What is there to say about CMJ that hasn't been already? The weather went from being too cold to too hot, and then somehow became too cold and too hot at the same time. Tons of shows were sold out, which meant that a CMJ badge possessed as much power as a Metrocard. But there were three bands that stood out to me:

• Biffy Clyro is huge in Scotland, but hasn't seemed to break in the States. Their show was easily one of the most intense and intricate I'd ever seen; their songs combine devastating walls of sound with quiet, exacting guitar parts.

• One of the more hyped bands was Cut Off Your Hands, who paired their pre-show buzz with a grueling schedule that consisted of four shows in one day. Despite my skepticism, I was pleasantly surprised by their incredibly fun, infectious post-punk that made me dance—or attempt to—for their whole set. Enough has been said about their intense frontman, but what I haven't seen mentioned are the simple, yet well-crafted basslines and riffs that make this band so endlessly danceable.

• I figured I wouldn't be able to see Islands because they were one of this year's bigger bands, but Todd P saved the day with a free show in the skater haven Continental Army Plaza. The show was incredible for multiple reasons: It was free, it was outdoors on a nice day during a sunset, and Islands played a ton of new material resulting in a decent-sized drool puddle on my v-neck tee. I've heard from multiple people that Islands' forefathers Unicorns were awful live (maybe it had something to do with having Arcade Fire open for them?), but this was most certainly not the case during this glorious afternoon show.

So that was my CMJ: Some great swag and a couple of great performances.

I had planned to write this over the weekend, and a lot of what I'm about to say already started to slip out in my post about day five of CMJ. Hell, it's been written about elsewhere on Idolator, like Maura's post about the Oxford American article on blog hype, and we're hardly the only bloggers to voice similar concerns over the last few years. But after this morning's New York Times hit the doorstep, it feels like it all bears repeating. Loudly. If they're not killing music, which is sky-is-falling horseshit, then blogs are killing certain bands, mostly indie rock bands, one at a time, by acting like a surrogate network of Lou Pearlmans forcing kids without the chops or songs into the hard-touring, hard-interviewing, hard-pressed-to-come-up-with-material spotlight. And the hosannas heaped on what amounted to middling performances from a group (Black Kids) that should have been third on a five-band bill playing a small bar in a second-tier city feel like people trying to save face, and they're an excellent example of what makes the whole "blog band" enterprise rancid and ridiculous and potentially unstoppable.

Many of you are probably sitting there grousing to yourselves that you don't even know who Black Kids are or at least what they sound like, but isn't that par for the course in a climate where a four-song demo is ripped from a band's control and claimed the second coming in major newspapers and magazines (and Pitchfork counts if anything does these days), the blog dominoes falling one after the other? Black Kids may have evolved into something interesting in a year or two, but right now, at an impossible early peak of popularity, they're half-formed at best. Despite the routine and baseless praise, Black Kids' music is just a collection of indie-pop cliches—basslines ripped off from Peter Hook or James Jamerson, sloppy drumming, rudimentary guitar heroics, and the melodic fallacy that going "la-la-la" in a unsion shout qualifies you for Brill Building canonization. Like most bands still feeling their way around a practice space and each other, they've mashed these signifiers together to quickly write their first clutch of songs to see if it all works. And unsurprisingly, it's all still very much undigested.

Which makes the hype the usual consumer fraud, and Jon Pareles' half-hearted contribution to the hype someone turning a dispassionate eye to a real problem for young bands. In his defense, as a longtime critic for one of the biggest dailies on the planet, Pareles probably (rightly?) doesn't feel very distraught by the state of online journalism or the vagaries of being a band in the era of online journalism. But I do, and I gather anyone reading this site regularly does as well. As for his critical evaluation of the band, while the article mostly allows him to turn that dispassionate eye to the larger issue of blog-hype, he still arrives at the conclusion that Black Kids are "a pretty good band with more than its share of blogger-friendly hooks" and "unpolished but immediately likable." Which is faint, somewhat incoherent praise—what the hell are "blogger-friendly hooks"?—but praise nonetheless. Hell, the earlier Times blog report on the band reads like praising an invalid for not shitting their pants.

But the article is also a major news outlet at least stabbing at most of the problems afflicting indie rock and online criticism at the moment, even if Pareles doubles back on himself repeatedly—bloggers are usually there to puncture hype, but not always, and so on—and some of his assertions verge on laughable: "Lately, as downloaded songs tear apart albums and one-hit wonders come and go, indie rock has been one of the few zones where audiences stay loyal; they actively seek out bands, stay with them and give their music some undivided and repeated attention."

What kind of madness is this? Blog-era indie fans are among the most promiscuous music listeners around, and it's precisely this insatiable need for new bands among both fans and blogs desperate for more content that's forced Black Kids into this position. For every major band that fits Pareles' description like the Arcade Fire, where fans tape their photos to their lockers like they were Soulja Boy, there is an endless progression of "important" next big things to be forgotten about with the next iPod cull. The genre maybe have always been crowded with nonentities, but now it feels overpopulated with "bands to watch" to the point of polluting its own ecosystem, with listeners acting like game wardens mercilessly thinning the herd once they become bored. Most of these bands, even the ones more technically accomplished or even "interesting" than Black Kids, are obviously less than deserving of the attention. And yet it's almost hard not to feel bad for them, considering that if they get written about in July, they'll be forgotten by Christmas. (This is not exactly restricted to new, unsigned, or unknown bands either. Just ask Bjork, who apparently released an album this year.) It's a "one chance to blow" kinda deal, with the idea of a band refining or improving or changing a distant memory from an era with, you know, albums and junk.

And above and beyond the current vogue for conflicted, confused blog-hype trend pieces, the problem is really that Mr. Pareles—or anyone, really—shouldn't be writing about Black Kids right now, at least not writing about them as the linchpin in a larger narrative or calling their derivative sketches some of the year's "best new music" with a straight face. They're a minor league band unfortunately aggrandized into a position of prominence that their music can't support. The problem is that it's all minor league bands aggrandized into a position of prominence these days, having the life immediately sucked out of them by the two-month (and shrinking) press cycle. "Organic" growth on the part of a band—i.e. getting better and building an audience by touring and recording—is actually denied them when the blog ankle-biters swarm in, unless the band is refusenik enough to extricate themselves from the whole process. And obviously most aren't. And the kind of indie/indie-pop virtues that Black Kids trade on—unskilled but earnest bands playing against the limits of their abilities—have no place in the rather ruthlessly "professionalized" world of insta-attention, where you have to grow-up into a Totally Freakin' Mind-Blowing Band within months, sometimes weeks.

Or maybe more accurately those indie-pop/rock values become poisonous when transplanted to the music blog world. We all know that indie bands like Black Kids once thrived in supportive—cranks might say codependent—small city music communities for minor audiences. But these bands shrivel under the gaze of national press scrutiny, if there was any "scrutiny," and that kind of uncritical, codependent support takes on ugly dimensions when it's coming from "tastemakers" immediately pushing bands into the arms of major labels and MTV News pieces. Bands need someone calling them on their shit to improve past the status of a hobby. Empty boosterism is fine on the level of bands playing house parties, but it feels almost cruel to watch its effects on suddenly "important" young bands in 2007 and depressing to watch its effects on the musical landscape of 2007. And calling it criticism with a straight face is the biggest canard of the blog era.

