We are, of course, throwing our own CMJ party known as The Levi's®/FADER Fort NYC, but we also keep the fire lit long after we are done at our space. All week long we'll be covering everything we manage to see via our intrepid edit staff.
After watching Lykke Li sing, dance, and play her own necklace (there was a kazoo attached to it) at the V Magazine party, I was already sufficiently tired, crowd-weary and beer-soaked, but I’m glad that three tacos later, I found myself walking into the Stereogum showcase at the newly-opened “Studio” at Webster Hall.
The show started at midnight (also known as 1am) with Gang Gang Dance, who once-again proved themselves to not only be one of the best bands in the cosmos, but also one of the most weirdly complicated. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a band with so many gear packed onto a tiny stage (and they actually play all of it—every guitar, drum, keyboard, computer, synth, maraca and gong. The short but sweet set drew exclusively from St. Dymphna tracks and basically mesmerized on every possible level.
Then Ponytail played really spastically and some exceedingly drunk dude tried to get on stage and touch the super-tiny lead singer (while knocking over one of the Vivian Girls in the audience at the same time), at which point I shocked even myself by grabbing the dude and threatening to knock his lights out, as if he had just tried to get rough with my little sister or something. Eventually he got tossed by security and no blows were exchanged.
Then Marnie Stern shredded for a while and said the word “vagina” a bunch of times during her set, which, at the time, struck me as the funniest thing I’d ever heard. The final band—Crystal Stilts—took the stage at the wee hour of 4:30am. That’s right. The bar had stopped serving booze by that point (much to our dismay) and after the band ended their short, ramshackle set (props to anyone who can be cheery, sound good, and be accommodating to an audience of 30 people at 5am), the drummer stepped away from her kit and announced, “Thank you for staying up with us. Let’s go get pancakes!”