure of sports. “In sports, if you’re good, the cream rises to the top,” he explained, noting how a talented athlete can rise through the ranks from high school to college to professional leagues. “In music, it hasn’t always been that way. If you’re a group in Akron, Ohio, you pretty much need to start an independent company to get your product out, no matter how good you are.” However, he said, Internet distribution has leveled the playing field. “Now you’re going to have a million bands on a million labels,” he said.
Chuck D, an outspoken Napster supporter, maintained that “trying to stop file sharing is like trying to stop the rain.” He proclaimed MP3-heavy Web sites as “the new radio” and declared traditional radio dead — a gutsy statement that produced some gasps from a room filled mostly with college-radio DJs. Chuck had little sympathy for fellow artists who complain about lost profits, saying, “You should be making money for nothing (low production costs) and doing it for the love.”
Following Chuck D’s lead, record label representatives embraced (albeit reluctantly in some cases) the practice of using free downloadable tracks from CDs as a marketing tool. Seth Freed, publicist for the Blue Man Group, explained how the band’s intense Internet fanbase has created a sizable buzz about an act that has never appeared on MTV or radio and whose album has been largely ignored by the music press. (The Blue Man Group’s opening night show, which offered nonverbal performance art, percussive pyrotechnics, artfully splattered paint, and plenty of physical comedy, including a surprise spewing of banana pudding into the crowd, was one of the festival’s hottest tickets.) Other tactics popped up in other panels: Sharon Loud of V2 Music explained how the use of Moby‘s music in commercials helped push his album to platinum status, while other panelists maintained that listening stations, while expensive (yes, the record labels pay to get their discs included), are effective.
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Still, strong performances remain the surest way to attract fans. At the Drive In cemented its reputation as one of hard rock’s most explosive new acts with a high-energy set filled with speaker-jumping and long-building crescendos to chaotic choruses. All-female trio The Hissyfits shrugged off a bout of the flu to deliver a memorable set. All three members sang, providing the group with the versatility necessary to create stellar counter-melodies. Swedish political punk ‘n’ roll powerhouse The International Noise Conspiracy dedicated its rallying cry, “Smash It Up,” to the upcoming election, while the always-enchanting electronic-pop trio Le Tigre closed its set with a moving tribute to Amadou Diallo, on the evening before the anniversary of the unarmed African-American’s death at the hands of New York policemen.
Unfortunately, although the Marathon had a strong female presence (in addition to Le Tigre and the Hissyfits, singer/songwriters such as Sarah Harmer and Erin McKeown made favorable impressions, and several venues hosted showcases that featured exclusively women), its lone panel on feminism was frustratingly unrewarding. Although it enticed attendees with the title “Backlash: Is Frat Rock Killing Feminist Rock?” moderator Ann Powers (of the New York Times) discarded this relevant topic and the discussion soon turned to such annoyingly esoteric subjects as the dangers of female journalists’ dating the artists they profile and the merits of the wardrobes of stars such as P.J. Harvey and Lil’ Kim.
Much more intriguing was the Always and Forever panel, which focused on hip-hop’s present and future. Unlike at the other panels, the floor was opened to questions early in the process. Heated debate ensued, as the subject matter of today’s commercially viable rappers continually fell under attack. Audience members were unapologetically critical of songs dealing with drugs, guns, material possessions, and “bitches and hos.” The panelists, many of whom had either engaged in such lyrics (Schooly D) or associated and recorded with rappers who do (DJ Hurricane), were more hesitant, although their disdain for today’s bling-bling chart-toppers seemed barely contained. MC Serch (3rd Bass) repeatedly insisted that fans of underground, politically motivated hip-hop stop bashing the likes of Ja Rule and Juvenile and instead use their energy to call radio stations and MTV to get their preferred brand of artists on the air. Still, although Serch provided various valuable insights at the Marathon’s most engaging (and well-attended) panel, he didn’t have all the answers: He picked the Mets in six.
Around the Country in 90 Days
90 Day Men, another band with Kansas City ties, played in front of a sold-out crowd as the middle group of a seven-band Friday-night showcase. Although the founding members of this quartet hail from St. Louis and now reside in Chicago, bassist Robert Lowe‘s name should be familiar to Kansas City scenesters; his efforts were instrumental in organizing a number of all-ages shows in the mid-’90s. Unfortunately, Lowe doesn’t have fond memories of that era. “No one wanted to do anything,” he recalls. “No one felt the need to be involved. They complained that nothing was there, but when something was around they didn’t take any steps to help it stay there, and they didn’t try to start anything new.” When told of the success of El Torreon, which now has a solid year to its credit, Lowe replies with a series of progressively positive adjectives. “That’s good, that’s great, that’s excellent,” he raves. “I hope that people actually support it, because people for the most part didn’t support things in the past.”
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Lowe won’t be visiting El Torreon during his next trip through town, as his group will instead be unveiling its thick, rhythmic epics (several tunes on its [it [is] it] critical band album stretch past the eight-minute mark) at the Replay Lounge in Lawrence on Thursday, November 2. Opting for ever-evolving compositions rather than clean verse-chorus transitions, 90 Day Men blends churning jazzy bass lines with discordant guitar bursts and detached spoken-word vocals that spread out erratically instead of remaining tied to the beat. These songs, packed with weaving guitar lines and impressive drum rolls, seem primed for expansion in a live format, and while Lowe rescinds the word “jammy” as soon as he utters it, he admits that his group revels in improvisation. “There’s recorded music and there’s live music,” he explains, “and they should never really be the same.”
