Tabi Bonney performing at Feedback at DC9 from Denman C Anderson on Vimeo.

Sean McArdle:

-Really nice show last night. On my way to Leutkirch. New levels of exhaustion today, but feeling good.

-2 planes 6 trains one bus and almost 30 hours later, I am in Berlin. Best Borsht I have ever had. Being well looked after. What time is it?

Raheem DeVaughn

-Im amazed how beautiful woman are exploiting themselves on twitter no clothes on & ect leave something for the imagination. Stop advertising

-its not a attack on woman! Im saying yall are bigger than that its 90% of the reason u fell disrespected & overlooked. U a QUEEN ya dig?

-1 said we do it for attention, another cuz Im a model so its to get work, another was dont judge us basically Im beautiful & wanna show it

Tabi Bonney

-On a serious note though. Why are women so deceptive & hide? U guys got make up, weave, surgery(some) & now booty pop underwear. Why??

-And when u see us men, there is no deception. If we are ugly, funny looking or something you know off the tippy top. Ain’t no hiding

-All of my real true girlfriends never wore makeup & didn’t really have to. I guess you guys can call me soulful after all LOL!!!

Beauty Pill (Chad Clark)

-Christina Billotte needs to sing again. She’s in L.A. now. Some dubstep producer oughta ring her. Not kidding. Great voice.

-(Apologies to all who get bored when I tweet about technical shit.) Cytomic = virtual substitute for the C1 while I await the Vandergraph.

Further evidence that Tobias Wolff is the only author in existence who doesn’t sound put upon when interviewed for the millionth time , a great piece on Edward P. Jones, the Bad Sex in Fiction Awards, and more, after the jump.

- The Bad Sex in Fiction Award, writes the Guardian, was established to “draw attention to the crude, tasteless, often perfunctory use of redundant passages of sexual description in the modern novel, and to discourage it.” Perfunctory is right: Philip Roth is on the short list this year, included for an absolutely dreadful threesome scene in The Humbling that moves no blood in this body whatsoever. When my mother made the mistake of putting me on a National Book Award diet in high school, the first novel I snagged was Roth’s Sabbath’s Theater, which won the NBA in 1995 and which bookstores were just getting around to remaindering in 2000. The entire book is about sex, and the sex scenes–which were explicit enough that I was able to give my then-raggety 8-year-old issue of Hustler a rest–aren’t just in the narration, they’re also in the dialogue and in the goddamn footnotes. The book is chock-full of fucking, and it’s absolutely fantastic. Perhaps his nomination will spur Roth to return to writing meaningful sex scenes.

- All Our Noise has some awesome footage of Tabi Bonney rocking the mic with DJ Stereofaith at DC9. Cool to see the crowd singing along.

- Sunday’s WaPo magazine contains a stirring feature about Edward P. Jones, author of The Known World, and I should’ve linked to it earlier. Here’s a biographical snapshot, courtesy of the always-dapper Neely Tucker: “[Jones] makes his home near Washington National Cathedral in an apartment so disheveled that he allows only close friends inside. There is no bed (he sleeps on a pallet), no bookshelves, no couch, nor much to sit on other than a kitchen chair. He does not have a car, a driver’s license or any mechanized means of transport, not even a bicycle. He has no cellphone, no DVD player, and his Internet connection is sporadic. Though he loves movies and trash daytime television — in particular, those judge shows — he has only a 10-year-old, 13-inch TV and has never had cable. He has never been to a sporting event. He has no deep romantic attachments.” The whole thing is that good.

- Over the decade that I’ve been aware of him, I’ve read I don’t know how many interviews with Tobias Wolff. I keep waiting for him to be a bad sport about the whole process, but it just hasn’t happened. He’s always gentle and patient, taking every opportunity to teach. This interview conducted by Robert Birnbaum is now one of my favorites. When Birnbaum asks Wolff about “Best of” whatever contests, Wolff totally unloads, calling such contests “bullshit” before explaining why he participates regardless: “[I]f I don’t get my oar in, some book that I don’t like is gonna get picked, because there were people lobbying other writers for votes. Oh, don’t kid yourself. I mean writers lobbying other writers for their favorites, and especially in New York where writers tend to see each other. It’d be done in more or less subtle ways, and nobody really knew who you voted for, but nevertheless people would say things. And I know, I heard a couple. So in the end you vote for something like that because you want to have some control over what is already a preposterous idea.”

For your listening pleasure:

Tittsworth:

-A man has our elevator filled to the brim w/plants. Its like a 2 acre jungle crammed into a cubicle. he’s complaining the door won’t shut.

-i think i just discovered the malkovich floor of my building? what exactly is going on the 3rd floor? :-)

-Mother fucker, I’m trying to watch the lost boys!!

