Day 3 of CMJ was an all-day affair at the I Guess I’m Floating/ Tell All Your Friends PR showcase at Pianos.

The lineup

My personal music marathon started out with the Seattle-based upstarts, Beat Connection, who were fresh off the red-eye from the Left Coast. Their set started off with a bit of a bumpy start — with the laptop not cooperating just a couple songs in. While the band waited for the Mac to kick back in, they explained that they were super excited to be at CMJ, because it was their first time ever at the festival (as performers or attendees). Awww!

The next band I was excited to see was Guards, the brainchild of Richie Follin (brother of Cults singer Madeline Follin). Like Cults, Guards has the obligatory waifish, winsome girl with long dark hair paired with a tall skinny dude with equally long locks (Follin), but in Guards case, it’s the dude who does the lead vocals.

The band kind of sounds like the slightly more psychedelic-rock lovin’ brother of Cults mixed in with a bit of Beatles Revolver era and MGMT. They even did a pretty rockin’ cover of M.I.A.’s “Born Free.”

Recommended.

The other main act of interest at the showcase was Grimes, aka – Claire Boucher. The blonde Montrealer has an ethreal, child-like voice which is laid on top of sometimes “grimey,” beats and synths. Onstage Boucher mans all the machines and instruments, volleying back and forth between her keyboard and table set up with her effects consoles, cradling the microphone between her ear and shoulder.

Musically some of the songs can be a bit repetitive, but there is no doubt, there is something compelling about Boucher — She’s like a beautiful synth pop alty-ragamuffin, with a mismatched outfit of a skirt with a pullover, paired with some field hockey-style striped athletic socks and slightly gothic necklaces and rings. On top of all of that, girlfriend was wearing an elastic headband with her hair pulled into a bun by a black scrunchie. Yes, a scrunchie. (See aforementioned note about her being an alty-ragamuffin.)

There is something sexy, yet sweet about her. In the setups between songs, her stage banter is punctuated by girly giggling and smiles, clearly winning over the majority of the Dude Central-type crowd (which included members of the NYC music wunderkid band, Oberhofer). If this girl is able to produce a couple of hotly produced tracks, she will definitely be going places. Total star in the making.

Some other bands I managed to catch, below:

Caveman

Like the Tapes ‘n Tapes before them, Caveman is music for dudes who like music written by dudes for dudes but slightly more Tom Petty-ish. They informed the crowd that they were stoked to be playing at Pianos since the venue gave them a chance to play a lot of shows there, making it where they first really got started as a band, and then commenting that their up-coming three sets of shows there was also what was going to kill them.

Doldrums

Hands

The Rapture, but from LA.

Quickly, some recommendations for this year’s CMJ:

These shows are bound to be completely packed. Attend if you dare: Zola Jesus (Knitting Factory on Tues; LPR on Wed); Wild Flag (Bowery Ballroom on Tues)

My picks: Young Magic at Public Assembly at 10pm on Tuesday. If you can stay up late, check out Dent May. Last year I caught Class Actress, who is ending the night at 1am, when she showcased at Cameo Gallery, but sadly was unimpressed. Maybe her live show as gotten better since then?

Other bands I’m hot to check out: Guards, Grimes, Boy and Bear, Active Child, and my (and seemingly everyone else’s) new favorite band, Purity Ring

Would love to check out Bleached and King Krule, but the scheduling gods seem at conflict.. but you never know…

I’ll admit, by Day 4 I was hurting a little, so I took it relatively easy with a night filled with some low-key shows.

First stop was to catch The Babies, featuring Vivian Girls’ Cassie Ramone, at the FADER Fort on the Lower East Side which was sponsored by… er… hmm… I can’t seem to remember…

Next stop was Pianos to see another Vivian Girl with VG bassist Katy Goodman’s side project, La Sera, but with this group Katy gets the spotlight as front woman. Strongly influenced by ’60 girl pop, with lovely melodies and a cheery vibe, the three piece was truly charming.

Just as I was going to give the night a wrap, I got a last-minute shout from a friend to head to see Neon Indian down the street at the Back Room for the MNT Dew Green Label Sounds party. Packed and sweaty when I arrived, the set was super fun, with Alan Palomo’s super-dramatic onstage gesticulations adding an extra element of enjoyability to the evening. (Seriously, I have never seen anyone wave and wiggle their hands around a theremin with such intensity.)

