There were other cool “non official” CMJ happenings that took place over the past week (this not being one of them) or so that didn’t involve Pitchfork Media or Todd P., although all bands involved in the shows that I caught have gotten shout outs from one or the other at some point in time. Myopenbar.com, one of my favorite resources for free booze and interesting times in this and a few other cities, also happens to throw great parties and shows from time to time, one of which went down just as CMJ was kicking off at Manhattan’s sprawling but sometimes not awful Webster Hall. The show line up included Beach Fossils, Woods, Titus Andronicus and Here We Go Magic. The event was free to those who R.S.V.Peed and although there was no free (or even discounted!) booze at the event, the line up was good enough not to scoff. Strangely, Here We Go Magic was headlining the night, even though they were the least exciting name on the bill. My friends have all assured me that so far Here We Go Magic’s music hasn’t been used on a popular teen TV show or film so I can’t really understand what’s going on here, but I guess they have a lot of New Yorkers who are really into them since the show continued to get more and more crowded as the evening moved on towards their performance. Needless to say I didn’t stick around for them to play. I also left before Titus Andronicus did their thing, since I’m trying not to kill my interest in them while I still like what they’re doing and I’ve seen them play an embarrassing amount of times since moving to New York two years ago. I focused my evening instead on Woods who I hadn’t seen play in a good six or seven months and on Beach Fossils, a newer Woodsist/Captured Tracks band that I’ve been really into lately and one that I’ve been trying to catch live for a while.
