One of a handful of D.C. acts playing this year's CMJ, Pree happened to be wrapping up a leg of a tour. They performed at The Living Room to a crowd of about 25 seemingly tired music journalists, college music directors, and other souls taking advantage of the free show. The band didn't half-ass it, which they easily could have. Instead, they performed as it was just another day on tour, they just happened to be surrounded by a whole lot of eh.

After speaking to singer/guitarist/multi instumentalist Ben Usie and drummer Ethan Brasseaux, it became clear that the band isn't banking on a musical festival for anything more than a show.

Washington City Paper: Do you have any other shows scheduled for CMJ?

Ben Usie: Not yet. We're trying to get on some unofficial showcases this weekend. [They confirmed a Brooklyn Vegan loft party since this interview. Here's the Facebook invite.]

WCP: Why did you decide to play CMJ?

BU: We've been on tour the last month and we're going to be on tour next month. It was a good middle stop. We just released an album today. This was probably a good way to release it.

WCP: Would you have come if you weren't on tour?

BU: Probably. Our label is centered in New York so it makes sense. They have connections to management and it's a lot easier for them to get the word out.

WCP: Was it weird to play at 5pm?

Ethan Brasseaux: It was nice.

BU: I did have to drink a few beers beforehand. We played The Living Room before so we were happy to be back.

WCP: Is there anyone you're looking forward to seeing?

EB: I always like seeing Givers.

BU: They're from our hometown of Lafayette, La. We just played with Tall Ships, who are really cool. Dad Rocks! is from Europe and he's cool.

WCP: Is D.C. a good place to be in a band?

BU: It's done a lot of good things for us. We have a lot of really good friends that are doing really great musical things.

Pree's new album "Folly" is now available on Paper Garden Records.

Salome, one of the few metal bands that performed at this year's CMJ.

For D.C. bands, the takeaway from CMJ seems to have been this: It will not pluck you from obscurity, but it can't hurt. Also: Don't believe the hype.

"The myth that you can land the perfect agent or manager at a place like that—I don’t think it pays attention to the reality that you’ve been talking to that person for seven months already,” said Jesse Elliott, whose polymathic alt-country band These United States played a handful of shows during this year's College Music Journal Music Marathon. The annual industry gathering featured over 1,000 artists, close to 100 venues, and around a dozen acts from the D.C. area.

Elliott's got a point: Most of the young bands I heard chatter about during the festival—like Florida's Surfer Blood, New York's Freelance Whales, and London's Golden Silvers and Mumford and Sons—had recording contracts, significant blog buzz, or both going in, not to mention full management teams in place. These are not bands whose success lives or dies according to an industry festival.

"Most of the bands at these festivals are already signed," wrote Todd Hyman, who runs the District-based labels Carpark and Paw Tracks and hosted CMJ showcases for both, in an e-mail. "Though this year there seemed to be a preponderance of unsigned blog bands. Seems folks were complaining about that."

Like many of the D.C. bands who played the festival, Hyman questioned CMJ's usefulness. "CMJ used to be really influential 15-20 years ago," he wrote. "College radio's influence has waned with the rise of the Internet. [Austin's South by Southwest] seems to be the main festival these days. I suppose CMJ benefits college radio music directors the most. And now bloggers." Nevertheless, Hyman's labels have hosted CMJ showcases several times since 2000, and he estimated he's attended the festival 13 times.

When you cast aside the make-you-or-break-you narrative, though, there are subtle benefits to CMJ, bands said. "Though everyone likes to fantasize about big crowds and label offers, I think realistically we just wanted to play for a few new people at a new venue and to add CMJ to our collective resume," wrote Nate Frey, whose band Last Tide played a set at the Brooklyn venue Littlefield, in an e-mail.

The Annandale, Va.-based doom-metal band Salome performed at one of CMJ's only metal showcases, which Relapse Records sponsored. The band signed to Profound Lore Records over the summer, and said it sees CMJ the way most bands do: as an opportunity for exposure. Rob Moore, the group's guitarist, said that performing under the Relapse banner meant a large turnout, and that as much as the music industry has changed in recent years, labels remain important as brands and filters. "If I were just to record something and stick it on the Internet, the chances of somebody hearing it are next to none," Moore said. "So you still need a record label or blogs or Web sites or something to guide your path." CMJ, he said, can connect bands to all those things, even if it may not deliver a recording contract.

Following exposure comes networking. "You’re basically going to meet people and hope something good comes out of it," says Patrick Kigongo, of Ra Ra Rasputin. "As long as bands realize that they’re not going to have some sort of miracle happen to them, they’ll have fun." He said his band—which CMJ initially wait-listed but later asked to a join a showcase—met other artists and a label with whom it may release something soon, not to mention a dubious show promoter who didn't carry business cards.