Wale:

-dear ucb..i will go to breakfast w/ yall but i am NOT goin to eat a Dinosaur sized pancake at “The Griddle”

-everybody askin what kinda shoes im wearin…haa

-09 airmaxes http://pic.gd/38d0d6

Casper Bangs:

-is listening to some old songs he wrote and thinking that they are not that good.

-The Whitespace 7″ should in stores soon, but it’s available now here: http://www.dischord.com/release/ws01/whitspace

Tabi Bonney:

-My bookbag smells like it’s been eatin chicken behind my back…literally

-Somebody somewhere has candy paint…on their house though.

-I think I’m just gonna say “Jordan!” after I have sex or something from now on.

-For those that don’t read credit I wrote”Gently” on Usher’s last album most of my other stuff has been in the HIp hop World UGK ,Game & ect

-so bilal oliver just arrived to my studio in NJ to lay his parts for the last song that needs to be completed on my album!

KingPen Slim:

-to everybody asking me what kinda coat I had on yesterday it’s a Rocksmith joint, that joint is so alias that I didn’t even know lol

-Just had to have that “you’ve-really-been-inconviencing-me-since-you’ve-been-in-town-as-much-as-I-love-you” talk with my mom had to do it

Tabi Bonney

-Sooo…people are leaving demo’s under my windshield wiper. I dunno why.

-IDEA! I should do a short film where cartons of milk are like black peoples kryptonite or sumthn. Like bamas run from the cartons like noooo

-So…how do we eat ice cream? Do we have to take a lactaid pill everytime or something? Cuz I haven’t had ice cream in 10yrs either!

Travis Morrison:

-involuntarily tears up at “Amazing Grace” by Aretha Franklin and “New Grass” by Talk Talk and can’t listen to them at work.

-slow grocery stores. A DC institution.

-My fathers advice to me before I head out to Cali in the morn = “talk alot” Thanks dad, where would I be without you. LOL

-Got alot done so far & now I’m about to take a nap and dream about my pop life in 2010.

KingPen Slim

-DMV popping so hard these next two weeks, hu homecoming, Monday night football, bp3 tour and Halloween get sleep now

-Chris samuels set to retire due to his recent neck injury? Damn

Carol Bui:

-at inner year last night til 1am knocking out flute overdubs and my mouth feels just fine! we begin MIXING THIS WEEK…it’s about damn time

Beauty Pill (Chad Clark)

-Doctor says BP can tour next Spring if I keep with the same regimen. Death 0, Chad 1. Hoping to defer the rematch.

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.

Beauty Pill (Chad Clark):

-Sitting at a cafe, eating a sandwich & overhearing a very awkward first date at the table to my left. Guy working too hard, girl turned off.

-Mary Timony gives guitar lessons. That seems like something I invented in my head, but it’s true. Is there also a Vespa made of 2Amys pizza?

-File under: cool stuff that escaped my notice. Madlib’s apparently on some kind of Sun Ra trip. http://bit.ly/aMrSF & http://bit.ly/Oui50

U.S. Royalty:

-Things U.S. Royalty never do: USR never only uses the mens restroom.

-Things U.S. Royalty never does: USR never checks out of their hotel room on time.

Casper Bangs:

-Just got some delicious white vinyl for the Casper Bangs 7″. It’s gorgeous. http://yfrog.com/0wgo8gj

-Loading gear out at 5 am is true rock stardom.

Tabi Bonney:

-If you fall to pieces in a crisis, there wasn’t much to you in the first place.

-I forgot to mention that last quote was from Proverbs. I didn’t come up with it. Just sharing with you guys

Noon:30

-is honored to have the chance to collab with the laughing man and see the blk jks! see us all on the 29th

Tabi Bonney:

-Missy Elliot is/was great! How did I not list her in my top female rappers?She changed the whole game sonically & visually with Timbo & Hype

-I’m actually listening to my own music “dope” which I don’t do after I release it to the world.This joint is tight & I’m not even biased LOL

These United States:

-day off! sittin Oceanside in San Diego, listenin to Everest and The Parson Red Heads, two killer bands we’re rockin Los Angeles w tomorrow!

Wale:

-im happy .. but rewriting for the 848774943th time :)

-in the studio with pharrell…i wanna go live…but im not sure if this aircard can take ustream right now

Foul Swoops:

-grabbing all my can goods and headed for the hills. i am not gonna be a part of the race war taking place at the VMAs.

-who’s more in the wrong: me for trying to sell an unopened copy of Murmur to Cd Seller or CD Seller for not wanting it?

Craig Wedren

-The Making Of Pony Express Record in all it’s raw, mundane glory. http://bit.ly/34tGPe