As for what to "do" about it, well, you've got me. There's a growing feeling that you can't fight city hall, especially when, as a music writer, it's almost impossible to not feel like part of the problem in a climate where writing positively about any new band feels suspect. I don't like to talk about writing for Pitchfork because it's unseemly, and because I don't want to turn into Sasha Frere-Jones desperately trying to turn his old band in a major plot point. But in this case I feel like it's at least somewhat germane, and otherwise it would be the BNM elephant in this tiny room. Whatever the outlet, I spent most of this year writing only about records I loved, under the assumption that life was too short and word counts were too limited to waste time on crap. As a result, I piled up a lot of raves, including raves for a lot of new bands. At the time, it didn't bother me, because I believed in those records and still do, but now I'm not so sure that my all-love tack wasn't just inadvertently feeding into the debasement of popular crit. The feeling of being hyper-aware about looking like you're tossing around indiscriminate praise is, as Mr. Pareles mentions in his piece, a worry among many writers, at least the ones with enough self-awareness to actually be concerned about such things. Which is obviously not enough.

Like I said, these worries and gripes are not new. You may have voiced them before yourself. But they need to be talked about, if only so they don't get steamrolled by the defeatist feeling that this slack slide into international-scale boosterism is irreversible. CMJ and Black Kids weren't any kind of Damascus moment—this has been an issue long a-brewin'—but they did remind me that we're at a precarious point right now for the future of what some of us still call criticism. If nothing else, people always love to argue about whether or not critics and reviews are useful as a "buyer's guide," and many have also argued that if music is as oversaturated as everyone says at the moment, it follows that the intermediaries should be more important than ever, even if the MP3-and-no-contextual-information evidence seems to say that the converse is true. Taste is subjective, but right now there are a lot of untrustworthy voices out there, voices with little in the way of insight—hell, voices that don't even really want to start arguments—and yet are nonetheless regarded as the New Critics, at least among those old media types with the power to anoint such empty titles.

It's easy to have a lot of friends when you don't stand for anything—again, having opinions is called "hating" these days—and it's equally easy to look like you're merely out to snarkily puncture hype with no stance of your own when commenting on reviews and trends. But for the bands' sakes—which means for the listeners' sakes, since they can only benefit by a band actually getting, you know, good—a moratorium on slobbering praise, at least when it comes to newborn bands like Black Kids, needs to be imposed by those with the kingmaking abilities. Or maybe listeners just need to start imposing some sort of fine on the "critics." Or maybe people just don't feel ripped off when confronted by the bland realities of bands like Black Kids because they know there will be another mediocre train along soon enough that will at least entertain them until the end of the semester.

After over a decade on the rock and roll D-list, it was easy for me to get swept up in the wave of cynicism that descended on NYC last week. CMJ once was, and perhaps still is, held out to up-and-coming young bands as a crucial, career-making step on the road to indie rock success—at least before the eventual return to obscurity). But it's long since been revealed as just another opportunity for product placement and high-school regression therapy for music journos, publicists, and any label intern lucky enough to be given power over a clipboard or velvet rope.

But, you know what? I think I'm OK with that. Part of the fun of big CMJ-type events, if there is any fun to be had, comes from complaining about them. I mean, no one actually enjoys music any more, right?

Actual conversation:
Me: "How's your week going?"
Person X: "O.K., but exhausting."
Me: "Seen many bands?"
Person X: "Oh, yeah."
Me: "Any good?"
Person X: "Not really. How about you? See anything any good?"
Me: "I saw the re-release of Blade Runner at the Zeigfeld. It was awesome!"

Not only was it awesome, it was a great jumping-off point for commiserating with folks about the whole CMJ experience—a bunch of synthetic humans (bands, music industry people, me), running through a nightmarish landscape (uh, Williamsburg), trying to figure out who is real and who isn't (still up for debate), while attempting to outrun their pre-programmed four-year life span. Har har har.

So yes, while I lament the passing of the days when I held on to the illusion that these things—or at least my involvement in them—had some sort of impact, I'll still go and I'll still have a relatively good time. Because, at the end of the day, it's kind of enjoyable to bitch about the state of the music business and the people in it, industry festivals in general, and the fact that some of the rooms I stumbled into during the course of the week made me want to shoot myself in the face. And, no matter how much I roll my eyes in front of other people, the fact is that I'm more than willing to debase myself for Pumas, Levis, or whatever else the people giving them out want to make me stand in line for—because not only does that wait give me something to complain about, a Choco Taco sponsored by Urban Outfitters is still a free mother f'n Choco Taco.

Earlier: Idolator's 2007 CMJ coverage

Catbird CMJ 2007 Totals:
Number of Panels Attended: 8
Number of Bands Seen: 2
Number of Drive Like Jehu "Yank Crime" Sweatshirts Seen: 1
Number of Double-Takes Done After Walking Past A Guy Wearing A Drive Like Jehu "Yank Crime" Sweatshirt: 1

Panel 1 - Friday, October 19. 10:30am
Music Business Primer: Digital Distribution
A session focusing on the online music market, digital music outlets, blogs and other digital distribution options.

Panel 2 - Friday, October 19, 11:45am
DIY or DIE
This panel will discuss independent record label management with artists who have made it on their own, with special focus on whether or not the traditional record label model is still relevant in today's changing music industry.

Panel 3 - Friday, October 19, 1:15pm
Major Label Dilemma
Representatives from major and indie labels confront the inevitable ultimatum facing industry constituents. Should I deal with a major label, an indie or just go for it on my own? This panel explores the major label response to changing technology, pros and cons of working with an independent label and the impact of digital technology on the major vs. indie debate. The discussion will include analysis from varying points of view including that of the artist, the manager, the radio promoter, the label manager, the marketing director and more.

These three panels may have had three discrete topics according to the descriptions, but I tellya—there ended up being a hell of a lot of overlap, to the degree where my morning felt more like one long, contiguous session. And here's the main point that came out:

"PEOPLE, YOU GOTTA TALK TO THE KIDS ON THE MYSPACE."

Music Business Primer: Digital Distribution
In the morning's Digital Distro session (moderated by Tunecore's Jeff Price), the focus of the discussion actually centered on "online marketing" more than "digital distro" per se (which is totally fine, and which had the added bonus of making me feel okay about blowing off the 2:30 "Marketing" panel). The panelists briefly explained their individual services, and though there were two digital distro guys on the panel (in addition to Price, there was Tim Mitchell of IODA), one hardware guy (Keith Washo of SanDisk), and two service/marketing guys (Mike Eldredge of Fuzz, Paul Wright of MediaGuide), the most interesting input came from musician Xander Smith (of the band Run Run Run), as he was able to talk about some of this stuff from a "band's-eye view." I think he actually even said, "Online marketing is everything to my band." What struck me was how, in a time when most people are preaching "sneaky" marketing, forced grass-roots "viral" campaigns, and/or otherwise gaming the system, here was a guy proving that, in the end, the best way to succeed is just to be genuine, be sincere, and put in the work (and yes, it is work) necessary to engage the fans. In other words, "YOU GOTTA TALK TO THE KIDS ON THE MYSPACE."