More shots from the night:

Additional pics of The Babies

Braids @ Pianos

I dubbed Day 3 as “ladies night” since the three bands I’d planned to see were all fronted by women.

First up was an extremely early set by the Montreal, Quebec-based quartet, Braids, who were playing the opening spot at the showcase at Arlene’s Grocery. As the crowd waited for the show to start, they filled their bellies with cups of the Canadian comfort food poutine, which was being served in foam cups to the audience.

I absolutely loved their set. Lead singer Raphaelle Strandell-Preston kinda looks like an even tinier, dark-haired Alyson Hannigan, with a wide-eyed look and an innocent face. But when Raphaelle sings, she has a sweet yet piercing voice that can quickly turn a beautiful croon into a surprisingly edgy growl. Her voice seemingly skips, jumps, and hops slowly building swells of the keyboards, guitars, and drums. Their music is quirky and beautiful, much like the Dirty Projectors, but with a bit more playfulness.

After a quick dinner and an impromptu After the Jump reunion, I headed into Pianos to check out the Brooklyn-based songstress Lia Ices. Lia (pronounced “Lee-uh”) Ices is one of those incredibly beautiful, lithe girls who don’t need any makeup to look absolutely stunning, which makes the rest of us feel like schlumpy messes. But she is also the kinda of girl that you can see yourself being friends with because of her shy yet warm demeanor.

With a backing band dressed all in white and consisting of a drummer, bassist, and guitarist (who happened to be her brother), Lia performed much of the set perched behind her keyboard. She reminds me a lot like a less angry Fiona Apple, with piano-based melodies and pretty vocals. And as a performer she’s composed and collected, quietly in control. Her show doesn’t necessarily have a “wow” factor because it is quite subdued, but for those who like subtle elegance, this is the girl for you.

To cap off the evening, I headed back to Brooklyn for the Mexican Summer showcase where Tamaryn were doing a late night set.

With all the lights turned off, and a dreamy/creepy video projecting intermittently casting an eerie glow on the face of lead singer Tamaryn, the atmosphere was a perfect complement to the bands darky and looming music. Dressed in black fringe, and sporting long black hair with chunky bangs, the New Zealand-born front woman reminded me of a modern day Stevie Nicks meets Bettie Paige. As their murky death metal chic-songs filled the air, and the clock inched closer and closer toward 2 AM, I slunk out of the venue and into the night.

Some other scenes from the night:

Supercute! took over Ludlow Street with a sidewalk performance for passers-by

Robert Lester Folsom @ Knitting Factory

After a somewhat disappointing Day 1, I was really hoping the second night of CMJ would be much more fruitful. I started the night by popping over to an early showcase at Bruar Falls where Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. were playing. I got there ten minutes before the 7:30pm set and DEJJ still had all their gear parked outside the venue.

About 30 minutes later, their huge “JR JR” glowing letters had been set up and the guys took their places on the stage, commenting that they were going to do a stripped down set due to the limited space. (“So stripped down we’re wearing the clothes we normally wear under our jumpsuits.”) The Motor City natives did three lovely songs (including a cover of The Beach Boys song “God Only Knows”) before drawing their show to a close.

At the end of the show they announced that they’d be handing out comment cards (“like the ones they give out on Top Chef”) and that 5 meant awful and 1 meant fantastic . Based on that scale, I would have filled out my imaginary rating card at a 1. Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. charmed me with their fun, poppy songs and upbeat and funny banter.

I made a quick stop at Brooklyn Bowl to catch a few songs from jailbait band Oberhofer, who were pretty impressive for such a young band with a clean, tight set.

I then headed to the other side of the East River to Webster Hall to catch The Drums. Having only known the band through their song “Let’s Go Surfing,” I had no idea what to expect from their live show. I was completely blown away by the amount of the level of energy and showmanship from lead singer Jonathan Pierce, who’s flamboyant stage moves and confident singing voice put a completely different spin on their songs, which tend to a have a subtler, dreamier quality when recorded.

Guitarist Jacob Graham was just as entertaining to watch, with his constant waltzing to and fro across the stage.

Dramatic, sure. Entertaining, yes. Fabulously amazing, I’d have to say so.

