CMJ Music Marathon 2007
Oct. 16-20
Admission: $495 for festival pass, individual shows $5- $12
cmj.com/marathon
CMJ Fest Set to Dash Through City in Five-Day Marathon
 Gabe Levine and Takka Takka will pull off the CMJ hat trick at the Puck Building, R Bar, and Union Pool  Deerhunter will be at the Bowery Ballroom on October 17th  Ha Ha Tonka will feature songs from their fine new disc, Buckle in the Bible Belt, October 20th at Union Pool  Brooklyn’s own Matt & Kim will fly into Williamsburg to play the Music Hall on October 20th  Julien Temple gets inside friend Joe Strummer in awesome rock doc  The Big Sleep will be waking festgoers up at Soundfix on October 17th
Don’t be scared by the $495 price tag for a marathon badge, which gets you into just about every show for “free,” save for a handful of sell-outs, and you’ll still have to wait on line, hoping there’s room to see some of the more popular acts. Nearly all of the events are open to the public, with tickets usually going for between $5 and $12 for as many as five or six bands on a single bill, so you can even stop by a few places to catch a wide variety of acts in one long, furious night.
It’s nearly impossible to whittle recommendations to a mere handful, but here’s a bunch of shows that should be pretty hot. Dean & Britta, from the recently retired indie sweethearts Luna, will be at the Bowery Ballroom October 16th with the Rosebuds, the Most Serene Republic, Miracle Fortress, the Shaky Hands, Bon Iver, and Voxtrot. Also on the 16th, Care Bears on Fire, Love Takes Flight, the Beast of Eden, Oppenheimer, Rochester Road, and the GoStation will by teaming up for a free show at Crash Mansion.
On October 17th, Deerhunter, Dan Deacon, No Age, White Williams, and Ponytail will have fans lining up at the Bowery Ballroom, while Rock and Roll, the Rosewood Thieves, the Airborne Toxic Event, Eagle Seagull, the Little Ones, Robbers on High Street, and Eskimo Joe will be filling up Mercury Lounge .
We highly advise taking a long lunch and catching Thurston Moore and his band playing songs from his new solo disc, "Trees Outside the Academy," at the Apple SoHo store at 2:00. And the Big Sleep, who put on a great show this summer at the Prospect Park Bandshell, will be taking the stage at Brooklyn’s Soundfix Records with Fatal Flying Guilloteens, Pre, Aeroplane Pageant, the Muggabears, and the Jealous Girlfriends later that night.
British Sea Power sails into the Bowery Ballroom on October 18th, with Pela, 1990s, Tiny Masters of Today, Stardeath and White Dwarfs, and the Grey Race, while Simian Mobile Disco, Crystal Castles, and Invisible Conga People invade the Music Hall of Williamsburg and Turbo Fruits, Cheap Time, Miss Alex White, the Intelligence, Jay Reatard, and the Dirtbombs get things cooking at Mercury Lounge.
Takka Takka brings its smart brand of indie pop to Union Pool on October 19th, with O’Death, the Black Hollies, and Chris Mills. Some of the bigger names also come out on Friday night, including Rodrigo y Gabriela at the Roseland Ballroom and M.I.A. at Terminal 5 . The Brooklyn Academy of Music gets into the act with their weekly BAMcafé Live series, with the Citizens and the Epochs, while Lozen, Bleach03, Lebanon, Pixel Panda, and Gay Blades shake things up at the Lit Lounge.
And on Saturday, for those still not too exhausted from the first four days of CMJ, things continue to sparkle, with the Flesh, Goes Cube, the Forms, Mussels, and Four Fifty One at Club Midway ; Spoon and the Ponys at Roseland; Justice and Midnight Juggernauts at Terminal 5; and Pillow Theory and the Smyrk at BAMcafé.
We’ll be starting our crazy Saturday at Union Pool to catch the Scotland Yard Gospel Choir (4:05), Ha Ha Tonka (5:00), and Centro-Matic (5:55) before heading over to the Music Hall of Williamsburg to check out Matt & Kim with Art Goblins, the Hood Internet, and Flosstradamus at 8:30.
This year’s marathon includes more than 60 panel discussions on the past, present, and future of the music business. Music industry professionals will tackle such subjects as "The Almighty Blog," "Booze, Boobs, and Bribes," “Punk’s Still Not Dead” (with Television’s Richard Lloyd), "Doing It Green," “Lit Rock” (with Jonathan Lethem and Michael Azerrad), “Disposable Content” (with Pere Ubu’s David Thomas), “Stage Diving 101” (with Kiss’s Peter Criss), and "Shock the Vote," among many others.
CMJ has also expanded its film presentations this year into a grouping worthy of being called a festival, even if they’re not all about music. In addition to several premieres and sneak previews (Goran Dukic’s Wristcutters: A Love Story, David Schwimmer’s Run, Fat Boy, Run, and Ari Sandel’s Vince Vaughn’s Wild West Comedy Show,) there will be an all-day marathon of Clash-related films, featuring the awesome hat trick of the punk classic Rude Boy as well as the new docs Joe Strummer: The Future Is Unwritten and The Clash: Westway to the World.
Most of the screenings will be followed by Q&As with the filmmakers and/or cast members. Things get political as well, with Anderson Cooper on hand to moderate a discussion following the October 19th screening of Planet in Peril, and a debate on the Palestine-Israel conflict will follow the October 17th screening of Jonathan Demme’s Jimmy Carter: Man from Plains. A $50 pass gets you into all the screenings.
Keep watching twi-ny.com and TimesSquare.com for further recommendations, updates, previews, reviews, and even more listings.
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