DIY or DIE
The DIY panel, moderated by IndieHQ.Com/Suburban Home's Virgil Dickerson, featured Tom Gates of Nettwerk, Cortney Harding of Billboard, and Nick Young of the band A.i. (not to be confused with Sasha Frere-Jones' all-black R&B/funk-soul band, Ui). Gates and Harding both had some interesting input (including Harding's assertion—which I totally agree with—that a huge portion of the whole "success equation" is dependent simply on chance and luck), but again, in this panel, it was the musician who offered up the most interesting point of view. In this case, the (pun intended) Young musician was able to detail a long and convoluted story about what his band experienced while being aggressively courted, schmoozed, and signed by a major, only to have their record lost, shuffled, botched and buried once they were "in." Yes, I realize that's not a new or unique story—but that's not my point. My point is that holy cow all this crazy major-label shit is still happening! Insane, I tellya. Utterly insane. Anyway, the kid's band is now going it alone, releasing their new album via Tunecore, and, I would assume, TALKING TO THE KIDS ON THE MYSPACE.

Major Label Dilemma
Moderator David Purcell, ESQ, of NYU announced right off the bat that this wouldn't be a panel doing an "indies vs. majors" debate, because that was a debate that had been "done to death." Instead, the focus of this panel was to be "the business of being an artist in today's marketplace." On the panel were Stu Bergen of the Independent Label Group, Jason Fiber of Superfecta, Steve Savoca of Domino, Anders Johansson of Universal Sweden, and "Shane" from imeem. There was a lot of discussion of how label/artist relationships have been structured historically, how they're changing/being done now, and how they'll need to change moving forward. Ultimately, this lead to a question I've been pondering lately: "What exactly is the role of a label anymore?" Time was, a label would scout talent (no longer needed; Internet), advance money/studio time (no longer needed; ProTools), manufacture and distribute physical product (no longer needed; iTunes), and then market and promote (still needed). So my thinking was leading me to conclude that the labels of the future are, for lack of a better term, simply marketing companies. But after this session, I had to reconsider; it's all quite a bit deeper than that. Although an artist can now easily self-record, self-release, and self-promote/manage/book etc. (via contracted services), the labels (well, the good ones, at least) will always be able to offer an artist the benefits of their industry knowledge, experience, and relationships, and for that reason, the concept of "the label" will remain relevant. At the same time, we're losing the concept of the label as a "mark of quality;" we're on the way to a future in which an album's label will matter to the consumer about as much as a movie's production studio does ("Dude. I totally only see movies that are distributed by Lion's Gate. Lion's Gate-distributed movies totally rule."). Oh yeah, and I almost forgot: someone in the audience asked the panel about their thoughts regarding the social networking services, and whether or not artists and labels should focus any efforts there. Know what the response was? Here's a hint: it rhymes with this: "SHMEOPLE, YOU GOTTA SHMALK TO THE SHMIDS ON THE SHMYSPACE."

And so, as my weeklong sojourn in CMJ panel-land began to draw to a close, a gentle rain began to fall, and I settled in for the capstone panel:

Panel 3 - Friday, October 19, 3:45pm
The Almighty Blog
This panel explores the power to make or break artists that increasingly lies in the hands of influential bloggers. This discussion will feature some of the world's most respected bloggers as well as representatives of traditional media outlets hashing it out over the legitimacy of blog-power.

Let me preface by saying that for someone like me, who has been observing this stuff with a nitpicking, micro-level view (yes, sad/pathetic, I know) for quite a long time, this panel didn't get to touch on much more than a fairly general look at the music blogosphere. In the end, that was probably a good thing, because that precludes me from writing some 90-paragraph/Marathonpacks-length rambling dissertation. The panel was moderated by Wired's Eliot Van Buskirk, had blogger representation from FreeIndie/Limewire blogger Mike Frankel, Music For Robots' Mark Willett and "honorary blogger" Anthony Volodkin of Hype Machine, plus Karen Lieberman of Sony BMG, and Jaan Uhelszki of Rhapsody. They discussed music blogs in the following contexts: value(?), integrity(?), social/community aspect, professionalism(?), and monetization. It was interesting. Someone should have live-blogged it.

And then, toward the end, Eliot opened it up for questions, at which point an eloquent young man stood up and graced us with the following:

"Yeah, so, uh, like... um.... I have, like, um, two questions, or, uh, like a two-part question? And you can, ahem, you can, like, just answer, like, one part, or, um, like, both? Or, um... like, I guess, or, um, not answer either part or, um.... whatever. So, like, uh... blogs. Um, like, you know, like, Pitchfork? Like, um, how do blogs, er, I mean, like, um... how does Pitchfork fit into, like, everything? Do you guys, like, um....hate them? Or like, um... do you like them or, uh, hate them, or what? Or, like, whatever? And, um, my, uh.... my second part? So, like, uh, the future? Like is that gonna be, like, uh... podcasts, or video, or whatever? Because my friend like, he has a video, and uh... like, is the future in blogs gonna be like, uh, like podcasts, or like, uh, whatever? Or, um, whatever."

I believe the children are our future, folks. Let us heed this young man's powerful message. Let us look to the future with an eye on tomorrow, but with one foot planted firmly in today. Let us be respectful of those that have come before us, while blazing a new path forward with our music blogs, and our "like, um, podcasts," and our "uhh... videos or whatever." Let us never forget our roots, and let us never forget the value of honest, hard work. Let us build a new nation of music lovers, with a focus on community, and respect, and a drive for greatness. Let us reclaim music as something valuable and meaningful, and worthy of deep-listening, and let us nurture the artists, and cultivate an environment of openness, and innovation, and an eternal reverence for the Art. And people, let us talk to the kids on the MySpace.

DEPARTURE: 12:17 p.m.
RETURN HOME: 3:03 a.m.
WEATHER REPORT: Kinda chilly and here we left our jackets home like big sillies.
BANDS SEEN: Four: Stars Like Fleas, Bring Back The Guns, Torche, Jesu. CMJ total: 31.
BANDS MISSED BECAUSE THEIR VAN BROKE DOWN: Philly's amazing Clockcleaner. Booo.
BEST SWAG: Nada. Why should the last day be any different than the first, eh? Maybe Goldberg got that extra hat.
BEST AMENITIES: Free pie! Even if we didn't eat any.
DORKIEST IRONIC QUOTE OF THE DAY: "You've neve heard of them? God, they were a band to watch on Stereogum!"
BEST FAKE RAVE: Maura's reports of glowsticks and clown wigs from the Justice show, which almost made us wish we had gone raving rather than shoegazing with Jesu. As did...
BEST "COVER": Justice putting the new French touch on Metallica's "Master Of Puppets," which we're sure was enjoyably ghastly even before they started dropping more Schoolhouse Rock-style "you can dance!" samples over it.
SUGGESTIONS FOR CMJ ATTENDEES: Heckling terrible bands will not actually make you look bad. It will actually make you a better music fan, as you will be more engaged than 98% of the sleepwalkers around you who are too bored/disaffected to care that some shitacular indie folk band or photocopy dance rock act is wasting minutes of their lives.
SUGGESTIONS FOR THE CMJ STAFF: Obviously you can't euthanize an "important" "institution" like CMJ, but it needs a transfusion stat, whether it's bands that might actually tempt laypeople to leave the house, a slightly less stultifying air, or a few curveballs. With many of the best/most interesting bands playing daytime/late night parties not officially connected to CMJ and the actual CMJ gig guide reading like one big yawn, people were less enthused than ever as they trudged through five days of one middling indie combo after another. Especially those trapped in the blog echo chamber, where six or seven "influential" sites are pimping the same two or three negligible, unformed acts whose deficiencies—lackluster songs, poor onstage chemistry, all the usual stuff that comes from being hyped too soon, rather than a band finding its groove over time on the road—are apparent the minute they hit the stage for their first major showcase for the NYC biz mafia.

