At CMJ, No Fast Track to Fame, but Plenty of IRLing

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.”

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