Elliott, of These United States, said he appreciates CMJ for its more serendipitous possibilities—like meeting a band whose music you admire, or scoring a short write-up on a New York Times blog. These United States also met up with a producer from a studio where it may record its next album, and took some time to check out the space.

Evan Brody, who helps run D.C.'s Underwater Peoples label even though he lives in New Jersey, said someone from the Mexican People Summer label came to one of his showcases, and that he even had a conversation with Ryan Schreiber, the founder of the influential review Web site Pitchfork. And he met some of the bloggers that helped Underwater Peoples become one of this year's most-talked-about petri dishes for young bands. "I think it helped put a lot of faces to a lot of people who I’ve spoken to," he said. "There was a lot of IRLing going on."

Photo courtesy of Salome's MySpace page.

Duchess Says, from Montreal, performs at Arlene's Grocery in New York City on Wednesday.

Kria Brekkan at Cameo Gallery: A cynic might say Kría Brekkan's hour-long set at the Paw Tracks label showcase confirmed numerous clichés about Iceland's parochial peculiarity. To wit: Pretend Lars von Trier's costume team had reimagined Sabrina the Teenage Witch and you're still falling short on quirk, insularity, and shamanic strangeness. Crazy-eyed, angel-voiced, and spooky-thin, Brekkan employed all the womblike abstraction of her former band, múm, but none of its glitchy restraint. And because Brekken invoked a very natal image when she crouched on the floor and peeled her dress over her body, I feel OK suggesting that her lengthy, deconstructed nursery rhymes (conjured via laptop, a row of voice-manipulating pedals, and an accordion) could credibly soundtrack a birth. Brekkan performs at Floristree in Baltimore tonight at 9 p.m.

More favorites from CMJ after the jump: bad beach similes, calisthenic indie rock, and intimidating French Canadians!

Surf City at Cake Shop: The inside-baseball joke at CMJ this year had something to do with a lot of bands—like Real Estate and the rest of the Underwater Peoples crew—really digging on the beach. Surfer Blood—a much-buzzed, erudite five-piece from the Florida city where my grandparents used to winter—was safe and reliable, like SPF 100, while Surf City—a loud, lanky, heavily reverbed four-piece from New Zealand—more or less obliterated my desire to make bad shore similes. In hyperbolic songs that crescendoed and climaxed but rarely cycled, the group uncorked its country's best '80s export, the Dunedin Sound, with reverence and gusto. Every critic worth his or her weight in seven-inches has mentioned this band's debt to The Clean, to which I can't object.  But in my mind, Surf City was all Buzzcocks.

Darwin Deez at Santos Party House: This ostensible acid casualty from New York refers to his music as "indie rock with a side of calisthenics," which is apt insofar as he looks like Richard Simmon's string-beanish doppelganger and his band segues between songs by dancing to "Single Ladies." (They've got choreography, too!) I'm not going to defend those gimmicks, but I'll go to bat for the songs, which were all quirky, Malkmusian swagger and fried, hyperimaginative wistfulness.

Duchess Says at Arlene's Grocery: There are bands whose studio output I will never appreciate—think the Les Savy Fav school of high-bombast, high-testosterone indie rock—but whose live shows really can't be missed. Duchess Says is one of those bands. Singer Annie-Claude Deschenes was frenetic and ferocious: Like Kria Brekkan, she spent moments of her set spreadeagled on the floor, except in her case that meant several feet into the crowd, not on stage. The band, meanwhile, took as much from early-oughts electroclash as jerky, Lightning Bolt-style noise. It's a testament to Duchess Says' live act that it takes listening to its recordings to realize how much all roads lead to Devo.

Pill Wonder at Delancey: Here was the most overstated-looking lo-fi band you'll see this year. This Seattle septet has two drummers, two keyboardists and a scuzzy aesthetic that oscillates between Titus Andronicus's lush, loud angst and the Elephant 6 collective's punchy psych pop. Everything was excessive—the instrumentation, the gang vocals, the intentional sloppiness—save the songs, which where anthemic and efficient. How else to ensure that more is more?

Tabi Bonney performs at Fat Baby last night in New York City.

The thing about CMJ is, not all of it's CMJ. There are the unoffocial day parties—free, sometimes invite-only events sponsored by record labels, PR firms, and media. There are the more exclusive parties at night. And there are the shows that, although not nominally part of the five-day conference and music festival, go on anyway, right in the middle of it all.