Even if CMJ is really 75% "networking" for most people (including getting drunk at house parties and eating on someone else's dime); even if people attached to the music industry have entitlement issues that would shame an heiress (who else expects to be constantly "wowed" more for contributing less?); and even if the formatting of CMJ has long been contrived, this kind of mass ennui over up and coming bands doesn't bode well for an already ailing enterprise (i.e. the music industry), biz folks and press alike treating the process of auditioning new bands as a business obligation spiked with occasional cocktails. The "suffocatingly cool" vibe talked up by some of the more delusional hypemongers out there was definitely not in effect, though a certain exhaustion brought on by diminished expecations was: Is it particularly surprising that most people merely shrugged when they learned their new blog rock emperors had no cardigans? If CMJ is the first warning shot that people are becoming weary/wary of the empty praise heaped indiscriminately on one mediocre band after another, in an ever-shortening press cycle, then maybe this lackluster year was worth it.
STILL, HOW MANY GREAT BANDS DID WE SEE?: Four. Yeah, out of 31, but still more than we expected.
WILL WE BE BACK NEXT YEAR?: 'Course. Provided it still exists.

The Best

Mika Miko
First saw this L.A. retro-punk fivesome last year, and while they're no more technically accomplished than they were 12 months ago, they now play with an tour-tested assurance that doesn't compromise their offhand, giggly stage presence. I'd have to guess that not one of these ladies is over 23, and while they might be the most adorable band around at the moment, they're also one of the fiercest. And sloppiest, but of course, like all the shambling, circa-'77 first wave punk bands (less Slits, more deadbeat L.A. skronk) they draw influence from, sloppiness is the high ideal. One singer jogs in place like an extra in Hairspray as she (literally) shouts into her phone, while the other has the slightly uptight air of a matronly secretary circa 1974 as she lurches about in her rayon blouse and skirt, one time switching to saxophone for the full Lora Logic. While I appreciate the spunk and spark, I do wish they had better/more memorable hooks—what's always elevated one set of three-chorders above another when it's hard to otherwise differentiate along lines of comptence or prettiness or rhythm—to go along with the pitch-perfect presentation. All-female punk bands are something that we can never have enough of, but the addition of something memorable to hum when you're not watching them laugh and thrash on stage would definitely put them over the top.

Yeasayer
My notes make them sound bizarre-unto-terrible: Emo(tive) rockers play extended hippie jams (a great guitarist who knows that spacey solos are best with a minimum of notes) with aquatic keyboards and up-to-date electro-beats that (musically, at least) comes off like the intersection of IDM (don't let anyone tell you they're aping hip-hop), the Pure Prairie League, and mid-period Talk Talk. Plus (actually capable) three part harmonies that root them directly in modern Brooklyn (the long shadow of Tunde and crew) but also dig into the kind of '70s soft-rock that no respecting indie rocker would cop to keeping in the back of their closet a few years back. Sounds awkward and precious, right? Sure, sometimes your inner punk felt like you were watching the hipster dirtbag Yes, with the benefit of a smaller stage setup thanks to modern technology. But somtimes, as on the single "2080" and the final song, where their occasionally too-ethereal rock finally achieved concrete heaviness, it was sublime, doing interesting things with stuff that normally has me screaming for the door—folk gentility, prog ornament, 80s art-rock, pencil moustaches.

As for the worst band of the day, well, you'll have to wait until Monday when the special extended remix rant is set to drop.

DEPARTURE: 12:45 p.m.
RETURN HOME: 1:15 a.m.
WEATHER REPORT: Overcast and drizzling/raining, meaning at least we didn't smoke as much as on previous days.
BANDS SEEN: Five: [Some band whose name we never caught the name of but we wanna say Other Passengers. They weren't very good], Health (again), Mika Miko, Yeasayer, Black Kids (finally, right?). CMJ total: 27.
CELEBRITIES SIGHTED: Mike D from the Beastie Boys after Black Kids' set, wide-eyed and wizened and looking like a wrinkly hobbit, lost and frightened in Mordor, trying to escape before any of the hipster orcs noticed who he was.
NUMBER OF PEOPLE SPOTTED IN GIANT RUBBER MONSTER SUITS: Two. One looked like a giant tortoise with eczema and the other resembled a mutant parsnip.
FIRST THING SAID TO US WHEN WE MENTIONED TO SOMEONE THAT WE WERE GOING TO A BROOKLYN VEGAN PARTY: "Well, I hear he's actually very nice."
SECOND THING SAID TO US WHEN WE MENTIONED TO SOMEONE ELSE THAT WE WERE GOING TO A BROOKLY VEGAN PARTY: "Make sure you nail that d-bag in the nuts for me."
BEST COVER: Mika Mika ripping through the Misfits' "Attitude."
REALEST TALK OF THE DAY: "I wish they'd just keep playing Misfits songs."
AMOUNT SPENT RE-PURCHASING THE MISFITS CATALOG FROM ITUNES UPON RETURNING HOME DRUNK: $43
DID WE HEAR SIMIAN MOBILE DISCO AND JUSTICE AND DAFT PUNK SONGS AGAIN?: You betcha, but at least the DJ didn't play the wack "house edit" of Rage Against The Machine that the doof at the Fader party subjected us to. (That was like listening to dance music die a painful death right in front of you.)
BEST SWAG:Do free Bloody Mary's count?
WHO ON EARTH GIVES AWAY FREE BLOODY MARY'S?: Brunch joints and blogger parties apparently.
ENERGY DRINKS DRUNK: Zero. We finally swtiched to booze. (See above.) CMJ total: 12.
SUGGESTIONS FOR THE CMJ STAFF: None. After having some guy's erect penis (honestly, dude!) shoved against our thigh during Black Kids' set, as the promoters attempted to squeeze as many people into the performance area as possible, we promise never again to complain about bouncers, exclusionary door policies, or turning away people with badges once the crowd gets out of control.
BIGGEST ASSHOLE MOMENT: Guy stage diving off of a table during previously mentioned Misfits cover, sending half the audience (and their drinks) sprawling. We know the usual routine at these shows—arms folded, gentle nod of approval, polite clapping...we're as guilty as anyone—is definitely lame, but being that guy, the one that tries to start an old-school circle pit in a crowded bar during a friggin' blog party...not a good look.