Ah, the annual running of the music hipsters — aka CMJ. The annual College Music Journal’s music festival hits New York once a year in an effort to give fledgling bands the opportunity to get seen by industry honchos, journalists, bloggers, and the odd fan or two who forked over a pretty penny for a badge.

I started out my conquest of CMJ 2010 slowly, with a light day one – heading over to Lovin’ Cup’s back room performance space, Cameo Gallery to see Class Actress. I had high hopes for the Brooklyn-based artist also known as Elizabeth Harper after becoming a fan of her song “Journal of Ardency.” With it’s synth-heavy vibe and sexy vocal track, the tune is made to be played in a dark and dirty club to get all the ladies dancing in a lascivious manner. I thought it had true potential to be pretty amazing in the flesh.

Soon after I arrived Ms. Harper, wearing black harem pants and a white tank top, and her band took the stage. And as I said before, I was pretty excited to be there, having picked Class Actress as one of the bands I was most excited to see perform at CMJ however, I was really disappointed with the performance I witnessed. I’m not sure whether it was the sound or the backing band’s familiarity with the songs, but the keyboards sounded a bit off and sour.

That said, synths can sometimes inherently sound cheap and horrible, but this in combo with the surprisingly weak vocals by Ms. Harper was the kiss of death. While in the recorded material Ms. Harper’s breathy vocals come off as sexy, during a live show it just doesn’t work the same way. In fact, her tenuous singing voice didn’t come off as a stylistic choice so much as a questionable ability to sing in the first place. No amount of hip swiveling or running hand through hair was going to save this set from sinking.

I really don’t feel all that great about crapping on people’s performances because I know how hard it must be to get up there on the stage and put yourself out there for people like me to judge you, but I’d be lying to y’all if I didn’t really say how I felt about the show.

I almost couldn’t believe how bad it was — I stuck through the entire act hoping that those first few songs were just a fluke — that Ms. Harper had been struck with some kind of vocal performance amnesia and that any second she would snap out of it and I could breathe a sigh of relief– but when she broke into my aforementioned favorite Class Actress song, my worst fears were confirmed: Elizabeth Harper is way better in the studio than she is live. Which I guess is fine — it works for successful performers like Madonna and Taylor Swift, who pretty much cannot sing a lick onstage but still sell millions of albums and concert tickets — but knowing that I probably would think long and hard before ever seeing Class Actress again live.

At this point in the evening it was pretty late and past midnight. Feeling completely deflated from the disappointing gig I’d just seen, I popped by Knitting Factory on my way home to see if I could tough it out for the 1 AM performance by Marcie “Von Bondie” Bolan‘s new two-piece band, Silverghost.

I was in fact able to stay on my feet to catch a few songs. I was pleased with Silverghost — their songs remind me a little bit of the sound of that Louis XIV (remember them?) song “Finding Out True Love Is Blind” with the canned drum machine beats poking through the breaks in Marcie Bolan’s searing guitar riffs.

Some more photos from CMJ Day 1:

Old timers will remember that the ritual of picking up the badge used to take everyone to the wasteland that was the Hilton in midtown. But in more recent years CMJ teamed up with NYU to place the badge pick-up in the much more downtown-friendly location of Judson Church across from Washington Square Park, in the heart of ol’ New York University’s domain.

Ooooh! They sparkle! Pretty.

Hit up the SPIN party at…SPiN NY, that ping pong club on 23rd Street

New York-based band Mon Khmer @ Cameo Gallery

Decorations in Camero Gallery

Home Video @ Knitting Factory

Towards the end of their set at the Windish Showcase @ Santos Party House, School of Seven Bells touring drummer Zachary Saginaw asked his girlfriend Marie to come on stage.

After a little over two minutes she finally appeared and he got down on one knee and proposed. She said, “oui”!

Witness the magic!

When I grow up I want pretty hair like hers.

My phone keeps wanting to autocorrect “Fader” to “Faderlabel.” WTF is “Faderlabel” and why is it on my phone autocorrect?

Anyways, starting the night out at Fader Fort. My tired feet in heeled boots appreciates the industrial carpeting.

The bad news is I already had my first drunk of the night knock into me.

Lia Ices: absolutely stunning on so many levels.