Take Casper Bangs' show last night at Pianos, which was sponsored by the weekly concert series Cross-Polination and was not part of the official CMJ roster. Nevertheless, the band—the project of Rob Pierangeli, who used to play in the Hard Tomorrows—played to a nearly full room.

Pierangeli paid $45 when he applied to play at this year's CMJ, but his band was turned down. "Sorry to be frank, but I don’t see if the music has that much to do with who gets in," he told me today. "So if you want to play, you have to know someone. Everyone knows that though. That’s not new information."

The problem, he said, is that bands have to apply to CMJ through a service called Sonicbids, which was conceived as a digital middle man between bands and show promoters. The CMJ application comes with a fee but is free for Sonicbids members, who pay around $70 a year.

Pierangeli doesn't like that arrangement, and he's not the only one (here's Sonicbids' response to the controversy over its submissions method and pricing). "Maybe a lot of artists are out there getting gigs and finding Sonicbids is a strong tool to advance their careers," Pierangeli said. "But not me. I’m just one experience, but it seems kind of like bullshit to me."

He said he doesn't want blow money an event whose impact seems to have diminished. Because of how technology and the economy have changed the recording industry, "perhaps there’s less incentive for the industry to really to come in [for CMJ]," Pierangeli said. "West Coast people don’t come out. They’re probably like, 'we’ll wait for South by Southwest or something. We’ll go to that instead.' So what the fuck are we doing coming up here? People just play it so they can say that they played it."

Still, he does see advantages to the festival. "I think the value is just connecting with new people and connecting with old people. In terms of maybe what CMJ what it once was, and bands getting signed and discovered, it’s not like that anymore."

Which is why, following the release of a 7-inch and an EP next month (you can hear the latter here), Casper Bangs will begin releasing singles frequently and for free. Pierangeli said he hopes to begin that project in December. Not that he doesn't love albums or lacks enough material to fill one. But, he said, "people just want songs right now. They don’t want to commit."

–

Some shots of other District artists who performed last night during CMJ:

Deleted Scenes at Cameo Gallery:

True Womanhood (full disclosure: I'm friends with the band) at Cameo Gallery:

Tabi Bonney at Fat Baby. Niki Jean, from Bonney's pop group the Crybabies, joined him for a song:

Surf City, from New Zealand, at Cake Shop:

Middle Distance Runner performs at the CMJ Music Marathon in 2008.

Every CMJ has its success story—the unknown act who, thanks to buzz and grit and talent and luck , tickles the right trigger of the wayfaring label rep or taste-maker who, for whatever reason, has decided to see it. But most of the thousand-plus little-known bands and artists who descend on New York City each fall for the College Music Journal Music Marathon don't walk away with freshly inked contracts or top-tier management. Their game is more incremental: A write-up here, a handshake there. So whether they're dampening expectations or they mean it, it's probably unsurprising that most of the D.C. bands performing during this year's CMJ say their primary goal is just to "have fun."

"These things are kind of a madhouse, and there's a lot of talk of ‘there’s gonna be a lot of industry people,'" says Matt Dowling, whose band Deleted Scenes has two CMJ gigs and a meeting with a marketing firm. "I don’t mean to be a cynic, but we’ve been playing for long enough and pined over certain goals to realize that the bottom line is to have fun. If the industry happens to like it, then great."

John Thornley, of U.S. Royalty, is equally cautious: “I don’t think we’re going to go there and get a record, and I mean, it may happen. The goal is just to go there and play a show and get a lot of people." But he also sees less tangible benefits. “If you meet a band at a party, and you like their music and they like yours, it’s that much more easy to work with them.”

At least a dozen bands and artists from the District will play gigs during this year's CMJ, which starts tomorrow night and runs through Saturday, and includes about 75 different venues across New York City (there are also panel discussions and a film festival). Some acts already have recording contracts, others don't, and all of them—once you get past their shared enthusiasm for merriment—have different goals.

For Middle Distance Runner, which already has a record label, management, and a promotions firm, CMJ is all about exposure. "To get our name out there in people’s minds more, it makes it easier to do our job," says Stephen Kilroy, the group's frontman. His band has played at CMJ during each of the last three years. "Our manager would have an easier time dealing with other bands' managers if we’re more well-known and well-thought-of. So we’re going to go up there and try not to embarrass ourselves."

Rapper Tabi Bonney said he doesn't really know what the festival is, but that he's happy to perform there all the same. "This is my first time ever going to CMJ," he says. "I’d kinda heard about it, but my booking agency just set it up for me."