A quick recap of the rules:

- Subtract 10 points each if band lacks "swing," "some empty space," and/or "palpable bass frequencies."
- Subtract 10 points if the band identifies more as "punk" than "funk."
- Add 20 points if that punk band is the Clash.
- Subtract 10 points if the words "noise," "art-rock," "prog," or "math-rock" can be used to describe the band. Ditto the following metal subgenres: thrash, death, grind, tech. Automatic disqualification: black metal.
- Subtract 15 points if the band primarily draws from folk traditions other than the blues.
- Subtract 15 points for slap bass. (That's a red herring.)
- Subtract 20 points if artist in engaged in wholesale recreation of a particular era of African-American music.
- Subtract 50 points if swing revival band.

It is at the discretion of the researcher to fudge the numbers a little if they feel that a particular band has just a little more swing and a little less indie in them.

We Are Wolves
Possibly European/definitely European-sounding dance-rock band, with more of a Moroder throb than a Stubblefield groove. Their commitment to moving bodies is half-hearted and doesn't keep from them losing 30 points off the top, and another 10 for being punks at heart.
SFJ SCORE: 60.

Cut Off Your Hands
More British punk than American funk—and not remotely punk-funk—these tense New Zealanders don't sound like they could relax long enough to swing for more than a second, plus they've got the treble cranked hard.
SFJ SCORE: 60

Imperial Teen
Motorik indie-pop with twee harmonies and as much grit as two-ply Charmin, even less sex.
SFJ SCORE: 55

Yo Majesty
Disqualified: hip-hop group. They were so effective at proving the SFJ score, in fact, that I'm deducting 20 points from the next band just because.
SFJ SCORE: N/A

Trail Of Dead
Melodramatic bombast whose idea of groove is revving quickly to an ejaculatory climax. And that ain't very groovy.
SFJ SCORE: 40

Jay Reatard
Thrashing garage punk that's far too punk and far too removed from garage rock's 60s roots to have much trace of African-American influence left in its wound-up bashing.
SFJ SCORE: 60

Dirtbombs
Disqualified: The mere existence of Mick Collins is kind of an atom bomb dropped on SFJ's equation. Or at least a radar scrambler.
SFJ SCORE: N/A

DAY THREE COMBINED SCORE: 53
TOTAL COMBINED SCORE: 58.7

A failing grade. This is actually kind of depressing. Is Frere-Jones actually right? I don't even know if I should bother to continue calculating for the last two days of CMJ. On the one hand, I haven't even seen Black Kids yet. On the other, it's only going to get worse. Maybe we should just accept the fact that indie needs to go back to school to bone up on its essentialism, and say better luck next year? Probably a good idea for everyone involved in this debate.

FURTHER RESEARCH: A Paler Shade Of White [New Yorker]

- Finally, the secret appeal of Black Kids revealed: it's a pregancy fetish thing. [musicmattersman]
- Apparently a live performance by M.I.A. induces spontaneous orgasm, turns water into wine, locates missing socks, and performs sundry other miracles. [The Sky Report]
- Free bagels might have actually made sitting through Vampire Weekend worth it. [Fader]
- Deerhunter: Slightly less annoying than usual. (Actually that's not what we heard at all.) [Spinner]

DEPARTURE: 1:45 p.m.
RETURN HOME: 2:30 a.m.
WEATHER REPORT: Another pleasantly warm fall day just perfect for strolling around Manhattan, thanks to the planet's ongoing environmental collapse.
NUMBER OF SHOWS MISSED BECAUSE WE'RE IDIOTS/WE LEFT WITHOUT THE ALL-IMPORTANT CMJ BADGE: One: Yeasayer and Simian Mobile Disco.
MOMENT WE REALIZED WE DIDN'T NEED THE BADGE FOR THIS PARTICULAR SHOW: When we were approximately halfway across the bridge back to Queens.
BANDS SEEN DESPITE IDIOCY: Seven: We Are Wolves, Cut Off Your Hands, Imperial Teen, Yo Majesty, Trail Of Dead, Jay Reatard, Dirtbombs. CMJ total: 22.
NUMBER OF PEOPLE WHO BITCHED TO US ABOUT THURSDAY BEING THE WEAKEST DAY: Seven.
NUMBER OF GOOD-TO-GREAT SETS WE SAW ANYWAY: Four.
BEST SWAG: Gawker videographer Alex Goldberg scored a bright yellow sweatshirt and a sweet fitted hipster baseball hat, which practically amounts to camouflage at some of these parties.
AMOUNT PAID FOR SHOW(S) ON TOP OF BADGE: $12, Jay Reatard/Dirtbombs @ the Mercury Lounge.
SHORTEST SET: Garage snot/fake Brit-punk Jay Reatard, at a hyper-compressed 15 minutes (give or take). Had you shown up just for Jay, you would have been paying almost $1 per minute. And it still would have been worth it.
ENERGY DRINKS DRUNK: Two. CMJ total: 12.
COLORFUL HOMELESS PEOPLE SIGHTED: One. A woman in an oversized blue sweatshirt and ripped yellow stretch pants on corner of 52nd St. and 9th Ave.
WHO IT ACTUALLY WAS UPON INQUIRING: Popular songstress M.I.A.
BIGGEST AUDIENCE AGE/BAND AGE DISPARITY: Imperial Teen. Which, as a fellow blogger noted, may have gone some way to explaining why said audience didn't seem to care very much that, you know, a band was on stage. Which pissed us off. Because they were good.
BAND THAT MADE YOU WONDER WHAT THE OFFSPRING OF NELL CARTER AND FATMAN SCOOP MIGHT HAVE BEEN LIKE: Florida rap duo Yo Majesty.
EXPOSED MAMMARIES SIGHTED: Two, belonging to one half of Yo Majesty.
APPROXIMATE AMOUNT OF TIME BEFORE YO MAJESTY'S EXPOSED MAMMARIES THING FINALLY STARTS GETTING CALLED OUT AS SHTICK: Approximately six weeks after CMJ.
CLASSY YO MAJESTY QUOTE FROM BROOKLYN VEGAN COMMENTS SECTION: "Why is it always the fugly people that get naked?"
SUGGESTIONS FOR THE CMJ STAFF: Not a thing. Y'all were even very helpful in finding an extra CMJ guidebook after my first was stolen by my boss.
SUGGESTIONS FOR THE GODDAMNED VENUES INVOLVED IN THIS THING: Honestly, you need to stop holding "CMJ related" shows where you're only letting in four people with badges. No one should bitch about helping out their favorite bands financially, but as usual the badge is basically Charlie Bucket's golden ticket for those that manage to show up early and an ugly necklace for the rest of us.
BIGGEST ASSHOLE MOMENT: When we snapped at some poor cabbie because he was the 12th or 20th that day to tell us that he was "not going in that direction." Is CMJ finally starting to get to us?

Oh, and apologies in advance if any of our fake band names turn out to be someone's real band name. Especially because you chose that as your band name. And thanks to the Knife, the fine folks at Holiday Inn, and the state of New Jersey for their inadvertent on the spot band name inspiration.

Panel 1 - Oct. 18, 11:45 a.m.
Disposable Content
Has the availability of affordable recording equipment and the permeation of the Internet devalued music? Do the benefits outweigh the costs? This panel is an exploration of how technology has changed the core value of musical content.

