CMJ kicked off Tuesday, and once again the gift-bag did not contain the space-age jet-pack needed to blast oneself from venue to venue in order to keep up with the concert schedule. Good thing God made taxis.
Here were the opening day's highlights:
3:45 p.m. In a microcosm of CMJ itself, indie bands from near and far gathered in Lincoln Center's Avery Fisher Hall to submit demos on the spot to a group of industry veterans for a panel called “Tell Me Why You're Hot: Music Execs and Unsigned Artists Face Off.”
Perhaps 40 or so CDs were handed up to the stage, but the six picked at random represented a wide range, from Gothic grunge to underground hip-hop to experimental rock. Who got the best response? A radio-ready, piano-playing balladeer named Jason Soudah whose track fell somewhere between Coldplay and The Fray. “I think you're the first one we've heard today that has a real grasp on song structure,” said panelist Brad Aarons, an A&R executive at BMG Music Publishing. Sorry, indie rockers!
6:50 p.m. At the Hiro Ballroom, Astralwerks artist Stephanie McKay harked back to the days of socially conscious Motown with a short set backed by a four-piece funk band. Her songs touched on teenage pregnancy, project housing and growing up in the Bronx. While some of her lyrics slipped into cliché, she compensated with a strong, slightly smoky voice.
7:30 p.m. Following McKay, the Los Angeles duo The Bird and The Bee enthralled the crowd with dreamy, gorgeous music that combined the great American songbook with modern pop. Backed by keyboardist Greg Kurstin, singer and sometime bassist Inara George cooed her way through shimmering melodies even as she sang about ennui and animosity. “Say my name, say my stupid name,” she sighed on “Again & Again.” But her frank, guileless voice was full of real emotion. Expect an album on the Blue Note imprint Metro Blue in January.
(Trivia: Inara is the daughter of Lowell George, singer-guitarist for Little Feat.)
8:24 p.m. At the Knitting Factory, the Austin band Peter and The Wolf declined to make good on its ability to create haunting, shivery melodies. Instead, the group sat on the floor -- not the stage -- and mostly talked and giggled. The "concert" ended with one member screaming at the understandably distracted audience, “Shut the --- up! We're playing!”
9:52 p.m. At the CMJ opening night party at Bowery Ballroom, the Australian duo The Presets ran through a set of hard-hitting, semi-industrial synth-rock led by singer-keyboardist Julian Hamilton and anchored by the mostly live drumming of Kim Moyes (he also coaxed rhythm tracks from a Korg). With far more juice than She Wants Revenge but not quite as much originality as Nine Inch Nails, The Presets cranked out a darkly danceable sound that got the crowd moving. Kudos to the band for opening one song with the riff from Pet Shop Boys' “It's a Sin.”
11:08 p.m. Headlining the evening at the Bowery, indie favorites The Rapture took the stage in matching black skeleton outfits and boogied to the old novelty tune “Monster Mash.” Then the band got serious, mixing old material and new from its latest album, “Pieces of the People We Love” (Universal Motown).
The band's 1980s-influenced sound hasn't changed: It still borrows Gang of Four's bass lines, The Cure's mournful vocal melodies, and PiL's needling aggression. The problem remains: The Rapture can certainly lay down a heavy groove, but the world is full of better stuff to dance to.