CMJ Snapshot: Talking Shop on Ludlow Street

Taking note of distinctive scenes at this year's CMJ Music Marathon.

If the CMJ Music Marathon has a geographic heart, it might be the corner of Ludlow and Stanton Streets on the Lower East Side. There are three influential clubs specializing in new music on Ludlow - Pianos, the Living Room and Cake Shop. Half a block away on Stanton is Arlene's Grocery, another performance space catering to customers who want the latest trends. Within a few blocks there are several other clubs, among them Mercury Lounge and the Rockwood Music Hall, known for breaking bands or showcasing indie groups after they have gained an audience.

At night during the CMJ festival, the corner becomes a crowded bustling scene. On Wednesday night, rental vans were lined up in front of the clubs while musicians hauled guitars, basses, drums and oddly shaped percussion instruments in and out of the music spots. Marathoners with laminated badges swinging from black ribbon lanyards stood in clut ches, talking music, music, music. One young man with a festival badge was smooching with a girl, also with a badge, on the southeast corner, their evening progressing to a nonmusical stage, while across the street another couple was in the middle of a sad and torturous fight, full of tears and recriminations. Two young men who work at their college radio station were comparing notes on the bands they had seen and wanted to see in between swapping stories about their program directors. Four young women in party finery shifted uncomfortably on high heels and smoked cigarettes, talking about their next move in the sprawling festival, which takes place at dozens of clubs in Manhattan and Brooklyn.

Near the vans, musicians whispered about how the gig had gone as they waited to load their gear and head home. Bouncers played an endless game of guess-my-age with young patrons trying to slip into the clubs. On the street several people in the music business - publicists, booki ng agents, major label executives, tour managers - held profanity-laced sessions on the state of the industry, which was generally judged to be not so hot. A panhandler butted his way through them, head down like a bull, insisting on the need for them to part with change. A man in a magician's hat and white cape sold roses to the crowd.

Some of the industry people were filled with optimism. “CMJ is about music discovery,” declared Brooke Burt, a publicist for bands, taking the view that small unknown bands can still be discovered by labels, lawyers or agents at the six-day concert series, which features more than 1,300 musical acts. “By the time the bands here get to South by Southwest in Austin, the A&R people have seen them here first.” She paused. “There is so much heart in it,” she said. “People are just playing.”


Her friend Teresa Guy, a booking agent, scoffed. “If you are playing CMJ, the likelihood of yo u already having a booking agent is high,” she said, adding that the festival is nothing like an open-mic night. Most of the bands, even the obscure ones, have agents or lawyers, who have parlayed a connection with a booker at a club or a sponsor to get a showcase slot, she said.

Ms. Guy said the competition among booking agents was fierce to snap up the few good bands who had not yet hired one. Twenty years ago everyone at the music festival wanted to be signed by a label, and the Artist & Repertoire executives were power brokers. But with record sales declining, and more and more bands self-producing their albums, it is now the booking agents, the people who assemble live tours, who scour the shows in search of talent.

“Live shows are all people are at anymore,” Ms. Guy said. “People don't buy records, they steal them.”

Ms. Burt said that was one reason why no one is making much money. “Even real musicians are working day jobs.” she said. â €œAt this point everyone in music is doing it for heart.”

The trouble is, Ms. Guy chimed in, that booking agents are swooping up bands and throwing them into tours before they have worked out the kinks in their songs and learned the art of pacing and dynamics in their performances. The competition among booking agents is intense. Bands put out free music on the Web, and if bloggers start to talk up those tracks, the agents scramble to sign agreements with the bands on the basis of a couple of recorded songs. Yet it is much easier to produce a good sounding track on a home studio than to do an exciting live show for two sets, Ms. Guy said, and the groups are sometimes pushed too far, too fast. Some burn out quickly.

“Why are bloggers doing A&R for you?” asked Ms. Burt. “They are expected to be amazing based on one song.”

It was agreed that the argument had no resolution. Ms. Burt and Ms. Guy moved on to the Bowery Ballroom to catch a few more act s.