Well, this came out as the most enjoyable panel I've been in so far, but that should be expected from any panel in which Pere Ubu's David Thomas serves as moderator. On the panel were Anthony Batt of Buzznet, Bob George from the Archive of Contemporary Music, Marcy Wagman of MAD Dragon, and "Steve," the GM of Domino US, in a last-minute, pulled-from-the-audience substitution for slated panelist Adam Farrell of Matador/Beggars.

Bob George opened up the panel with a 10-minute historical timeline of recorded music since its birth (back in '77 (that's 1877)), cued by David Thomas' lead-in statement, "Music is a Masonic craft...[and]...Edison is the father of Rock & Roll."

After the history lesson, Thomas took immediate control of the proceedings, and emphatically tore loose with some of the brilliant pre-written mini-dissertations he had prepared (there were some real gems there— and dammit, I wish I could've typed fast enough to get some of 'em down for you). A rhythm eventually settled over the panel: Panelist says something, Thomas vehemently disagrees with said statement, then moves onto his next (exceedingly entertaining) prepared response.

At the heart of the whole "disposable" debate here was the question of whether or not new technologies, coupled with music's new ubiquity (and also the new contexts in which it's used) have devalued music, and sort of "brought it down" culturally. In the end, there was no clear, simple consensus amongst the panel ("things aren't necessarily 'bad' now; they're just 'different'"/"the ubiquity of the music is acutally a good thing"/"I've always said the solution to this whole problem is to forbid teenage girls from buying music"), but I can say that some healthy debate ensued here, and I'd certainly like to see this topic taken further in places like, oh, yer blogs, and yer ILMs, and yer Idolator comment sections, for example.

Oh, and aside from that "teenage girls" comment above, I did manage to get just one other Thomas quote down... it's a prescription for how to combat this slide toward the disposable, I believe:

"Fuck the audience. Fuck the artist. Preserve the art."

Panel 2 - Thursday, October 18, 2:30 p.m.
The New A&R
Music supervisors, bloggers and international music fans are beginning to replace the traditional label-based A&R system. This panel explores the new ways in which artists are being discovered and includes discussions about advertising agency A&R, commercial placement of music and the nuances of Internet buzz.

You know those situations where you get lured in by a promise of something really desirable, but when you actually get there, it turns out to be some sort of pitch for, like, a time-share or a pyramid scheme? That's what this panel felt like. It didn't "explore the new ways" so much as it provided 15 minutes for each of the panelists to pitch the business or service they represented.

At last night's Union Pool showcase during the CMJ music festival in New York, we noticed a man scoring music on a staff as Dragons of Zynth finished their set. When asked what he was up to, he said he was notating the bassline of the song to find out later which track it was (he had the whole Dragons of Zynth album on a Sandisk Sansa e200 portable audio player).

Most of the time I'm lucky if my notes get more detailed than "the third one with the guitar that sounded like a duck," "what an ugly jacket," or "I'm hungry," and this guy's notating music in real time. Anyone who bitches about not being able to find a WiFi hot spot or from here on out is officially fired from music criticism.

Snapshot: The NY Times Pop Music Reviewer's Live Music Notation [Listening Post]

Judging by the e-mails, some people got a little cranky over this! (The following gets a tad emo/serious, so feel free to skip ahead to the part where I start making fun of things if you wish.) People thinking this is me saying that indie rock should somehow be held exempt from its often dodgy racial politics—this wounds me. Forget indie rock, there's not a single aspect of white—and especially white male—culture that doesn't need to be mercilessly picked apart for both the covert and overt, conscious and unconscious racism that it perpetuates every day! This seems self-evident, but you'd be surprised how many white men are content to let their privilege go unchecked. (Wait, no you wouldn't.) And indie rock is a subset of white maledom that's notorious about letting its cultural assumptions go unexamined.

So I understand why Frere-Jones wrote the piece. I just happen to think the piece was bullshit, especially his bizonkers internal inconsistencies and wild generalizations over genre. Indie rock's race issues are more cultural than sonic, and though musical choices are always tied up with a musician's social outlook, someone choosing to emulate Bruce Springsteen rather than Larry Blackmon hardly constitutes a cultural crime. Indie rock's cultural, social, racial, and sexual hangups are not going to be resolved via the forced "miscengenation" Frere-Jones is looking for. This process of reexamining white male (musical) privilege needs to have begun, like, yesterday, but nothing is gained by the guy who writes for The New Yorker wagging his finger at Win Butler and shouting J'accuse! in his out loud voice because his band isn't living up to some ideal he formulated in junior high. Otherwise "serious longform criticism" becomes just as silly as, say, assigning point values to bands based on some critic's dubiously defined racial characteristics. Just as silly, but a lot less funny.

Now on with the mockery.

THE RULES
- Subtract 10 points each if band lacks "swing," "some empty space," and/or "palpable bass frequencies."
- Subtract 10 points if the band identifies more as "punk" than "funk."
- Add 20 points if that punk band is the Clash.
- Subtract 10 points if the words "noise," "art-rock," "prog," or "math-rock" can be used to describe the band. Ditto the following metal subgenres: thrash, death, grind, tech. Automatic disqualification: black metal.
- Subtract 15 points if the band primarily draws from folk traditions other than the blues.
- Subtract 15 points for slap bass. (That's a red herring.)
- Subtract 20 points if artist in engaged in wholesale recreation of a particular era of African-American music.
- Subtract 50 points if swing revival band.

It is at the discretion of the researcher to fudge the numbers a little if they feel that a particular band has just a little more swing and a little less indie in them.

O'Death
Celtic-style band that "thrashes" on its banjos and whatnot. Not only do the they have the temerity to play white people folk music but then to "punk" it all up.
SFJ SCORE: 45

Peasant
Singer-songwriter with acoustic guitar and harmonica. Sadly for his score, he draws more on the side of Bob Dylan influenced by Woody Guthrie than the side influenced by the blues.
SFJ SCORE: 55

The Airborne Toxic Event
Off-brand indie rock by a mixed-race, mixed-gender crew that dresses like really stylish undertakers. The "palpable bass frequencies" (though that could have just been shitty acoustics) help them pull out a respectable score, however.
SFJ SCORE: 70

Health
Noise-rock that takes abrasive frequencies and the term "herky-jerky" to irritating extremes (if you're SFJ) or awesome extremes (if you're me). The drummer's caveman syncopations and the low-end do their best to save their bacon.
SFJ SCORE: 60

Ezra Furman and the Harpoons
Four guys who listened to the Violent Femmes a hell of a lot in junior high. Score should be self-explanatory.
SFJ SCORE: 60

Ponytail
Despite being the most rhythmically interesting band we saw all day, these Baltimore art-punks lack any trace of funk. Depressing, but the numbers don't lie.
SFJ SCORE: 50

Charlotte Sometimes
Typical shouty and loud post-alt mall emo fronted by male falsetto singer. Beat is for Sonny Bono.
SFJ SCORE: 70

The Pack
Disqualified: hip-hop group.
SFJ SCORE: N/A

Cobra Starship
Trust-fund emo with keyboards that cost more than your rent and purple couture sweatshirts that cost more than their keyboards. Fail.
SFJ SCORE: 70

DAY TWO COMBINED SCORE: 60
TOTAL COMBINED SCORE: 61

Proving that this is shady science at best, the emo bands are kicking everyone's ass. But indie rock is still keeping its head above water. Barely.