CMJ Network, which publishes a college-radio top-30 list and a magazine, started the festival in 1980 as a way to expose underground artists to the recording industry. These days, well-known independent acts—like Hercules & Love Affair and Saul Williams—headline many of the bills. The bands encompass dozens of genres, and nearly as many nationalities. And while the industry presence (major labels and indies, managers, agents, PR firms, and lawyers) is substantial, for unsigned bands the rewards seem diminished, partially because of the ailing record industry, increasingly because of the down economy—this even as interest in independent music has ballooned in recent years and CMJ has grown. The 2009 festival had 10 percent more applicants than the previous year, Robert Haber, the founder and chief executive of CMJ Network, told Newsday this week.

The role of college radio seems particularly anachronistic. "Ten years ago or even longer, college radio had a bigger impact," says Mike Mori, an agent in New York who represents fairly successful acts like Noisettes, Ra Ra Riot, Dalek and The Antlers. "It’s still a factor. It’s a piece of the puzzle but it’s a lot less important."

But, Mori says, "any of these festivals"—like South by Southwest in Austin—"are great for music because they give small bands an outlet."

That's how Evan Brody sees it. Along with three other musicians with whom he attended George Washington University, Brody runs D.C.'s Underwater Peoples Records. Most of the bands that have released music through the DIY label are based in New Jersey, and several of them—like Real Estate, Ducktails, and Air Waves—have become blogosphere favorites in recent months.

So, Brody says, the label set down some goals for the three showcases (one official, two un-) that it's hosting during CMJ: "No. 1 is have a good time. No. 2 is chill really hard. No. 3 is meet new people. I love meeting new people. And No. 4 is just making sure that everything is going smoothly."

John Davis, who has performed at CMJ several times with Q & Not U and Georgie James, says young bands shouldn't worry too much about the industry aspect of the festival. "You just need to make sure that something about what you're doing is good (even if it's form over function) and people will come to you," he wrote in an e-mail. "That's not to say that reaching out to people is bad or pointless—it definitely isn't.  But I feel that you don't want to spend too much time on that stuff when working on your music is always what really gets you someplace."

As for Davis' new band, Title Tracks, he wrote, "our schedule is drive up, play, get back in the car, drive home. Literally. We'll be home later that night."

Photo courtesy of Middle Distance Runner's MySpace page.

CMJ Music Marathon and Film Festival 2009: As college radio directors prepare to descend on New York City for their annual milking of the music industry-PR teat, we here at Festival Watch are left to wonder if we might have missed out on something by not signing up for airtime. We’re not talking about the opportunity to see more than 1,300 live bands (including   Broadcast, Pissed Jeans, and Rahzel). Nope: We’re bummed that we may have been denied, in the words of one former festival participant, a whole bunch of free NYC dinners. Sigh.

For those of you who can afford the $495 dollar ticket price (only $2.62 a band!), registration has been extended through 6 p.m. today. But we’re guessing that if you pay for the badge yourself, you don’t get the free dinners.

Unsound 2009: If you’re in the market for a festival experience that’ll probably cost you more than $500, we’d suggest you check out The Wire-sponsored Unsound festival. This, according to press materials, is a “[m]usic and art festival…with installations, panel discussions, workshops, film screenings and performances from Biosphere, Kode9 & Spaceape, Stars Of The Lid, Monolake, Omar-S, Jóhann Jóhannsson, Grouper, Ikonika, James Blackshaw, 2562, Untold, Deuce DJ Team (Marcel Dettmann & Shed) and more.” Honestly, it sounds pretty rad—and The Wire is an excellent go-to for culture you might have otherwise missed. Trouble is that Unsound takes place in Krakow. Poland. It’s a beautiful place, and we’d definitely suggest that you make the trip. But you’d need to get there by tonight. And, though the roughly 40 Euro admission price is totally doable, the plane fare it would take to get there will probably put this out of most of your respective price ranges.

Maybe we’ll see you there next year?

Blip Festival 2009: In December, New York will also play host to BlipFest, “[t]he world's premier chip music event.” If that quote (pulled from the event’s Facebook page) isn’t enough to convince you to go get yourself a $40 3-Day Festival Pass—as, apparently, the thing’s organizers, who provided little else in the way of information, thought it would be—we’d direct you to the YouTube-ed trailer for a film called Blip Festival: Reformat the Planet. Think Nintendo.

Lollapalooza 2010: Message board speculators are all a-speculating about who might fill in the line-up cards for next year’s Lollapalooza (it’s not really all that relevant, but, back in high school, we used to call this ‘lots of poor losers’–feel free to dissect that), and, apparently that’s enough for some folks, cause early bird passes to the 2010 version of that festival have completely sold out. The Lolla people say that more tickets won’t be available until spring—with luck, by then interested parties won’t have to rely on guesswork to inform their purchasing decisions.