There is no denying the greatness of Justice's album, "Cross," and there is no argument from us that it isn't the type of music that is perfectly suited to be blasted in a massive dance club. But those two things alone do not automatically lead to a good live show. These two are sloppy, to put it simply. Too many changes were missed, beats were a half step off, and the songs didn't mix well together. There was no catastrophic breakdown, but the little things add up. We left Terminal 5 underwhelmed. The light show was cool, though... (pic via pocketmonsterd's flickr)
The 2nd Annual Gothamist CMJ Awards
Pencil This In
EVENT: McSweeney's Presents an all-star benefit will feature an indie-rock supergroup made up of Dante Decaro and Hadji Bakara (of Wolf Parade), Nick Diamonds and Jamie Thompson (of Islands), Amber Webber (of Black Mountain) and Syd Butler (of Les Savy Fav). Authors Joshua Davis (Underdog), David Rakoff (Fraud) and Rodney Rothman (Early Bird) will also be on hand. And that's not all! Daily Show correspondent John Oliver will be on hand for some laughs. All proceeds benefit 826NYC and 826LA.
Pencil This In
EVENT: The avant-gourmands from Radiohole (who have been blogging about their adventures in Vermont) will be giving “private-dingy palm readings and psychic-portraits featuring Peek-a-Boo Technology” at the grand opening party for Three Legged Dog. The company’s new home, which is at the World Trade Center site, was recently heralded by the Times as a sign of “hope” for the other stalled projects at Ground Zero. The party is free and boasts performances by League of Electronic Musical Urban Robots, Aldo Perez and other hopefuls. - John Del Signore
Elsewhere in the ist-a-verse
that we want to kill anyone and everyone that makes a "something on a something" joke. But then we realized that there was no way we could ever win this fight, and, hell, if you can't beat them, we might as well join them. And with that, you have the theme of this weeks' Gothamist network post.
CMJ Band Submission Deadline
This year the festival starts on Halloween and runs through November 4th. Our hope: some fun afterparties with Halloween themes. And our prediction for this year: some blogger showcases.
Gothamist Music Picks
Frog Eyes and Sunset Rubdown (despite having border problems) will be taking over Mercury Lounge two nights this week. Sunset Rubdown is Wolf Parade keyboardist Spencer Krug's side project, and he produced a beautiful album this year entitled, Shut Up I Am Dreaming. It got an 8.6 on Pitchfork, just a few points below last years Wolf Parade rating. Anyway, point is...it's good. If you go to the show tonight you can catch Beirut as an opener, see if his 2nd time out impresses the bloggers a bit more than his last show. Wednesday night you'll see Bedroom Walls opening.
Gothamist Music Picks: The Little Red Riding Hood Edition
For a long time we didn't listen to Wolfmother just because they had "wolf" in their name. We were sick it. Wolfmother, Wolf Eyes, We Are Wolves..."how could any of them be better than Wolf Parade?" we thought.
Opinionist: Tapes n' Tapes @ The Delancey
A few times a week, Gothamist publishes music reviews by our contributor Jeff Baum. The opinions below belong entirely to the author.
This Week's Music Picks
Camera phone looky-loos, this one's for you. We're talking about the biggest band to hit small to medium sized NYC venues since Sufjan Stevens, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, and The Arcade Fire. We're talking about Montreal's latest buzz band Wolf Parade. You've got three chances to see them this week. That's three chances to see them before they come back to play Webster Hall. If you can't find a ticket to the sold out shows Monday and Tuesday at Bowery Ballroom and Northsix, try to snag one of the non-student tickets available at the door to the NYU performance on Thursday. Listen to songs at their MySpace page.
General Admission: CMJ Weekend, Days 3 and 4
It was another two very busy days for Gothamist. Again, we're gonna focus on just the highlights because there were far too many bands we saw this weekend to mention them all.
This Week's Music Picks
It's CMJ week in NYC. Arcade Fire, Devendra Banhart, Lady Sovereign, Feist, Nouvelle Vague, Doves, The Wrens, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Cursive, !!!, Wolf Parade, The Hold Steady, Brian Jonestown Massacare... we can't even begin to list everything going on. Why should we? CMJ's listings reveal everything you need to know. Further inspection of CMJ.OhMyRockness.com lets you in on even more. The CMJ archives at BrooklynVegan will clue you in even further, and Central Village's itinerary has more than enough to keep you busy. Instead we'll focus on a few select non-CMJ shows happening during CMJ.