FURTHER RESEARCH: A Paler Shade Of White [New Yorker]

DEPARTURE: 1:30 p.m.
RETURN HOME: 1:45 a.m.
WEATHER REPORT: Delightful enough to make you wish you were frolicking in a park rather than in a clammy bar watching some guy with a harmonica sing about deaaaaaaatttthhhh like he's flinching from a punch.
BANDS SEEN: Nine: O'Death, Peasant, the Airborne Toxic Event, Health, Ezra Furman and the Harpoons, Ponytail, Charlotte Sometimes, the Pack, Cobra Starship CMJ total: 15.
THEIR GENRES: Celtic thrash folk, singer-songwriter, serious emotive-face keyboard indie rock in matching black suits, noisy spazzes, people who own Modern Lovers records, best band in the universe, shitty emo, hyphy, shitty emo with a goddamn keytar.
BANDS YOU SHOULD SEE AGAIN THIS WEEK ONE OF THE 900 TIMES THEY'RE PLAYING: Health
BANDS YOU MISSED BUT SHOULD CHECK OUT IMMEDIATELY AS SOON AS THEY COME TO YOUR TOWN: Ponytail, the Pack.
BLOGGER GATHERINGS OBSERVED: Two: Gothamist party at the White Rabbit and Fader Sideshow.
DISPARITY BETWEEN NUMBER OF ATTENDEES AT BOTH EVENTS: Considerable.
POSSIBLE REASONS WHY: Obscure art-folk/singer-songwriters versus hipster approved "rising" noise/punk/indie bands. But mostly the rumor of free shit at Fader party.
BEST SWAG RUMOR: "Free Levis and Pumas at the Fader party!"
SWAG REALITY: Free Levis and Pumas ruthlessly guarded by surly guards with secondary swag guest list, leading to very disgruntled hoi polloi. (Considering they never have jeans long enough or shoes in my size, I was there for the music, man.)
ACTUAL FADER SWAG: Issues of the Fader. Just in case you wanted to know Devendra Banharts toilet habits or the right kind of promotional vodka to pair with your ugly, overpriced "streetwear."
ENERGY DRINKS DRUNK: Six. CMJ total: 10.
CELEBRITIES SIGHTED: Bob Balaban in a dirty Baltimore Ravens windbreaker walking down Houston St. at 4 p.m.
WHO IT ACTUALLY WAS UPON INQUIRING: Homeless man.
BEST SONG HEARD ALL DAY:

(Sorry, CMJ bands. You'll get there one day.)
SUGGESTIONS FOR THE CMJ STAFF: Closing the registration office at 6 p.m. actually makes it hard for that small handful of attendees who actually a.) have jobs that are not related to being minor players in the music industry and b.) actually paid money (that could have gone to rent or booze) for their badges to pick them up in a timely manner, judging by the flustered woman on the sidewalk who arrived 15 minutes late and started cursing someone (who obviously couldn't have given a shit) out about the fact that she was going to miss some potentially life-changing indie rock band. You might wanna extend it to 8 p.m. each night next year to avoid pissing off the part of your customer base that's still dropping cash on this event because they actually love music. Crazy, we know.
MOST UNCOMFORTABLE MOMENT: Watching multiple old guys ("old" here meaning "over 50," not "over 25") licking their chops like cartoon canines as they very obviously eyeballed the jailbait at the Cobra Starship show. But if any perverts out there are reading this, apparently emo shows are better than shopping malls and playgrounds combined. The more you know!

Panel 2: Oct. 17, 3:30 p.m.
Biting the Dust: The Decline of the Album Format
Is the album is a dead format? This panel discussion explores what artists can do to continue to profit from their passion in the face of extreme change and the importance of the digital single. Topics discussed include the shifting landscape of single sales and the new angles of approach for artists emerging in the world of the digital single.

The panel was moderated by none other than Suhrid Manchanda, Online Marketing Director for World's Fair, and star of yesterday's CMJ attendee video ("Manhattan Meats"), and the panelists were David Pak (sales/marketing Manager, Caroline), Jim Welte (music news editor, MP3.com—yeah, I know! I guess it still exists!), Jordy Tractenberg (VP licensing/A & R, The Orchard), and Molly Neuman (director, label relations, eMusic).

This is a topic that's been bubbling around in the industry for years now, but there was some decent discussion coming out of this panel, I think because they were mainly focusing on the business side of things. In the end, there seemed to be a general consensus that the album format, while still in relatively good health, is in (at least a bit of) a decline, and a lot of the focus here was on how to add value to the album format, in the face of a consumer base that was rapidly coming to be more singles-oriented. I was especially enjoying Tractenberg's input, for some of the off-the-wall sorts of things he was offering up, for example (and I'm paraphrasing here):

"What about artists making constantly-changing, evolving albums? Like, here's the album, then next week, he adds two songs, then next week, he takes away a song, and re-records another..."

That sounds completely, well, crazy to me, but props to the man for thinking "outside the box."

I love the album format, but even I am becoming more singles-oriented. And all I mean by that is that whereas once, if I downloaded a lone MP3 from somewhere and really dug it, I would go and seek out the band's full-length. But nowadays, I find that I'm often content with just enjoying that lone MP3. Because, jeez, who has the time to seek out and listen to every single song on every single full-length of every single band that ever put out an MP3 that they liked?

Besides mp3 bloggers, I mean.

(Note: As interesting as this panel was, I confess I'm kinda bummed that I forgot there was another panel starting at 4:00 called "MUSIC WEBSITE GURUS." I console myself with the knowledge that I still have Friday's panel, "THE ALMIGHTY BLOG," to look forward to.)

Panel 1 - Wednesday 10/17, 10:30am
Indie Rock Taste Test (featuring Dan Deacon!)
Does all "indie rock" sound the same? Is "indie" an aesthetic, a business model or something else? The experts hammer it out once and for all in this no-holds-barred look at the changing face of what it means to be "indie." Includes a special focus on the effects of the definition debate and international differences of opinion.

I knew this panel was gonna get crazy, but I honestly didn't anticipate the mad audience rush up to the dais, to crowd around Dan Deacon the instant he took the mic. Dan began to pontificate about his stance on "indie," and then proceeded to lay down some incredible electro beats as the crowd swirled in a vortex around him, fists pumping, asses shaking, bathed in a sweaty, exuberant glow.

Just kidding. Deacon didn't show up.

Luckily, the rest of the panelists did. The moderator, Anthropologist Wendy Fonarow, explained that the panel was going to address the questions of (1.) "What does 'Indie' mean to you?", (2.) "Why do we care?," and (3.) "What's at stake?" Panelists included Guy Lowman, A & R man for Fierce Panda; Sue Busch, radio promo head at Sub Pop; Elise Nordling, music director/DJ for Indie Pop Rocks, and Mike Wolf, music editor for Time Out New York, with whom I felt immediate kinship, as he explained that he was "old school," and that "indie rock," to him, always meant bands like Superchunk and Thinking Fellers (TFUL)." Of course, that's most certainly not what it means today, though, does it? And that's what the panel was here to talk about.

