CMJ: Go Where the Night Takes You

Ross Gilmore/Redferns via Getty Images Jehnny Beth of the band Savages in Glasgow in July.

A night at the CMJ Music Marathon often begins with purpose only to devolve into a blend of kismet and inertia. There are must-see bands, should-see bands, will-see bands, could-see bands, have-to-see bands, and then all the rest, which make up the vast majority, and which are everywhere. You could manage a whole festival only seeing bands that are on no trajectory whatsoever. You shouldn't, though.

So begin with a must-see: Savages, an all-female British punk quartet with some thrilling songs and intense live clips on YouTube. The group was playing its first show of the festival at Glasslands Gallery in Williamsburg as part of a bill organized by the Web site Stereogum.

The songs felt surprisingly oceanic, given that they're rigid at the core, and thrusting. The lead singer Jehnny Beth was emanating Sinead O'Connor vibes, controlled in the eyes but loose in the body. If it wasn't a full confirmation of the band's talent, it was on the pathway there.

The set was short, like all the sets, and the sidewalk outside filled up with spillage soon after, despite the best efforts of an employee of 285 Kent, the venue next door. There are hubs of activity during this festival, which parallel the normal hubs of activity in the city on a typical good-weather weekend night. The stretch of Kent Avenue between South First and Second streets is one of them, with two warrenlike performances spaces still chugging along in the shadows of glistening new residential developments.

Instead of heading back to Manhattan for the Ghostly International/Casci ne showcase at Le Baron - apologies to Erika Spring and Chad Valley - I ducked into 285 Kent, which abuts Glasslands, and has some of the scraggly stubble that its neighbor once had. 285 Kent remains one of the few remaining venues in the city where one can enter smelling like hand soap and conditioner and emerge smelling of cigarette smoke and tragedy.

It was a hip-hop show put together by fledgling label Young One Records. Kitty Pryde, who was supposed to be on stage, was nowhere to be seen; rumor was that a flight delay had derailed her. Instead Cities Aviv, the Memphis rapper, was playing a set full of abstraction and abrasion. Afterward, the Oakland duo Main Attrakionz played a long, cloudy set joined by oodles of friends, colleagues and hangers-on.

Unlike most CMJ shows, which move at a reasonable clip, this one had no particular urgency, which was refreshing. Maybe things would happen as advertised, but probably not. The audie nce, including one intrepid fan in a motorized wheelchair, didn't much mind.

During a lull, I headed back to Glasslands, where Dum Dum Girls, who have grown into one of the great bands of modern-day New York, and who by rights are bigger than this festival, were performing a confident but unnecessary set to headline the Stereogum show. It had shape and force. It was tailored.

Back at 285 Kent, the stitching was all but out the window. Sometime after midnight, Supreme Cuts, a duo from Chicago, was on stage, hunched over an array of machines, suggesting what the actual intersection of jam band attitude and methodology and hip-hop and dance music grammar might sound like.

For a while, they were on stage alone. At some point, though, a threesome took over the far left side â€" two guys, one girl, all in embrace. Two wore T-shirts suggesting that someone named Cory had an open invitation for a good night; maybe the third, one of the two men, was Cory. Regardless , they slithered, and grabbed at each other, and generally made a scene. If 285 Kent were the sort of venue to use spotlights, the lighting engineer would have switched focus from Supreme Cuts â€" still killing it, unaware of the competition â€" to this new, unbilled performance.

This battle went on for about 20 minutes before Supreme Cuts wrapped things up. But the lack of a foil didn't stop the troika, which continued in amorous groove, hands reaching for crevices, bodies folding atop one another. When the rapper Kool A.D. â€" Victor Vazquez of Das Racist â€" took the stage along with Mondre M.A.N. of Main Attrakionz, the three were still off to the side of the stage, a scrum making its own music.