The panelists' initial responses to the question ("What Is Indie?") were as follows: Wolf said that 'Indie' was something that was concerned with defining itself in the context of being something that's "other." Lowman's definition of indie was simply "Against the mainstream." Sue Busch agreed, elaborating that 'Indie' was about producing music, shows, and etc., without ties to any major label (offering a sincere chuckle at her own statement, considering the relationship between Sub Pop and Warner). Elise Nordling agreed in turn, and went just a bit more specific, offering that she thought of 'Indie' more specifically indicated the condition of "being on an independent label."

At this point, the panelists continued to expand upon their initial statements, but I think everyone in the room realized that it was asking a lot to come to a "once and for all" consensus on the meaning of "indie" in a single one-hour session, so Fonarow opened it up for audience questions after just 30 minutes. We got the obligatory "What do you think about blogs?" ("they're good"), and "What do you think about Pitchfork?" ("The ultimate indie snobbery... great in some ways."), but there were also some good questions, such as "how are labels addressing all of the new DIY methods, and adapting for the future?" ("Essentially becoming more like marketing companies" was the response). Another good question raised was about the issue of "selling out," and more specifically, how does one determine the moment at which something ceases to be "Indie?" Lowman said, "It's like Wayne's World..." He then began to elaborate, but frankly, I got totally lost, so let's just leave it at that: Question: "What Is Indie?" Answer: "It's like Wayne's World."

But seriously, folks, I think that, in conclusion, it was actually Mike Wolf that answered the main question of this panel best. Asked to name a few examples of indie bands, he replied, without missing a beat (and with just a bit of a chuckle), "Fugazi is the only true indie band, ever."

Spurred by friend-of-Idolator Christopher Weingarten's assertion that this year's CMJ line-up seemed to only bolster Frere-Jones' theory, what I've dubbed the "Sasha Frere-Jones Score" is determined by listening to see if a rock band—or a band comprised of white people...same thing, right?—features any or all of the defining characteristics Frere-Jones applies willy-nilly to all African-American music: "a bit of swing, some empty space, and palpable bass frequencies." At the end of the week, we should know for sure whether or not rock music is now terminally white. And whether or not Black Kids live up to their name.

Saturday Looks Good To Me
Squeaky-clean indiepop with keyboards and nary a syncopation in sight, though a bit of soul in the vocals.
SFJ SCORE: 65

Another Animal
They had one song they referred to as a "blues," and they were even helpful enough to put "blues" in the title. Just in case you forgot what the blues sounded like, and were scratching your head wondering where you might have heard those 12-bar chord changes before.
SFJ SCORE: 75

Alter Bridge
Vestigial traces of African-American music buried under 15 years of post-Pearl Jam alt-rock. Still, you'd have to be pretty hard up for fat beats to mistake them for funky.
SFJ SCORE: 70

Juiceboxxx
The only band/artist of the day who a.) rapped and b.) had "palpable bass frequencies." Still, his annoying yelps over uptempo club tracks had little space and absolutely no swing.
SFJ SCORE: 64

Team Robespierre
Shrieky, rhythmically fidgety art-punk that's probably the textbook definition of what Frere-Jones defines as "the problem."
SFJ SCORE: 50

Dan Deacon
Well, he does incorporate the lyrics to "What's Your Fantasy?" on one song. And the bass can hurt your teeth when it hits you right. But yeah, despite the oversized glasses, no one's going to be mistaking Deacon for Bootsy Collins.
SFJ SCORE: 55

DAY ONE COMBINED SCORE: 63.1
TOTAL COMBINED SCORE: 63.1

That's barely enough blackness to qualify for a passing grade! Things aren't looking good for the crackers of indie rock. And it's only been a day!

A Paler Shade Of White [New Yorker]

ARRIVAL (at CMJ registration HQ): 2:30 p.m.
DEPARTURE (from CMJ registration HQ): 4:30 p.m.
RETURN HOME: 2 a.m.
MILES TRAVELED: 27.1.
WEATHER REPORT: Slightly overcast, light breeze, highs in the upper 60s, lows in the mid 50s with a waxing crescent moon.
CONDITION OF CLOTHING UPON RETURN TO HOTEL ROOM DESPITE BALMY EARLY FALL EVENING: Moist. Very, very moist. Hazmat-suit-to-handle-your-own-jeans moist. Because they were soaked. Soaked with other people's funk.
BANDS SEEN: Six: Saturday Looks Good To Me, Another Animal, Alter Bridge, Juiceboxxx, Team Robespierre, Dan Deacon. CMJ total: Six.
SHOWS SHUT OUT OF: One: Celebration at Union Pool. Total shows shut of: One.
BLOGGER GATHERINGS OBSERVED: Does a Todd P show in Brooklyn count as a "blog party"? Six of one, half-dozen of the other I guess.
BEST AMENITIES, NON-OPEN BAR VARIETY: "Apple" flavored "Ed Hardy Energy Drink." Let's taste it now to see what it's like... flat, acidic Mountain Dew with paprika and crushed baby aspirin stirred in. Also it's warm. There's tons of it though, and I suspect our old asses are gonna need every drop. Speaking of which...
ENERGY DRINKS DRUNK: 4. (Expect this number to jump dramatically tomorrow.)
BEST SWAG: They ran out of swag bags! The part that makes it all better by giving you small shiny objects and inexpensive consumer goods! We were told to return "in an hour, maybe." Now we'll never know what treasures lurked inside. Briefly thought about hanging around, since I could at least get the lowdown on maximizing my impact on college radio and "how to make MySpace work for me" (answer: annoying widgets), or at least check my e-mail, but was forced to go see bands because...
TECHNOLOGICAL MISHAPS: As Ryan mentioned yesterday, there seemed to be no Internet access anywhere that Internet access was promised, which perhaps might have been CMJ's subtle slap at the blogging hordes or just organizational incompetence. Definitely organizational incomptence: the fact that everyone's badges had the wrong publication names printed on them. So for the rest of the week, I'll be covering CMJ for CNET.com, while some tech geek will be repping Idolator.
SUGGESTIONS FOR THE CMJ STAFF: Roving beer vendors. Especially when, say, you're stuck on line for a canvas bag full of useless tchotchkes, only to get to the front of the line and be rewarded with a warm energy drink and a wan shrug by the girl behind the swag counter in the Flashdance sweatshirt, whose gum-snapping, but genuine lack of interest at the entire CMJ process is something you, like, totally understand, having just lost unrecoverable minutes of your life in line at CMJ for a canvas bag full of useless tchtochkes, while listening to two guys talk about how hard it is to find a relaible banjo player for their alt-country bands. Those are the moments you just need a watered-down Bud in a plastic cup to stead your nerves. I see all those disaffected "volunteers" milling around trying to look busy. Just make a note of it for next year.
PERSON SEEN HAVING MOST FUN: Guy practically rupturing something singing along to "Blinded By The Light" while stuck in traffic in Long Island City, blissfully unaware CMJ was even going on.
PRIME ASSHOLE MOMENT: Guy spilling entire beer on girl's perfectly arranged Kimmy Gibbler retro-late-'80s ensemble, and responding to her aghast expression with an almost cosmically glib "well, sucks to be you."